Prospect: A Year in the Park

Ball of confusion

A forest of pale and youthful legs on the march, heading for Day 1 of "The Great GoogaMooga."

The hidden heart of Prospect Park, fenced off and submerged under a sea of the hip and hungry.

Messaging on a melon, part of a wall of fruit near the "UrBarn," an installation (visible in the background) by Pratt students and others to promote farm-to-table-ish, sustainability-ish things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was, however, mostly about the beer. A line of apocalypse-refugee proportions snaked away from a stand distributing some sort of proof that you were old enough to drink. At my age, I think my face should be my passport.

 

The "line talkers" held a variety of perky signs intended to mollify the line waiters. With music within earshot most of the time, the crowd seemed fairly mellow about it all. Spouse waited almost an hour for fried chicken, but enjoyed "Holy Ghost" during the wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a perfect spring day, the sun's intensity put shady spots at a premium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was what restaurant critics often call "an attractive young crowd." Many seemed to know one other or to have descended in groups. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the "Hamageddon" section, a heavy metal band tore it up while a whole pig rotated on a spit inside this gigantic porcine idol. You have to give the founders of this feast credit for thinking big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fairly painless to score a "Dirty Duck Dog" with lemon-scented sauerkraut from the Craft stand, and a plate of three "fried cheesecake bombs" from a Prospect Heights restaurant called Robert. (Dog, delicious; cheesecake fryballs, kind of like fried ice cream, weirdly compelling.) At all the concessions, the workers were cranking the gourmet chow out frantically; doing this again all day tomorrow would kill me.

By 4 p.m., lots of places were running out of their esoteric specialties. Apparently, this also happened to the folks who forked over $250 for "Extra Mooga" tickets in an ultra-exclusive enclave of foodiness. Our endurance event, at least, was free (well, $12 for two duck dogs and $6 for three cheesecake balls). Altogether, Spouse and I concluded that restaurants had much to recommend them...and that we were probably about 20 years too old to truly appreciate the event. 

 

 

 

Sub-Porcine Humanoids Attack Prospect Park!

This was the bucolic scene last Sunday south of Prospect Park's lake, perhaps the post-prandial souvenir of a festive Mother's Day picnic. The arborial placement is interesting, especially when it involves a small mountain of hot coals. Apparently if you nestle your crap against the base of a tree, it is mysteriously less offensive. (Trees love hot coals, right?) Or maybe there is a popular Internet rumor that the Keebler elves emerge at midnight to recycle it? 

 

 

 

 

Here's another Garbage Tree a few yards away. Oh, come on, the poor things. How could you expect them to drag their loathesome leavings to a nearby receptacle when it was at least 5, or maybe even 7, interminable yards away?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want some more? Here's some more. Three trees down, a McDonald's orgy was in evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Prospect Park Alliance, of which I am a member, is a private group that "supplements" the park's government funding by PAYING TWO-THIRDS OF THE COST OF PARK MAINTENANCE. They sent out 50 extra trash-removal sweeps last year, but with such imbeciles on the greensward, they'd need a sweep an hour. What the hell do we do about this?

Well, the Alliance has a well-intentioned new campaign: They have e-mailed lots of high-functioning, responsible park supporters, asking them to sign an Internet pledge to "pitch in" and "put trash in its proper place." Because that is, like, totally the target audience who are doing this crap. There are informative graphics, too:

I'll sign the pledge, but may I suggest some more...persuasive signage and strategy? I'll borrow some "messaging" from my favorite Web cartoonist, a dazzling psychopath who styles himself The Oatmeal. (To make up for stealing and repurposing his stuff, I have enabled click-through to his original works of genius on each image. Much of it is deliciously unsafe for work or family audiences.)

A THREE-PART STRATEGY FOR PROSPECT PARK DUMPERS

1. Stop calling them "pigs." This insults pigs, who are reportedly quite intelligent.

2. Import bears from nearby suburban New Jersey, which has extra bears. Set bears loose preferentially on dumpers who also provide their own musical accompaniment.

3. Patrol Prospect Park with robotic Tyrannosaurs equipped with chipper-shredder jaws to consume offenders on site.

Well, that oughta do it. On to tomorrow's unprecedented Hipster ChowHound Convention, the Great GoogaMooga. Let's see how that crowd does when it comes to trashing the place.  

Blue sky over Church Avenue

Just a block south of the Parade Grounds of Prospect Park, Church Avenue has slumbered for years, a strip of scruffy retail nothingness. But word on the street is that Church is poised for a long-awaited rebirth, and today, its first street fair looked like a wild success.

Meet some of my neighbors on "our side" of the park.

    

In the middle is Dr. Courtney Perry and Geneva (a rescued friend and patient) in front of her new veterinary practice, PAWSitive. She's a Wellesley and Cornell grad who's come home to Ditmas Park, and we're very glad.

   

More dog excellence: a Noble Pitbull and a Chillin' Husky, both rescues. (Note: There is, yet to come, a Greenmarket Dog of the Day!)

Another eagerly welcomed newcomer to the strip is Am Thai Bistro, whose absurdly gorgeous staff were dishing up curry puffs, coconut rice balls and spring rolls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensory overload for small fry. Sometimes good...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...sometimes not so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vendors were the usual suspects (including sausages and crew socks, those street-fair essentials), but there were also Latin-themed totes and tiny suits with ties.

 

   

Robopuppy? Copter-on-a-stick? Cheap machine gun?

 

 

Congratulations to the Church Avenue BID, whose efforts to breathe life into this languishing corridor have begun to bear fruit. A coffee shop called Lark is in the works,  joining mom-and-pop ventures like Shayna's roti shop and La Huasteca, so wander on down after a soccer match or a tennis game; Cortelyou Road, look to your laurels. And chefs, merchants, countrymen, come on down; as you can see from the montage of fine novelty wares above, Church Avenue lends a magical glow to any merchandise.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

Behold the charming Bica, strolling with an old friend of mine at Saturday's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. He is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and his name is a slang term used around Lisbon for espresso.  Appropriately enough, he enjoyed licking the foam from my latte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A spell so exquisite

Some years the trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden cooperate and actually bloom to coincide with Sakura Matsuri, the Cherry Blossom Festival. Not this year, with its wildly premature spring. Today was already "cherry confetti underfoot" day, with drifts of blossoms in every breeze.

 

Let a thousand photos bloom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone was a flower girl today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearby, the tree peonies vamped it up, a sea of satiny flounces sprung from the imagination of a ballgown designer.

 

This year, everything is peaking almost simultaneously. Tomorrow, as the cold rain falls, I'll share lilacs, wildflowers and even some early roses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don’t know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it – what do you advise?

                Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”

                                                        --Emily Dickinson, letter to Louise and Frances Norcross, Spring, 1874

The ballad of Joe and Mickie

Hello young lovers, wherever you are--in this case, Prospect Park 1945, perhaps on a late winter day as springlike as today. I decided to throw myself at the garden on this too-good February Monday instead of into the park. In the absence of my reportage, check out the delightful Brooklyn story of Joseph and Mickie Yakowicz, two members of the Greatest Generation. Thanks to the Park Slope Patch for recounting a fine wartime romance, the kind that lasted a long and happy lifetime.

Super Saturday

Last weekend saw folks donning capes to fly around the balmy Long Meadow...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and doffing jackets to relish the warm sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three little girls took a cookie break beneath the benign gaze of James T. Stranahan, "father of Prospect Park." Their innocent enjoyment was just what he worked so hard for...although he would have been puzzled by their strange headgear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone flopped in the shadow of the little shuttered guard booth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the park's main drive, there was palpable delight whether on foot or on wheels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It didn't feel much like a week after New Year's Eve...and no one was sorry.

Solstice lookout

Sunset, the day of the solstice; the sun was vanishing behind the buildings of Windsor Terrace by 3:30 p.m. I wanted, Druid-like, to capture its last rays, so I headed up Lookout Hill, the tallest point in Prospect Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lookout Hill is one of those spots in the park that one is warned against visiting alone, but when leafless, it seems exposed as well as remote. Condom wrappers and other nasty bits attest to its seclusion, but even in waning daylight I felt fairly safe with the occasional jogger...and an intrepid mom and kids who were using the hill as a family Stairmaster.

 

 

 

 

 

The flattish, circular top of Lookout Hill would be a great place for a Wiccan ceremony to worship the distant sun, but for a while I was completely alone. To the south, I could see...good grief, was that the Coney Island parachute jump? It was. Turning a few degress to my left, I looked down on the lake and away to the erstwhile fields of Flatbush where we live.

 

 

 

 

 

As I left the park, the festive decor glowed in the shadows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BARKING MAD THANKS!

...to all who have ordered a copy of Park Bark: At Play with the Dogs of Brooklyn, my photo homage book to the canines of Prospect Park and their owners.   Go here for easy PayPal ordering...and remember, Valentine's Day is coming up fast!

Footloose

A lovely morn in early fall, and the young ladies of St. Saviour High School gather in the park for their annual fund-raising walkathon. Full disclosure: Your bloggeuse's daughter attends this fine institution in the heart of Park Slope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A dedication of the day's event to those lost on 9/11 was perhaps the ostensible reason for the presence of firemen—but then, who needs a reason for there to be firemen present?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The giggling, shrieking pack took off. Many seemed to stray from the prescribed route, but few cared. These are the years of struggle—to blend in, to stand out, to go your own way, and to stick with your BFFs.

Drenched

Huge thunderstorm passed over the park, then the sun burst out. Then it happened all over again. Then I took a walk. Everyone disappeared and reappeared twice in rapid succession:  dog-walkers, runners, soccer players. The sun dappled in just before setting, trees dripped, and everything smelled like the deepest woods possible. The humid warmth that has lingered like a clueless guest was vanquished, and a cool mist cloaked everything. Autumn is right on time.

I suspected I'd find some fungus, and I did. Somebody already got to these for a tasty bite; since no squirrel or vole was Socratically prostrate nearby, I presume they were edible.

Not far afield

Here, the two archetypal players to be found on the Parade Grounds: a grown-up practicing mad skills honed in distant lands (foreground), and a herd of private-school youngsters immersed in this sport we Americans mysteriously abandon as adults.  The kids were doing their post-game low-fiving ritual, a square dance of sportspersonship. To one group, soccer is a blood sport, as in "in my blood," played with raw passion and fierce grace;  to the other, a middle-class rite of passage, attended by parents armed with snacks and enthusiasm. I have never seen the two groups interact, although perhaps I just haven't noticed.

 

 

  I had limped over, nursing a broken toe, to see a young lady of my acquaintance do her spunky thing as a goalie. These soccer fields, a hundred feet from our front door, have lifted my spirits through some dark days; the ever-present players and their Brownian motion draw me out of myself in a way that life in a quiet cul-de-sac could never do. Soccer is all about staying in the moment with a vengeance, whether you're a pee-wee or a Pelé, and as the sun sets and the players head for home, they all seem pretty spent and exhilarated.