Prospect: A Year in the Park

JACKO BOOTS BARD FROM PARK

Late-breaking news about this weekend's other planned festivity in Prospect Park, from the feisty thespians at the Rebellious Subjects Theatre:

Our SECOND WEEKEND of Henry IV and V fast approaches...and Spike Lee has stepped in to change our plans.  In moving his 10,000 person tribute to the Park, he has inadvertently kicked independent theatre quite literally right off the stage.

That's right, the park has taken away our permit to perform on Saturday, August 29th due to the Michael Jackson tribute.  So what did we do??

RESCHEDULED BOTH SHOWS TO SUNDAY.  Which means SUNDAY, AUGUST 30TH is now officially HENRY MARATHON DAY.

Now, that's what I call "show-must-go-on" spirit. Let's get out there this Sunday, by God, for Harry and Saint George! The troupe's 23 actors of "diehard spirit and dedication" are unfolding their Henry trilogy in the park's shaded Music Pagoda; although I missed the first installment (Henry IV Part I) last weekend, it seems from this review that they mean business, bard-wise. Last year, they performed Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at the park's Lefferts Homestead, so these are troupers indeed.

Here's the timing:

12:30pm
HENRY IV
The saga begins...

3-4:30pm
DINNER BREAK
We take a brief interlude...

4:30pm
HENRY V
...The stunning conclusion.

LITERARY BONUS: SOME QUOTES FOR MICHAEL FROM WILL'S HENRY V

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.

His nose was as sharp as a pen...

Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

A walk to the mailbox

Since Prospect Park and I have been drifting apart a bit lately, I summoned the will to leave my car keys at home, and walked across the park to the Windsor Terrace post office to mail a package. I was rewarded with...

...the Bishop Ford High School football team, getting chewed out but good by Coach on the Parade Grounds. 

 A very young rider being reassured before cantering off around the lake.

 

Turtles basking on the lake, which has turned very green.

 

The Vanderbilt Playground, totally torn up for renovation. The scene of my forays with the toddler Child has been erased, although I feel little nostalgia: Child was never a great fan of playgrounds in those years, and I mostly recall a lot of forced cheer as I attempted to stuff her into swings or entice her onto the climbing gym.

And finally, unaware of the rich symbolism they evoked, a plump and vigilant hawk, poised hungrily above a rather gormless-looking dove.

                

I'll have to get over to the Post Office more often.

Back in the High Line again

Guest Park Special!

Last fall, we checked out the wild West Side's gestating new park called the High Line. The part we toured then still isn't open to the public, but now this part is, from  Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District (or "Pricey Bistro District") up to 20th Street in Chelsea. We walked it yesterday, and it's a delight.

The concept: Take the rusting elevated freight line that germinated into a long, green, aerial vacant lot along Manhattan's western edge, and turn it into a secluded oasis with killer views and river breezes. Keep the odd vibe of a post-industrial Eden, but add eco-friendly amenities and trendy design. Last Sunday, it was all gloriously vindicated by happy crowds who waited in a long line to ascend to this garden in the sky. There's even a sunbathing deck for pallid Manhattanites to bask in (although some eco-pamphleteers claimed that the rainforest wood used there is non-sustainable--gasp!)

The garden is a calculated evocation of the original urban-meadow takeover, but using posh perennials (like this echinacea) and ornamental grasses amid the cracks and tracks, with some patches of woodland. On a building overlooking the line, an incredibly determined mullein showed them how it's done.

Speaking of views from the High Line, it doesn't get much more iconic than this: the Empire State Building and a water tower.

 

 And speaking of water towers, the High Line (on Target's dime) threw one hell of a street fair down in the Meatpacking District to celebrate the park's opening, starting with this "water tower" full of free fresh lemonade, served up by buff kids in cute T-shirts. I avoid typical "sausage and tube socks" street fairs like the plague, but how can you argue with...

 

fire-eaters and stilt-walkers, plus...

      

balloon animals elevated to the level of performance art! (These "megamites" are created by a guy named Jason Hackenwerth, who gets his very loyal friends, like this guy, to help blow them up and wear them in public.)

STREET FAIR DOGS OF THE DAY

Happiness: Your bloggeuse admires a dachshund and a Chinese Crested and gets the whole pile of puppies just handed to her! The Crested looks like Paris Hilton and feels like UltraSuede. The dachsi was just happy to get his silky ears rubbed.

On closer inspection

Since Daughter started practicing with her new high school's track team, Mom has been killing time in Prospect Park in the vicinity of the Picnic House. Here, some random discoveries, starting with the cobalt-blue hydrangeas in the gardens at the foot of the Litchfield Villa.

More botanical interest: What the hell happened to these tiny green crabapples or cherries or whatever? They were swollen and covered in soft, hairy protuberances that, when crushed, released bright orange Cheeto-like dust. I figured it was some sort of insect colonization, but when I broke one of the solid green fruits open, there was nothing extraordinary inside (like a Cheeto-shaped pupa, say). Identification clues are welcomed in the comments section.

Nearby, a newly planted tree bore these nubbin-like fruits; I think they are pawpaws, a native tree known as "Ozark banana" for its custard-like fruit, upon which both George Washington and members of the Lewis and Clark expedition supposedly snacked. The flowers have a fetid smell, and growers of pawpaw fruit (which is usually shipped frozen if at all) sometimes hang rotten meat nearby to encourage pollinators like carrion flies.

Finally...can you identify this mystery building in the park?













I never saw it before today; it's part of a fenced-off garage and utility complex near the villa, with handsome textured brickwork and a curious mossy patina. According to this guide, "This two-story brick stable and carpentry shop was built in the late 19th century to accommodate parks workers, and does the same today, though the horses have given way to trucks." 

Green mansions

June breaks my heart with its ineffable lush mystery. As I set out for my first park walk this June, the sun shone, but the sky darkened as I ventured into the meadows and woods along the East Drive. 

 

In this bridal month, everything is a symphony of green and lacy white. But as the sun disappeared, I became more aware of the intense quiet, broken only by torrents of birdsong. (Are there more robins this year than ever?) The "Rose Garden," bereft of roses, was empty of people (and its pools still empty of water). But it did hold these honey-scented flowers on a tall shrub (anyone care to identify?)

By the time I reached the Vale of Cashmere nestled in its sunken grove, I had picked up a fat walking stick from the undergrowth for show. The pool there is already turning to muck and the lovely jets of water weren't on...not a good sign. Why are these lovely spaces, in a green-starved city, allowed to languish? Perhaps because they are too well hidden; we all claim to want seclusion, but as city dwellers, we are wont to speak softly in such places while carrying a big stick.

The air of verdant menace extended to this overgrown path near Battle Pass. It's identified on a sign nearby as "Tunnel Arch Bridge," but I just call it "M. Night Shyamalan Underpass."

I emerged from my solitary explorations onto the drive just as a rain shower began. Perhaps it's a legacy of growing up in this city in the Seventies and Eighties that I felt I had pushed my luck, gotten away with something.

Unabridged

A balmy May morning, and the Lullwater Bridge bears the tromping feet of a huge group of kids in full-throated Feral Field Trip mode, en route to the Long Meadow. From afar, their roar sounded like that of a French Revolution mob around the guillotine; as they passed over the bridge, they gazed down at the water in astonishment, often mingled with bemusement or mild distaste. I had many urban groups like this (I dubbed them the "don't get out much" kids) during my years as a docent at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; many feared squirrels and were repulsed by grass. But they were always electrified by the natural environment, and, being young, were readily won over by it.

Hey, at least they were out in the park; that's more than I can boast for the past week. This morning, the lake was a shimmering reproach to all I'd missed.

 

For this guy, asleep on the bank, the Lullwater had lived up to its name. The splashing of the nearby waterfall was indeed restful.

Far more alert was this black-crowned night heron, always on the watch for fish to spear. I was on the lookout too...for my daffodils, the ones I planted (illicitly, it turned out) from the Great Greenmarket Daffodil Giveaway last fall.

Yes, it is absurdly late for daffies; they were up in March and mostly done in April. But the last time I checked my Secret Lakeside Spot, when most of them were in bloom around the city, not so much as a shoot was evident. Maybe they gave away bad daffodils? Anyway, I gave up hope. But hope returned when the few freebies that I planted in my own backyard sprang up and bloomed...yesterday. (Here they are decorating our very, very Catholic May altar.)

My anticipation grew as I passed through the barrel vault of the Cleft Ridge Span, which I'd used to site them last fall. Would I see a late-season burst of gold on the opposite shore of the lake? No...but I found their spent remains. They came up, very very late, and bloomed without me. Damn!

(It occurred to me, however, in very, very Catholic mode, that this sort of thing at least does not happen to us...we do not ever blossom unseen, even if it seems that way.)

I saw a green heron in addition to the black-topped guy, and swallows swooped in and out under the bridge. My eye followed one to the cornice of the Audubon Center, where she (he?) had made a lovely mud nest. Wow, what a publicity nightmare if they need to evict this little family, eh? 

 

As the kids converged on the bridge, the swallow startled and the sleeper awoke.

Perks of membership

On a cool spring Saturday afternoon, the Prospect Park Alliance lined up all sorts of fun for its members. We got exclusive use of the pedalboats; fueled by hot dogs and watermelon, Spouse and I peddled doggedly under Terrace Bridge, while lazy Daughter lounged behind us. We passed swimming dogs, a meditating lady, and the snowy egret, who was coasting from tree to tree with his skinny black legs stuck straight out behind him.

The boats allow one to approach the islands from the water; I loved this scrim of phragmites in front of an apple tree whose fragrance wafted across the lake. However, I failed to spot any Interesting Ducks. Will I ever see anything besides mallards?








We did, however, see Marty Markowitz, as well as this Mr. Magoo-lookalike box turtle (a rescued pet, not a park native) at the Audubon Center. Both seem to relish their public duties, although the turtle did retract his head after awhile (Marty didn't, I doubt he ever does). There was also a huge hissing Madagascar Cockroach on display, which Spouse petted...he has clearly been working for a natural history museum for too long.  

The Lefferts House received a steady stream of visitors; they were making yarn at the "Flax and Fleece Fest." We opted instead for rides on the world's best carousel.










The phrase unlimited carousel rides must be among the most marvelous in the English language. (And Prospect Park members get 'em.) After ice cream treats, we went on twice; the calliope played "My Wild Irish Rose."


A bit tired for the walk home, we were tickled to board the trolley (or as I call this faux-trolley-bus, the Folly), which was exclusively for Us Members. It was stuffy and crowded with raging toddlers, but it dropped us off at the Peristyle a few blocks from home. Something about the entire outing felt very Victorian: an afternoon of good, earnest, fresh-air frolicking.

Ghostbridge

Prospect Park must once have been the DisneyWorld of its day, judging from how many "stereopticon" or magic-lantern slides that pop up on E-bay. (Shown is half of one; you put them in an ancestor of today's 3-D glasses and marveled at the Scenic Views.) Some of the views remain familiar; others evoke a ghost park of vanished romantic structures.

Like this bridge, with its hoop-skirted observers leaning over the railing. No current park bridge looks like this, so I asked Park archivist Amy Peck for help. Mystery solved: It's "Lullwood Bridge," the predecessor to today's Lullwater Bridge opposite the Boathouse/Audubon Center.

According to Ms. Peck, it was a 90-foot span bridge of white oak finished in 1870. "I'm not sure why it was replaced relatively quickly," she adds, "but by 1885 the report to the Brooklyn park commissioners is referring to its replacement." The bridge is barely visible at middle left in this photo from The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted Vol. VI, but across the lake you can clearly see another ghost: the old wooden boathouse, standing opposite the site of today's Audubon Center. (I also love the wooden gardener's basket plunked in the foreground.)

Photo, right: Courtesy of Prospect Park Archives

And here is today's Lullwater Bridge, a single steel arch with stone abutments. This archivey goodness has been brought to you by the weather, which is gray, cold, windy, and thoroughly disappointing, causing me to boycott the park because I am sick, sick, sick of wearing gloves and a hat.

Intellectual Property Wonk Note: Fellow IPWs are invited to weigh in on the ethics of using a non-watermarked E-bay image, as I have done above with the magic-lantern slide. I would have linked to the auction but it has elapsed. The image itself is of course public domain, but the physical slide is the property of...whoever won the auction, and was the property of the E-bay seller at the time I downloaded it. I'm not using the image for commercial purposes (well, not yet, anyway). Those not afflicted with the sin of scrupulosity would just pretend they owned the damn slide themselves (there were undoubtedly hundreds produced), or would not care, but I am picky. It's Holy Week; what do you think, have I sinned against the copyright gods?

Backwater, in search of green

Hunting for my illicitly planted daffodils (not up yet), I visited this sleepy tributary of the Lullwater. The willow along its banks is a tiny bit greenish, but otherwise very little was wearing the green on St. Patrick's Day. (Similar results were discovered over at ChickenUnderwear.)

This stretch of water ends in what looks like a glacial kettle pond near a rustic overlook. As I wondered if it is a real kettle, or a constructed one, I heard my first red-winged blackbird of the year.

Hard to believe that next month (late next month), these woods will be smudged with spring green.

Finally, in the Concert Grove,  a brash and unequivocal insult to winter!

DUCKY, IT'S TODDLER HEAVEN

Got a little one (like, 18 months to 3 years little)? There's still time to enroll the tot in Prospect Park's delightful-sounding Nature Babies spring program. It's held Monday mornings at the Audubon Center from 10 to 11:15 a.m. for the next eight weeks; you can enroll for all or do drop-ins for $20 a session. The kids explore ducks and leaves and other fascinating stuff indoors and out. And this being Brooklyn, there is a School of Rock twist: The lead instructor is Lloyd Miller, founder of the tot-rock band the Deedle-Deedle-Dees. (He's got an engaging blog about the enterprise, too.) Call 718-287-3400, ext. 104, to register.

Photo, above right: Prospect Park Audubon Center

Mad Men

My second non-Prospect Park dalliance yesterday was Madison Square Park. It's a nexus of weird history, Manhattan's and my own family's, and I contemplated it while shambling around sucking on a caramel shake (or, as I call it, "heroin"), from the park's own legendary Shake Shack.

The Ballad of Mother Met (A Madison Avenue Rag)

Ah, memories swirl around the Met Life tower (now getting the finger from that bizarre sliver condo-under-construction on 23rd Street). Some member of my family has toiled for "Mother Met" on and off from the dirty Thirties through the go-go Eighties, eating a furtive lunch in Madison Square Park under the glaring eye of the great clock to avoid serfdom in the company cafeteria (with its free "dinner" at lunchtime). My mother left high school a few months before graduation to work in their loan department at the depths of the Great Depression in support of her fatherless family. She got $13 for a six-day work week as a file clerk, prying through folders full of sad stories of men who drained their life insurance policies just to survive. Each morning, she passed jobless men selling apples in the park; all her life, she recalled how she couldn't meet their eyes. (And we think we have it rough now.) In the Seventies, my dad, a field agent, took a job in the home office, and so did Spouse for an ill-fitted few years before he found  his niche in the wacky world of non-profits. And here also was my first paying job, as a temp in data entry. I spent the summer of my 16th year typing in long lists of U.S. Steel employees and their dependents, and skirted the park because its splintered benches were occupied by homeless guys and reeking, mumbling bag ladies. (No Shake Shack then, but I could probably have gotten real heroin if I'd wanted it.) On my last day and last hour that August of 1974, I typed in the names of the entire family of Napoleon Bonaparte, and raced out the door into the park's hallucinatory heat in a rapture of freedom.

Yesterday, in the habit of AYITP, I took a closer look at the park, now a well-manicured oasis tended by work crews and studded with sponsorship plaques. There is a spacious dog run, although it is barren and malodorous compared to the dog paradise of Prospect Park's Long Meadow. But amid city traffic and noise, it offers precious respite for Corgi snoodling.

At the park's northern edge, there is a damn cool monument to the guy who said (sort of), "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!" The story of Civil War naval hero David Glasgow Farragut is incredible: He joined the navy at age 10 or so, was given charge of a ship at age 12, and was the first U.S. Admiral ever. The sculptor was Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who would have made a great Oscar-night dress designer judging from these windswept sea-goddesses. The architect was Stanford White, who was shot to death across the street at the old Madison Square Garden by the jealous millionaire husband of his mistress, the ravishing Evelyn Nesbit. And the crab plaque in yesterday's entry is inlaid at the base of it all.

So many parks, so little time.