Prospect: A Year in the Park

A bull in Brooklyn

The chopper hovering over the house was deafening. Okay, four choppers. What violent offender had NYPD so focused on the Parade Grounds?

A sprint across the street put me squarely in the middle of an unfolding chase worthy of a white Bronco--but this was a brown cow. Or bull, actually. A rogue bovine, presumably an escapee from a slaughterhouse truck, was loping around one of the soccer fields before a growing crowd. 

 

 

 

 

An armada of police and emergency vehicles was converging on the scene. We were cleared from the field, then told, repeatedly, to move across the street. The local news crews wouldn't budge--it's not every day you see a bull on the loose in Flatbush. "You wanna get hit with a tranquilizer dart?" bawled a cop. (No, actually, I thought, stepping back a bit.) "ACROSS THE STREET, people! Am I speakin' CHINESE?"

 

 

 

 

 

Three guys armed with dart guns and a rifle circled the wary beast, and finally a report issued. "Shit, missed it," said a local news cameraman as he struggled to set up his tripod. A soft "whoa!" escaped the crowd.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bull was finally penned in behind some benches, where his energy barely ebbed. "Yo, cut that fence and free my homie!" yelled a guy in a do-rag. Now the bull's tongue lolled; he sank to his knees, then rallied and tried to crash over the fence. "That's right, don't give up!" said a woman. "You see the strength!"

From further back in the crowd, an activist voice roared frantically: "We have a rescue vehicle from an animal sanctuary 10 minutes away!" "Yeah, don't kill it!" others chimed in.

A lasso was produced, and Number 7741, as his yellow tag proclaimed him, was led stumbling into an NYPD horse trailer. I suspect he was en route to a Kosher slaughterhouse, given the proprietary concern with which a pair of Orthodox guys were conferring with the police brass on scene. An early report from a local blog suggests that poor 7741 will indeed make it to a farm animal sanctuary, a happy fate that has awaited several of our high-profile escapees.

I hope so. While no vegetarian, I confess I winced upon coming home and seeing the "humanely raised" Whole Foods hamburger meat defrosting on my counter.

I saw the strength.

This is NOT the first rodeo, as it were, on the Parade Grounds; read here about the now-forgotten night when the "Cat's Meow" club on Coney Island Avenue burned down, a stable caught fire, and 135 horses stampeded across this very ground!

Crowd sauce

The opening weekend of "Smorgasburg" in Prospect Park lived up to its New York Times' description as "the Woodstock of eating" if by "Woodstock" you mean "muddy mob scene." As we ascended Breeze Hill, we passed about 70 people waiting on line for some kind of cult French fries. "There's no French fry in the world worth waiting for," groused one passer-by, in a minority opinion.

The "Raindrop Cake" was one of this season's novelties. I have no idea what it is, but it's "Instagram-ready." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My only purchase was a nice little cherry pie from Noble Pies of Warwick, N.Y. and a smooth, intense iced coffee from "Ministry of Kaapi," made from beans from southern India in a novel little filter system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lines were so long at almost every stand that you couldn't tell who was waiting for a ramen-burger versus a "calamari cone." 

 

Prickly-pear lemonade was a gorgeous color, but we ditched the whole thing and got some pleasant, if less exotic, fare--and a seat, with little waiting--at the park's own nearby Bluestone Café.

 

 

Nearby, ice skaters sailed around the Lakeside rink in the spring sunshine. Other activities underway: hula-hooping; hip-hop/capoeira fusion dancing; drumming; skateboarding; paddleboating; pot-smoking; and somewhere, to judge from the smell of charcoal starter, some early-season grilling. 

And just hanging out on the shore, far from the madding crowd.

Dancing back, but rusty

Let's get back to going to the park once a day, shall we?

A suitable frame for another cold, gray day, April notwithstanding: The welded coils of Carole Eisner's Dancer, made of bolted steel I-beams and installed just inside the park from Grand Army Plaza. A moment's walk away, there were pots of daffodils and hyacinth, but this felt more like the day; I managed to miss all the events from the park's "opening weekend," too. Let's try and do better today; the sun is shining!

Semi-freddo

 

Last Sunday, the mid-January sun, already stronger, melted much of the snowcap on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A dark and rainy week followed, culminating in a dreaded inauguration; the timeless peace of the Japanese Garden is a good tonic.

So is the beauty of evergreens capped with white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Botanical trivia: the word glaucous (from the Latin glaucus, meaning "bluish-grey or green") describes the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, especially conifers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was terrible at conifer identification when I was a Garden Guide (docent) at the BBG years ago; it all has to do with needle shape, structure, etc. Sometimes I still just call them all "pine trees," which is unforgivable. Here, you identify this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's to a new era, on thin ice.

No one was fooled

A freakishly warm January day...65 degrees F at 5:30 p.m. Would the park be overflowing with joyful joggers and climate-change celebrants, I wondered? Perhaps earlier, perhaps elsewhere...but on the Parade Grounds, the still-early darkness gave the lie to illusions of springtime. The avenue between the playing fields was utterly deserted between Caton and Parkside Avenues. I checked over my shoulder, recalling wisdom from a rougher era: You are safe when completely alone; it's the isolated bit of "company" that raises the alert. So I slowed my pace.

 

Near the glowing blob of the tennis bubble, light lingered in the west through broken clouds. The honk and cackle of innumerable geese arose from somewhere in the dark...as agitated as if they were on the floor of a slaughterhouse. I wonder what laundry challenges await players on that artificial turf thanks to goosey gatherings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hate the tennis bubble--not only because I don't play tennis, but because it rises every year as a harbinger of cold, inclement weather. Tonight it was superfluous, but you don't just pop these open and shut on a whim. I heard no thwacks or curses or shouts of victory within.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the Park Circle entrance to Prospect Park proper, a lone jogger and one dog-walker passed, and a young man with a guitar case sat scrolling through his phone. The air was fragrant with fresh pine mulch from the recent Christmas Tree Slaughter (at which point I realized that I had slaughter on the brain, a legacy of the 1980s when walking in deserted park perimeters).

Inky branches and fence, etched against the bubble's weird glow. I walked home past the police station within the Parade Grounds, which felt no safer for the fleet of NYPD cruisers that flanked me. A rat scuttled across my path into the shadows. 

 

 

 

 

On a spring or summer night, it seems that half of Brooklyn is out in the Parade Grounds, hanging out by this snack bar, putting the spin on a soccer ball, skating, running. But tonight, no one was fooled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pining away

A bitter cold Epiphany morning, after the first snowfall of 2017. We saw a few "bro" types walking around Brooklyn in shorts and flip-flops, but this bro, one of the two "Horse Tamers" at the Park Circle, has them beat for under-dressed macho.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nearby lion sheds snowy tears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But we're not here to admire the statuary; we're here for "tree-cycling." It's the circle of life: The (only slightly crispy) tree stuffed in our trunk was dragged home from the Greenmarket, at Prospect Park's other end, just a week before Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It always saddens me to see them, stripped of their finery and fed into the chipper, as the glorious, resinous smell of Christmas fills the air one last time.

Some bags of mulch, a consolation prize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so all the Christmas festivity wraps up, just as winter's journey really begins its slog. Time for the Wise Men to go back home by a different route and remember what they saw beneath the star.

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As it does each day

New Year's Day, 2017, 3 p.m., Prospect Park. The solstice is still palpable at the Peristyle.

 

 

Lakeside, the new landscape, is beautiful in winter, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas touches of red have yet to be bleached by January.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the ice, uncertain next steps are just part of the fun...for most of us, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

"The Round," by Stanley Kunitz. Copyright 1995.  

 

 

 

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Native glory

If you really, really need a walk in the woods, but can't drive up the Hudson, head for the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Pretend that the not-too-distant sound of Flatbush Avenue traffic is the rushing of a mountain stream. (This garden does have a stream, but not a rushing one.) Carefully curated for more than a century to reflect the real Northeast, this reliably uncrowded path was magnificent yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The names of our native trees are a kind of poetry. Scarlet oak. According to its tag, it ranges from Maine to Michigan, and as far south as Georgia and Mississippi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sugar maple, yes the kind that gives us pancake syrup, with spectacular rainbows within a single leaf.  It's the state tree, not just of Vermont, but of New York, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sassafras, with its mitten-shaped leaves and root-beer-scented bark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black tupelo, another ravishing red. Also called sour gum, an irony since it is prized for the honey bees make from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the fallen leaves of a tupelo tree provided gaudy camoflauge for the Blurry Bird of the Day, a reminder that this garden makes it worth your while to look both underfoot...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and overhead.

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Water babies

The lily pads have flourished since my last visit to Lakeside, and so has the resident swan family. Mom, Dad, and six strapping cygnets (still young enough to be cute and fuzzy) were grooming and dabbling at the water's edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was Dad, I suspect, fluffing his feathers on shore while Mom supervised the youngsters closely. Thank goodness for telephotos--getting too close to a Parental Swan Unit can earn you a nasty nip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In "Swan Lake" the cygnets (only four of them) famously dance sideways in tight formation; real cygnets practice synchronized neck-arching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearby, on the splash-pad at Lakeside Center, other mothers kept close watch over their young. I felt a pang of envy at their momraderie in this wonderful setting; when I had my toddler 20 years ago, the park and its playgrounds were still quite scary and scruffy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soggy swim diapers or not, this was heaven on a sparkling almost-summer day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And out on the water, at least one mom and baby paddled happily, like the swans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

No, actually, I wouldn't*. Even human foragers don't want to munch English ivy, poison ivy, goutweed, and other invasive plants that have run riot in now-sunny areas of Prospect Park after hundreds of trees fell victim to Superstorm Sandy.

But goats? They'll be happy to help. The park has hired a gang of experienced weed-whackers from green-goats.com, the brainchild of former dairy goat farmers Ann and Larry Cihanek. Their team of power-mowers has already gone to work in Liberty State Park and Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, among other urban sites; this, however, is the first time that goats have come to the rescue in Brooklyn. And predictably, the media went mad.

 

 

At a press conference yesterday, park officials introduced members of the press to the eight goats who will work, in three teams, in fenced enclosures along the park's steeply hilly and overgrown eastern edge, as part of a multi-year woodlands restoration program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In small groups, journos were permitted into the enclosure, where they giggled and scrambled and generally fell victim to the curious charm that has made goats the current darlings of Instagram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not all members of the team were on message. One snoozed obliviously before the Opening Remarks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This guy, named Raptor, was more interested in nibbling bark than weeds. (For this reason, some young trees will get goat-guards.) Raptor is a breed called the La Mancha, bred for almost non-existent outer ears. This collegue more than made up for it with extravagantly lengthy ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographers called out pleadingly to the goats in paparazzi fashion, but while some had perfected "Blue Steel" and even "Magnum," others shrugged off the attention with goatish aplomb.

    

Few visitors petted the goats, although we were not forbidden to do so, perhaps because we were warned they might have rubbed their hairy flanks on poison ivy. Undeterred, I bonded with a perfectly charming goat named Skittles. I am a goat-whisperer! (Hint: If they are scratching their backs with their horns, scratch that spot for them.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needles to say, this being Brooklyn, concerns were voiced over the goats winding up as someone's dinner. Mr. Cihanek said he wasn't worried; the goats, he recounted, tend to bring out the protective best in people. The few who have escaped their enclosures have been rounded up and returned, often by folks from cultures fond of their culinary potential. Let's face it: People love these creatures, and not just because their four stomachs can handle 25% of their body weight in vegetation every day. The goats will remain in the park, says the Alliance, "until their work is done."

The woodlands restoration, funded by post-Sandy grant money from the National Parks Service via New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, goes beyond goats. According to the Prospect Park Alliance, historic preservation work will happen sometime in the future in the (sadly neglected) Vale of Cashmere (whose leaky pond, right, is now a mucky swamp) and also atop Lookout Hill, whose trees were decimated by Sandy.

In the meantime, there are goats!

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

A kiddley divey too, Wooden shoe!"