Birthday phantoms

A late afternoon walk on my 51st birthday finds the park wrapped in deep quiet under a lowering grey sky. As a portent of mysterious things to come, I pass the phantom tollbooth. (This one is near the southwestern entrance; there's another along the West Drive in Park Slope.) What were they for?* I haven't found out yet, but they were made with lovely terra-cotta roof tiles.

(Let's see. Did I spell "phantoms" right in that headline? The day before yesterday, I said I was "peddling" home and only one of you corrected me!)

*See astute comment below.

"A big storm knocked it over," perhaps...but this downed lamppost isn't going anywhere. They've got it caged lest it try to escape.

Turning up Wellhouse Drive, I pass my favorite massive ginkgo tree. It has a Southern Gothic air, lacking only the haunting tresses of Spanish moss.

Around the bend, no one comes near the abandoned Wellhouse (although someone built a nest in its broken window). The stout little building was erected in 1869; crowned with an elaborate tower, it was once the nerve center for a massive engineering operation that pumped 750,000 gallons of water a day up to a reservoir on Lookout Hill.  The tower was long ago demolished, but the 70-foot-deep well still lies below, directly in front and covered over. Let's start an urban legend that someone was buried alive down there. On this hushed early evening, only the catbirds could be heard mewing in the woods...or was that a hollow cry from below?

Up the hill, someone had placed a wreath on the monument to the Marylanders, the regiment that charged the Old Stone House in a suicidal frenzy of courage during the Battle of Brooklyn. Supposedly Washington said of the troops, "What brave fellows I must this day lose" (the words are inscribed on the base of the pillar).

On Terrace Bridge, a fat baby dove was reluctant to fly away.

Breeze Hill is an odd little area, usually quite deserted. This ghostly bike leaned against a dumpster so seldom emptied that saplings sprung from its contents.

As I headed home, one more melancholy mystery arose: Where was this swan's mate? They usually travel in pairs.

Back home, my mate, and Cygnet, waited impatiently to take me out for a Chinese dinner.

Comments

[M.Thew]

Clay Lancaster says your tollbooths are police kiosks, and notes three of them. There's still one at the Grand Army Plaza entrance, isn't there?

[Rob Lenihan]

Happy Birthday! Dang, you're catching up to me.