Prospect: A Year in the Park

Gold, linger

Sorry...after "Skyfall," I couldn't resist.

This time of year, just before Thanksgiving, I love the last bits of gold that cling to the dark foresty bits. But the foliage, and the forest, got walloped in the home stretch by a double shot of Sandy and snow, making "Caution" tape a common sight this November fluttering on piles of fallen branches.

 

 

 

 

 

A walk along Wellhouse Drive revealed plenty of gold, and even green, still spangling the woods on Lookout Hill.

 

But this ginkgo, which is a personal friend of mine, stood broken and battered. The truck underneath appeared to have just dragged the electric boat Independence out of the lake; the poor boat was covered with bird poo and feathers, and its future is uncertain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a lot more big sky along the lakeside, where more old friends are suddenly missing.

But a few revelers are left at the autumn party. This seems to be a witch hazel of some sort by the Greenwood Avenue playground; I thought witch hazel only bloomed in January.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If this isn't "scarlet oak," it should be. It was "blooming" near the Maryland Monument, with its evocation of spilled patriots' blood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know that the fall colors have been in the leaves all along, just waiting for the green to fade away and reveal them? I hope I grow old like a leaf.

Skyfall

 

 

Well, it sounds better than "deadfall." We need no Bond villainesses; we had one named Sandy. She specialized in gruesome deaths, including this spectacular impalement along Prospect Park Southwest...and this twisted victim nearby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the Coney Island Avenue traffic circle entrance, Sandy's arboreal body count piled up, in what looked like a dam built by giant beavers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These mechanical beavers tore the pile apart, filling dumpster after dumpster with casualties of a hurricane followed days later by a crippling blanket of leaden snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even as they worked, the park drive coursed with joggers, walkers, and folks just glad to be back out in our battered park and shell-shocked city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Underfoot: reminders that nature eventually makes her own amends.

 

 

 

 

And for our next trick...

...we will follow up Hurricane Sandy with lots of heavy, wet snow. Yes, it's purty alright; this picture was snapped by Peggy Knipp, an indomitable old friend, who (when not planning celebrities' honeymoons) can be found zooming around hard-hit areas with trunkloads of donations...and, often, scooping up my child for a lift to school, because she has never met anything she can't rescue. Somehow, amid all this, she managed to get a beauty shot of Prospect Park under its fleeting mantle of snow. It's forecast to be sunny and in the 60s by Sunday...if there are any trees left by then, I think we'd better all go out and hug them.

 

"I feel like someone has died"

I confess: I was grateful that Prospect Park was formally closed (if easily entered anyway) for days in the sad aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. It seems like yesterday that Irene felled so many great trees, and now so many more have fallen. I'm a coward, and still haven't gone in; what was visible along the periphery (Prospect Park Southwest, below) was heart-rending enough.

Others, however, are not only brave but damn hard-working. Here's an excellent report from WNYC on the arboreal carnage in the park and the gutsy volunteers helping to start cleaning up (at least before the coming storm interrupts their cleanup of the last one):

...and it ain't over...