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!
It's not a very well-kept secret that the lovely, secluded and currently neglected Vale of Cashmere has long been a furtive meeting spot for men seeking men. Today's New York Times introduces a book of hauntingly evocative photographs by Thomas Roma, In the Vale of Cashmere.
Roma explains: "I photographed the landscape between 2008 and 2011 and introduced myself to the men I encountered. I’d ask them if I could make a portrait for a possible book, explaining that the long exposure I had to use, between 1 and 6 seconds, meant they’d have to stay very still. Many declined, but many said yes, and I was grateful every time they did.
The resulting photographs are about a time and place — a meeting place, where black, Latino and other gay and bisexual men have long sought one another out to fulfill their wish for community and to satisfy sexual desire."
There's no knowing how the future renovation of the Vale area, now in its early planning stages, will affect these assignations. The Vale's seclusion, sadly, has also made it an occasional haven for possible hate crimes against gay men, and parks in general are not the right places for sex--especially when it involves leaving behind the disgusting detritus once targeted by the Litter Mob in Prospect Park's historic woodlands. But these photos bear witness to the poignancy and human dignity of their subjects. I wish them health, safety, and love--elusive prizes on a walk through the Vale.
Where can you chill in an Adirondack chair and see "Wisdom" and "Felicity" in a sun-spangled waterfall? At Grand Army Plaza, where a pair of the "Park It" project chairs face the spectacular Bailey Fountain. I've been lagging in my resolve to shoot the view from all ten locales; these refreshing shots were taken on August 22, after a hot trudge through the nearby Greenmarket.
In these chairs, you must steel yourself to the incessant swirl of traffic. Calvert Vaux created GAP to transition between hurly-burly Flatbush Avenue and Prospect Park.
This glorious traffic island is still hard to reach, and gets love mostly from wedding parties using it for photo backdrops. The fountain is named after its benefactor, philanthropist Frank Bailey (1865-1953), a college treasurer who started out in title insurance.
From such bland beginnings came a $125,000 grant and the wild abandon of Neptune and Triton, sculpted by American artist Eugene Savage (1883-1978). Triton blows on a shell...
...while Neptune leers at passers-by. From this self-portrait of Savage, he was the very picture of a WPA artist.
Sitting in the chairs with a powerful zoom lens, one can also capture the joy of water falling on mere mortals.
For the record, here are the plaque quotes on these two chairs: "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." Native American Proverb
"Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet." Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen master, poet, and peace activist.
I'm a passionate fan of Adirondack chairs, so when I heard that Prospect Park had some sort of installation of them, I thought: One, gotta have a look. And two, How will they keep people from stealing them? Adirondack chairs, those slopey wooden totems of lakeside living, aren't cheap; after our pair finally rotted away years ago, we still haven't sprung for new ones.
According to the Park, "The Prospect Park Alliance and Paul Smith’s College present Park It, an invitation to enjoy Brooklyn’s largest living work of art from the comfort of handcrafted Adirondack chairs located throughout the Park. Each site was carefully selected to highlight the Park’s geographical richness and natural beauty, which was inspired by the rustic charm of the Adirondacks."
The chairs, in pairs, are sprinkled around the park; I'm going to try to visit all 10 locations and take a 50X telephoto shot while seated. A week or two ago, Spouse and I tried out the closest ones, perched on a sunny hill overlooking the "splash pad" of the Lakeside Center.
The chairs all have inspirational quotes on them. These two read:
"To sit in the shade on a fine day...is the most perfect refreshment." --Jane Austen.
And, more cryptically:
"You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light." --Edward Abbey
Light--in the form of blazing sun--flooded these particular chairs, pace Miss Austen, so our occupation didn't last long. But it was great to watch the kids frolic in the water.
You're not allowed onto the water without a child...
...a sad fate for grownups (and dogs).
I'd never heard of Paul Smith's College. This small "College of the Adirondacks" upstate offers hands-on programs in forestry, culinary arts, and environmental studies. Thanks for the chairs, folks--and for remembering to chain them together to foil chair-nappers. This is, after all, the Brooklyn Adirondacks.
That, anyway, is what Isamu Noguchi said late in life. "What other reason is there for art?"*
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's gift to us this fall is an installation of the sculptor's works on loan from The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. A few days ago, on my birthday, we wandered the BBG's Japanese Garden--itself a work of living art--to see some of them. A drenching rain had broken weeks of drought; the sky was still turbulent-looking, and everything smelled faintly of something like jasmine. Downed leaves floated across the pond.
I confess that Noguchi's strange, simple shapes leave me more puzzled than dazzled, but I enjoyed seeing them, with some knowledgeable commentary by the Garden's own guides. This one, "Strange Bird," dwells near the "turtle island" and is a sly reference to a pair of bronze cranes that have been in and out (currently out) of the Japanese Garden over the years.
The Daughter was reminded of the Dodo in Looney Tunes' "WackyLand" (itself a goof on modern art). Apparently Noguchi, a Japanese-American who died in 1988 at age 84, considered himself rather a strange bird, a global citizen (and longtime New Yorker) yet one who never fully resolved his identity.
The sculptures are right at home in the Japanese Garden, with its design magic of "hide and reveal" and its illusion of deep vistas and distances. You spy "Mountains Forming" (1982-3) from afar, tucked out of reach above the waterfalls.
Once you climb up to the Shinto shrine--itself a hidden treasure--you see it more clearly, but it's still tantalizingly out of reach. It also looks completely different--"another layer in this imaginary mountain landscape," says curator Dakin Hart of the Noguchi Museum.
My problem with outdoor sculpture in natural surroundings is that the exquisite forms of trees, leaves, and clouds, and even raindrops, tend to overwhelm the human creations. But then, Noguchi did once say that everything is sculpture. Except, perhaps, the apartment buildings that rise beyond the garden's perimeter.
*From Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi, by Hayden Herrera, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.
Guest park today: Central Park, that other Vaux and Olmsted masterpiece. But from the inside, looking out...and damn, has the view changed since I last hung out near Columbus Circle.
Back in my college days in the grim 1970s, this was my neck of the woods; Broadway was studded with shabby, atmospheric old dance studios, where I sweated and stretched between taking classes at the ugly new Fordham campus and standing in line for SRO ballet tickets at Lincoln Center. I didn't spend much time in Central Park, however; nobody did. It was more punchline than tourist magnet. But Central Park South held onto its dignity, a phalanx of elegant hotels gazing down on the green rectangle that sheltered the muggers.
These days, the park is safe and choked with tourists, all looking as if they are trying hard to enjoy their overpriced rides in sketchy pedicabs and horse carriages. The environs of Columbus Circle are a glossy bastion of retail, with the stunning Time Warner Center a welcome replacement for the long-rotting hulk that was the old New York Coliseum.
But it seems as if the skyline south of the park has gone a bit mad, like an athlete bulking up on steroids and menacing anyone in his path. The lush sculptures that gazed down on Columbus Circle in its sleazier days now seem to push back against the crushing volumes around them. Christopher himself seems taken aback...
...while the marble figures around the monument to the battleship Maine monument remain oblivious, even to perching pigeons and tired tourists, as they have since their unveiling in 1913.
With so much glass rising around them, creatures of stone can seem ancient and weary...
...or surprisingly spunky.
Meanwhile, other eyes in the sky keep watch over the brave new world of safer streets, richer rich and ever less welcome poor.
But nothing prepared me for my first look at "One57," the middle finger of New York's new Billionaire's Row pointing skyward at 90 stories. The gilded "Columbia Triumphant" is no match for greed triumphant.
This shot gives some sense of its grotesque scale, as it dwarfs the iconic Essex House sign. The atrocity looms like an invading "War of the Worlds" ship over all it surveys. I am told that most of its multi-million-dollar condos are bought solely as investments, or "pied-a-terres"; perhaps the Russian, Chinese, and Brazilian oligarchs can hire someone to turn on the lights so that it will look lived-in. No, never mind. It will never look lived-in.
At right, another pair of architectural masterpieces visible from the park. One thing I love so much more about Prospect Park than Central Park is the sense you can get of being "lost in the country" within its borders. The rectilinear Central Park has always been visibly ringed with luxury buildings; this Singapore-like forest of newcomers will soon be "the new normal." But Prospect Park, too, is following suit, with shiny condo buildings springing up around its perimeter, encroaching on Olmsted's beloved illusion of escape from the city within. Maybe when all the rents are $5,000 a month and up, we can pitch tents in the parks for the working class, and they can look up at the skyboxes of our overlords. Me, bitter?
As we shambled around the park, I was consoled by this fellow, who was cleverly whacking away at an acorn. No billionaire will ever be as at home in the sky as he is.
THE LOCAL ASPARAGUS ARE IN! So is the spinach! Can strawberries be far behind?
And in other Greenmarket news...Under the radar, as it were, a small but gifted community of artists and makers have begun selling their wares at the periphery of my beloved Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket each Saturday. The scattering of stalls along the beginnings of Prospect Park West are notable for their delightful originality. Not all my favorites were there today, but four of them were:
The enchanted foxes and other creatures of Estonian-born Brooklynite Kristiana Pärn seem to have wandered out of a Wes Anderson dreamscape. Her works on wood panel, prints, and stationery are gently drawn (and gently priced).
We bought one of her bunnies for the Daughter's room years ago and I think we need some foxes. If you can't make it to the plaza, she sells on Etsy here.
I love the celadon-glazed pottery of Frank Saliani of 20th Avenue Studios; love the rich, varied colors and the inviting, organic shapes. Craft fairs always seem to have way too many pottery people selling similar-looking stuff, but his work is really distinctive and elegant.
I would so give a set of these little bowls as a wedding present if anyone I knew were getting married.
Bits of wood, pennies, Scrabble tiles are all jewels in the hands of Robert Heller, whose "Planet Ert" of rings, earrings, and greeting cards carry a happily hippie-ish vibe.
His rainbow of enameled earrings moved about in the warm breeze like petals. He's on Etsy here.
Vintage-look textile patterns adorn dresses for big and little girls and an array of handsome tote bags made by Maruska Saunders, who calls her sewing enterprise "Stinky Minky." According to her website, she once made cowboy shirts for Roy Orbison.
Her work reminds me of my mother's; to this day, I can't see a cute pattern on some cotton without hearing her say, "I could run up a sundress in an afternoon." (I, alas, cannot.)
(Worth noting: no felted owls have been seen to date at this burgeoning craft market. The family and I have a bit of a "drinking game" around felted owls, which tend to figure heavily in the Brooklyn handmade scene. I love felted owls, don't get me wrong...but the borough is overrun with them! Perhaps they feed on artisanal pickles...)
It takes a braver soul than I to relish the park's snowy expanses during "Polar Vortex 2.0," but it turns out that it was a key inspiration for "Let It Go," the power ballad for cartoon heroine Elsa of "Frozen." Oscar-nominated songwriters Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez are quoted in the Brooklyn Paper:
“We went for a walk in Prospect Park and stood on picnic bench. We looked across the park and said, you’re on a mountain alone and you’ve lost everything you knew. But also everything you’ve been holding back.” In the song, which is delightful, our heroine lets loose her icy powers. “Letting go of fear and shame and allowing yourself to let your unique power out is a message we’re excited to have go around the world,” Anderson-Lopez told the paper.
Now that the Child is in college, we don't go to Disney movies on autopilot, but this one looks gorgeous, and one has to respect a lyric like "My soul is spiralling in frozen fractals all around." Here's our very own park ode to letting go in the snow, belted gorgeously by Idina Menzel. It has almost inspired me to go out for a walk, so that I too can say "The cold never bothered me, anyway!"
No, I'd never been to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park in my lifetime as a New Yorker. The enormous gates, donated by the Vanderbilts, lured us into this guest park late one afternoon last weekend. These frolicksome maidens didn't seem to feel the chill.
According to the park's official site, "The northern, French-style garden showcases parterres of germander and spectacular seasonal displays of spring tulips, and Korean chrysanthemums in autumn, all within an ellipse of Japanese holly. In the center is the charming 'Three Dancing Maidens' fountain by German sculptor, Walter Schott, which once stood at the home of Samuel Untermyer's estate, Greystone, in the Bronx."
The garden has what they call great "bones"...design that stands its ground in any season, with or without flounces of flowers.
A rose whose petals are as papery as a dowager's cheek, and a bud that will never bloom, caught the sun's last rays.
The trees in this allee are pink and white crabapples; they framed a stately Italianate rectangle of snow crowned by a skeletal pergola.
In spring, apparently, it all explodes in bloom. (See the park's aerial shot, below.) On this February day, aside from one dog-walker, we had it all to ourselves.
I can't wait to see the exhibit now at the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library (the big one at Grand Army Plaza, Reflections by Jamel Shabazz.
According to the BPL,
"A prolific photographer of street culture in New York City, Jamel Shabazz has been documenting this borough since the 1980s. His work is showcased throughout the Central Library, and in the Brooklyn Collection we're displaying a selection of images donated by Mr. Shabazz."
I was vaguely familiar with Shabazz's work (he did a series on hip-hop's more innocent early days titled, memorably, "Before Crack"), but didn't know he was a fellow Prospect Park obsessive. The BPL has put up a truly wonderful 5-minute slide show with Shabazz in voice-over telling us what the park has meant to him over the years—an enchanted preserve for a boy from the projects, where he wooed girlfriends, refreshed his soul, trained his body, mentored youth, and blossomed as a chronicler of people-in-the-city. He calls the park "the path of life—you meet people in search of peace. Whatever people I was suppoed to meet, I would meet."
And Shabazz sums up the whole reason I started this blog almost 5 years ago (is that possible?):
"It's great visual medicine for me."
Come to think of it, I haven't been taking my medicine regularly. Maybe a recommitment to my daily visit is just what the doctor should order.