Prospect: A Year in the Park

Swans eat my sins

It had been 6 years since I tagged along with friends to tashlich, the custom of "casting your bread upon the waters" on the first day of Rosh Hashanah to symbolize casting off sinful thoughts and ways. The body of water is supposed to contain fish; this one also supplies greedy swans and geese to gobble up transgressions.

With a bag of borrowed pita scraps, I gave myself a spiritual tune-up, just about halfway around the year from Good Friday. The swans don't offer absolution, but they are easier on the nerves than Confession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lake in Prospect Park draws a spectrum of Jewish celebrants, from cheerful Conservatives like my friends who sing and socialize, to earnest Lubavitcher proselytizers like those who checked us for shofars (we had one, blown with gusto by the young lady of the family), to intensely private Hassidic families like this one, in solemn prayer at the water's edge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this being Brooklyn, the lake framed the distinctive silhouettes of Muslim as well as Jew, in peaceful coexistence a few feet from one another.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I gazed across to the park's eastern edge, where a lone, loathsome condo now rises to mar the sylvan view, I wondered whether greedy developers and rotten architects ever cast their bread into the waters. And then remembered that one of the pieces of pita I'd tossed to the swans was for negativity and judgmentalism. Oops...well, there's always Good Friday 2016, and after that, another tashlich.

Still a small world

I bear a curmudgeonly lack of good grace toward Queens, my homeland, and especially towards Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Growing up, we never thought of it as anything but a sad afterthought to the World's Fair, whose rusting relics we'd pass on the way home from "the city." Ironically, the Spouse--a Brooklyn boy--had a job within the park for more than a decade, where he nurtured an obsessional love for all things World's Fair. In this underwhelmingly celebrated anniversary year of the 1964 fair, we went today to the "World's Fair Play Festival" at the Queens Theatre in the Park.

The set of interconnected playlets, set across decades in the '39 and '64 fairs and the present day, varied widely in quality, but some were excellent (especially "In the Hall of Artifacts," a haunting glimpse by Todd Almond of a brother and sister long after '64, in the age of HIV); and the notion of commissioning them and presenting them right within the old fairgrounds was wonderful. The cast gave it their all in a tiny black-box theatre, evoking a collage of human response to the fairs' pie-eyed optimism about Progress and The Future.

Afterwards, we wandered around the realtime, real place in its most quintessential present personality: We stumbled upon the riotous color, music and dance of a Colombian festival. The Colombian flag was a lively counterpoint to the dystopian sight of the old New York Pavilion.

 

 

 

 

Colombians do not have to be encouraged to dance to the music. It just sort of happens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every Colombian in Queens seemed to be there in sunny yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pair of folkloric dancers entertained a crowd in the shadow of the Unisphere as jets roared overhead on takeoff from LaGuardia.

 

 

 

 

 

Stamping in very cool footwear, skirt swirling, and lots of chivalrous partnering were on display.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cultures collide and mash up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wrapped up the day with an iced coffee doused with caramel and condensed milk from a Colombian coffee cart that drew long, avid lines of old-school java-lovers. Garbage cans overflowed; cars nosed past masses of oblivious pedestrians as the fair wound down. In all its messy reality, the park remains a truer global village now than it ever was in the Imagineered version.

 

 

 

Updraft

From our doorstep every year, I watch a row of young oak trees in the Parade Grounds turn burnished russet. As a rain storm blew closer, I headed for them. Doing crunches on a picnic bench, I watched them blow off and away overhead.

 

This got me contemplating how we are all as individual and ephemeral as oak leaves, until I noticed that the new ladies' room on the Parade Grounds is finally open! Workers have also been dutifully bagging countless leaf-souls. Note to our new Mayor DiBlasio: I can't imagine how much more liberal, er, "progressive," New York could be, but hopefully what the New York Times calls a "sharp leftward turn" will involve more money for parks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the park itself, gorgeous late color is at peak. The cretinous geese were oblivious, but even they seemed to give a collective shudder when this redtail swooped low and perched. And even the redtail seems to realize that a goose is too big a meal for one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But what about for two? Moments later, another hawk flew in. Look closely for their silhouettes! Are they a mated pair, I wonder? I'm not one of those hawk wonks who tracks their every move, but would love to hear from any of you who are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lake's southern shore is still a place of seclusion and mystery. Today's find: a Bob Marley shrine, with bicycles, garbage bags, and lawn chairs nearby but no occupant seemingly in residence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One ruddy oak leaf scuttled at my feet, in a desperate bid to recapture my melancholy attentions. Before I could get a second shot, it blew away.

 

'Visual medicine'

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.

Planting time in New Amsterdam

Those are sprouts of rye poking up in the little farm behind the Lefferts Historic House, Prospect Park's transplanted Dutch farmhouse. It is, basically, my dream house. It was built around 1783 a few blocks away (and moved here in 1913). The Lefferts family burned its predecessor to the ground--burned down their own house--in 1776, just before the Battle of Brooklyn, so that the British couldn't get it. And we think we're tough when we sit in a park with a sign and a bongo!

The house and garden are full of simple but immensely appealing interactive stuff for the kids.

 

Farm chores as play...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... and the timeless appeal of Flatbush's fertile soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An early Dutch version of Wii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I caught a fascinating lecture by food historian Peter G. Rose about early Dutch cooking and foodstuffs. We owe them for pretzels, cookies, and pancakes...the debt can never be repaid. I also bought Ms. Rose's book, Food, Drink and Celebrations of the Hudson Valley Dutch; it is an early pebble in a coming avalance of research for a Top-Secret Flatbush-Related Project.

 

This hearth, built outdoors for demonstrations, wasn't baking up any pretzels today, but it gives an idea of just how gutsy cooks had to be back in the days of old Dutch Vlacke Bos (Flatbush). The builders incorporated a brick from the Lefferts House, probably one made in the nearby kiln or "stone bakery" (steenbakkery) near a clay pit at present-day Rogers Avenue and Lefferts Street. Built to last.

Not far afield

Here, the two archetypal players to be found on the Parade Grounds: a grown-up practicing mad skills honed in distant lands (foreground), and a herd of private-school youngsters immersed in this sport we Americans mysteriously abandon as adults.  The kids were doing their post-game low-fiving ritual, a square dance of sportspersonship. To one group, soccer is a blood sport, as in "in my blood," played with raw passion and fierce grace;  to the other, a middle-class rite of passage, attended by parents armed with snacks and enthusiasm. I have never seen the two groups interact, although perhaps I just haven't noticed.

 

 

  I had limped over, nursing a broken toe, to see a young lady of my acquaintance do her spunky thing as a goalie. These soccer fields, a hundred feet from our front door, have lifted my spirits through some dark days; the ever-present players and their Brownian motion draw me out of myself in a way that life in a quiet cul-de-sac could never do. Soccer is all about staying in the moment with a vengeance, whether you're a pee-wee or a Pelé, and as the sun sets and the players head for home, they all seem pretty spent and exhilarated.

A late afternoon in spring

The woods in Prospect Park look like a faded pastel, with faint pinks and greens scrubbed in lightly behind charcoal tree branches. The sun warmed us up briefly around 5 o'clock after a grey and cold start to the day, and lots of folks came out.

 

The Daughter and I tromped about in the woods; we saw a cardinal, red-winged blackbirds (doing their spring "songs"), hermit thrush, a streaky-breasted sparrowish guy, and lots of robins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Things looked misty and the city seemed far away.

 

 

What is more April than violets?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
And along Prospect Park Southwest, these guys rocked out on a Passover stroll. Coming towards us, they had the whole Superhero Team vibe going, needing only a CGI fireball behind them to walk away from. Blessed holy days--be they Passover, Holy Week, or just spring itself--to all readers of AYITP!

The flowering of Salem Fields

The metaphors of Spring are not subtle...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...especially when life springs from rock that holds in the dead. This is Salem Fields Cemetery in Cypress Hills, a fascinating neighborhood perched on the Graveyard Greenbelt that knits together Brooklyn and Queens, and it is our Guest Park of the Day.

 I picnicked there yesterday on my lunch hour from a teaching gig, just as the Victorians used to do at Green-Wood Cemetery before they had nearby Prospect Park. This gate was locked, but the main arch at Jamaica and Euclid Avenues stood open on a cool and glorious noon.

 

 

This magnolia's vigor seemed shocking against a landscape of blue sky and tombstones. The cemetery is a German-Jewish one, mostly; I didn't happen upon them, but buried here are William Fox (the "Twentieth Century" film magnate), Harry Guggenheim (founder of Newsday), and impressario Lee Shubert (he of the Broadway "alley").

 

 

 

 

A broken column is a classic bit of funerary iconography for life cut short, but nature made its own version after our recent rough weather with this broken tree. How much more eloquent it is than any statuary!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These charming cherubs probably signify a child's tomb. The countless children in old cemeteries always make me wonder how parents' hearts held up in those days before routine vaccinations and antibiotics, when you could bury one little one after another.

 

 

 

 

This more mature angel sighed nearby. The cool breeze seemed to blow away melancholy, just leaving wistfulness. My eye was drawn to the stone by my mother's unusual name, Mathilde, here a grieving mother for a five-year-old girl.

 

The inscription read:

WIR LIEBTEN DICH IM LEBEN

WIR LIEBEN DICH IM TOD

GOTT GAB DICH

GOTT NAHM DICH

GOTT LINDERE UNSERE NOTH

 

 

 

 

Translated by Google, that means:

We loved you in life

We love you in death

God gave you

God took you

God alleviate our distress

 

As I sat eating my turkey sandwich amid the deceased, and pondering the short life of little Evelyn Sophie, Father Mark Lane was blessing an even tinier casket at our family's Catholic parish church in downtown Brooklyn—that of little Louis Dewayne Mosely, who was recently beaten to death in foster care and would that afternoon be interred in the cemetery across the street from Salem Fields. “We don’t have any rewind button on life," said my pastor. "No matter how much justice demands it, it doesn’t happen.” 

This same pastor once described a mystery as "a truth so deep that we can never reach the bottom, no matter how often we go back to the well." With each passing year, I find myself more grateful for the well of springtime.

Right: Window, mausoleum interior, Salem Fields Cemetery

London calling

Time to unpack a Guest Park: London's s Hyde Park, where the family and I sought green space just one month ago. What I recalled (from 30 years ago!) as an emerald swath was toasted brown, thanks to a brutally warm and dry English spring.

We staggered in through Marble Arch, shell-shocked by shopping in nearby Primark, a sort of cross between Wal-Mart, Century 21, and an all-female rugby match. No cool grass to flop onto as the sun set, only stubble—and pricey rental deck chairs. And no benches, to make you rent the deck chairs. Nor was anyone ranting on a soapbox at Speaker's Corner; has the Internet rendered that obsolete? 

Hyde Park, although smaller than its Brooklyn cousin Prospect Park, has much in common. We have the Camperdown elm; their "upside-down tree" is this weeping beech.

We both host fantastic concerts (theirs have included Queen—Freddy, not Elizabeth—and the Proms), and we both rent paddle boats. Their lake is called the Serpentine.

 

And both parks are playgrounds for folks from all over the world. Hyde Park, at least on this day, was full of Muslim ladies cloaked in black from head to toe, some with Western casual style but many with only their eyes showing. This I found disconcerting. No, to be honest, it provoked within me an ugly little wave of wrath, and not only because of New York's and London's shared history of terrorism and the fear of it.

It pushed my feminist buttons because their men were all dressed in comfortable shorts and T-shirts. And it pushed my Anglophile buttons because I wanted England to be the same after 3 decades. Brooklyn is supposed to be the "gorgeous mosaic"; immigration is our country's reason for being (as I like to lecture my fellow conservatives). But I wanted my London to be frozen in an old movie, and my England to be a protected well tapping straight into our ancient shared cultural water-table. In truth, the country is staggering under the legacy of its open-door policy on many fronts, but still, it was not one of my proudest moments.

 

We were too tired to check out Kensington Gardens or even to search for the Princess Diana memorial. But on the way to the Tube at twilight, en route to Rotton Row, we passed this lush glade.

A heron fished in the stream, and this mystery bird showed off a beak as red as a Guard's uniform. Just here, things felt peaceful and, yes, unchanged.

Waiting for Seurat

On a brilliant Sunday afternoon in mid-May, Prospect Park calls to the spirit of Georges to set up his easel on the balcony of the Boathouse.

But pointillism is for the patient. With the feeble zoom of my point-and-shoot, in the course of 5 minutes, I capture a leaping princess...

...two gentlemen clad in African finery...

...and a frisky wedding party out with their photographer.

 

On the nearby lakeshore, bucolic Brooklyn attitude is exemplified by a fisherchick and an oblivious swan.