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.

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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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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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No rest for the cheery

April 1 is three weeks gone, and the sun is out, and it's Saturday. The grass gets a workout after its winter rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Long Meadow is, like all Prospect Park's iconic spaces, a place that Brooklynites turn to their own uses. Some choose to bake, prostrate, in the strong spring sun, while others lunge for projectiles--often within the same few square feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital springtime: Lean against a budding tree and check your phone. Near this guy, a young woman sat cross-legged in blinding sunlight peering at an open laptop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get out there with your personal trainer and work the man-buns. The dude in black put his bro in blue through an unlikely series of strength and agility exercises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close-up: The redbud was blooming, but why do they call it "redbud"? The buds are the precise color of "orchid" in the old jumbo box of Crayolas, and they have the outrageous habit of blooming in pom-poms directly out of the tree's bark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Longshot: Pastels, not Crayolas, smudged and hazy. Greens and so much more.

After the thaw

I didn't get to the park on the day it went above 75 degrees F a week before St. Patrick's Day. I was stuck inside working. But the next day, still warm, showed evidence of jump-starts everywhere over by Lakeside. Snowdrops made little bouquets near the bust of Mozart in the Concert grove.

 

I almost mistook this fragrant witch hazel for forsythia. Witch hazel is happy to bloom in January, but apparently even happier in March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The turtles are out. If we get a terrible cold snap, how will they get back into the mud?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teeny plants forced their way out from the new granite hardscaping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the rink, skaters in t-shirts sloshed through a rippling slick of meltwater.

Desire lines

 

That's what they call those shortcut paths beaten into parkland by human feet seeking the quickest route from A to B. There used to be only one way to enter the Long Meadow directly from the crest of the path from Grand Army Plaza: a desire line worn into the slope. But the park must've smartened up, because this log-girded walkway now welcomes visitors onto the vast expanse of grass. I took this shot a few weeks ago on a balmy December day, just after we bought our Christmas wreath at the Greenmarket; who could have guessed that the balminess would last through Christmas and beyond?

 

As their parents talked in boring adult fashion, these little guys found great sport in harvesting and rearranging bark chips on the log railing. In this year that saw an ugly high-rise condo pierce "my" side of the Prospect Park treeline, the Long Meadow maintains its air of secluded mystery, opening up like a miracle as you enter from the traffic and stress of Flatbush Avenue. The Long Meadow is long enough to be shrouded in mist at one end on a foggy morning, long enough to walk and feel as if you've really discovered something, long enough to clear your brain. Here's to a coming year of joy and discovery, of peace and health to all my friends and folks in Brooklyn and beyond. May your feet beat a shortcut to your dreams.

 

 

Thanksgiving on Ice

The day after Thanksgiving, if you're lucky enough not to be toiling for "Black Friday," can be a sort of benediction: the cooking and entertaining done, and the weekend not even begun. A beautiful blank slate, like today's Lakeside rink after the Zamboni slicked it over in the 64-degree sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks flooded onto the fresh ice, some in T-shirts, while crowds sunned themselves outside the cafe.

 

Parenting on ice: That moment when you remember that skating can be legitimately terrifying...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...requiring the grasping of little hands...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and the guiding of little feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun was so strong along the lake's nearby shore that turtles were basking. Four days til December...but for today, it was still Thanksgiving.

 

Meeting the men of the Vale

Photographs by Thomas Roma/Steven Kasher Gallery from "In the Vale of Cashmere."

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.

Photographs by Thomas Roma/Steven Kasher Gallery from "In the Vale of Cashmere."