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.
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.
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.
A fortnight ago, I managed to get completely lost in Prospect Park on the way to a members-only tour led by the Prospect Park Alliance. Late for our meet-up at Grand Army Plaza, I decided to go straight to the tour's destination, the Vale of Cashmere. It had been ages since I'd ventured into the secluded and neglected gem.
Entering through a fence break on Flatbush Avenue, I stumbled on a mountain of post-Sandy mulch, a maze of ad-hoc dirt-bike jumps, and a lot of trees. I headed confidently towards the Vale...but wound up instead in the Rose Garden (above), another utterly cloistered garden of mystery. It was empty of humans (and its pools empty of water) on a gorgeous Saturday morning. In the silent sunlight, it managed a sort of David-Lynchian touch of verdant menace.
I thought I knew just how to get to the Vale from the Rose Garden, but instead wound up going in circles, then stumbling onto the East Drive. From this familiar vantage point, I spotted something brand-new: the Donald and Barbara Zucker Natural Exploration Area, a brilliant concept wonderfully executed using the copious deadfall from Sandy and the other weather catastrophes of late.
It's a perfect spot for city kids to remedy their "nature deficit disorder" and wallow in the unstructured beetle-poking, water-sloshing, log-jumping idylls that kids used to just do in back yards. vacant lots, or countrysides. Historically, it's also right; in the park's early days, this area near Nellie's Lawn was "the Children's Playground."
And the stream from an enticing water pump runs straight into...the Vale of Cashmere! The Vale's beautiful but deadly isolation is now broken open by a corridor of stroller moms and dads and their frolicking offspring.
And there in the Vale was the tour, led by Justine Heilner, newest member of the park's landscape design team. The reaction of the just-arrived group was one of mingled awe and muted shock...at the weed-choked ruin that should be a glorious Romantic folly with dancing fountains.
As we gazed abjectly at the stagnant water, Justine recounted the Vale's history. Its semi-formal design (dating from the 1890s) and even its fanciful name met with the disdain of Frederick Law Olmsted, who championed faux rusticity. Now that the Park's East Side has processed the epic arrival of the Lakeside rink, I wondered, was the Vale next in line for a make-over...and would that mean its demise to make way for another high-profile attraction?
The Vale and Rose Garden are definitely "next" on the agenda, she replied, but "next" means 5 or 10 years before any ribbon-cutting. What that ribbon will adorn is also up for grabs; there are lots of ideas on the table, from renovating the current site to creating a sculpture garden or other new use.
All of which made me very, very jealous of the Zuckermans, whose vision for the play area could be realized with the wave of a checkbook. How I would love to bankroll the revival of the Vale! Even without Olmsted's blessing, this secret garden in its deep, leafy glacial kettle is one of the most enchanted spaces in the city. It needs "stakeholders," the current buzzword for "people who love and care for something." The current stakeholders are birders, a few dog walkers, and the furtive men who come alone and leave in pairs, hardly the robust constituency to raise dollars for sparkling fountains to dance again. It also needs sensitive oversight to maintain the just-right balance between "peacefully isolated" and "slightly scary." Even without Zuckerdollars, I can at least offer some common-sense ideas that could be done right now.
HOW TO REVIVE THE VALE OF CASHMERE AND ROSE GARDEN RIGHT NOW
* SIGNAGE! During my "lost" ramble, I asked half-a-dozen passers-by where the Vale of Cashmere was. They all looked at me as if I were nuts.
* Cool events! Wrong spot for food trucks (they're doing that at Grand Army Plaza). But how about trendy farm-to-table dinners with all those curated, artisanal Brooklyn gourmets on board? (The Vale is not, by the way, the site of the upcoming "Pop-Up Dinner," I have heard, but it would be perfect for intimate gatherings.) How about art and craft shows? Garden shows? Small-scale theatre under the stars? Folk-music coffeehouse en pleine air?
* Regular visitors! An urban or naturalist-themed book club. Photography, birding, and foraging meet-ups and workshops. Tai chi, dawn or sunset yoga.
* Market the spot aggressively for photo and movie shoots.
* Hold a photography contest for the Vale in Four Seasons.
* For the pools in the Rose Garden (which have never worked right), an open call for art installations that would put them to creative use.
* Finally, spread the word that the East Side Revival—a regular corps of dedicated volunteers who work each Monday from 10 to 2 to beautify the area—is the hottest singles opportunity for freelancers in Brooklyn, a magnet for sensitive, hunky guys and ravishing, spunky gals! (It probably is!)
Add your ideas in the comments, please!
Some recent links of interest:
The Brooklyn Based site offers a perceptive-sounding review of the skating experience at the new Lakeside rink, with some good practical tips on gaming the inevitable weekend crowds. Writer Kate Hooker found the ice "spectacular," although she had less kind words for their rental skates and locker set-up.
"The Remains of the Night: Sex, Trash, and Nature in the City" is a thoughtful account by Elizabeth Royte of her participation in the brief, glorious Prospect Park "Litter Mob." I never got around to pitching in with the Mob, an ad-hoc project helmed by activist and blogger Marie Viljoen. whose self-appointed task was to pick up the nastiest leavings of the cruising crowd in Prospect Park's secluded Midwood (and, it was hoped, shame the Parks Department into stepping up their own efforts).
Speaking of the redoubtable Ms. Viljoen, she has written a gorgeous and engaging book, 66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes, that includes some of her foraging adventures in Prospect Park. She also continues to blog at 66 Square Feet, from her new perch in Harlem.
Finally, the New York Times did a nice sampling of obscure monuments in parks around the city; they featured one on Grand Army Plaza that I haven't investigated yet, of Scpttish-born gynecologist Alexander J.C. Skene. "Dedicated in 1905, his monument, in Grand Army Plaza at the entrance to Prospect Park, is an august affair, with a large bronze bust set against a tall slab of white Vermont marble," reports the Times.
The article also mentions the Concert Grove's monument to Irish poet Thomas Moore, with some delicious details I'd never read elsewhere: He loathed Americans, and was mistaken by President Thomas Jefferson for a child on account of being vertically challenged (something you'd never guess from his towering bust). My own expedition to Moore's statue on St. Patrick's Day back in 2008 yielded Asian-American brides and phony hippies, as recounted here.
Is the Olympia Icebear the Cadillac of Zambonis? Everything else about the new Lakeside skating rink seems to be top of the line. The long-awaited new complex finally opened last year...which is to say, about two weeks ago, and on a suitably gray and wintry Monday before New Year's Eve we got our first look.
There were long lines to get in, and the ice was well populated...
...but with enough free space to get up some speed. (When did kids start wearing crash helmets on the ice? Not that it's a bad idea...one grown-up actually spun out and bonked her head as we watched.)
Those first few rounds on the ice can be pretty scary. At least the rental skates are brand spanking new; the ones at the old, Robert-Moses era rink were squishy, battered and grubby. The music was pleasant and unobtrusive; at the old rink, the selections ranged from classic to downright bizarre.
Lots of smiles, lots of tumbles. To plan a visit, go here. Public skating will go on til 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; what a cool way to spend the evening. Admission is still affordable, at $6 weekdays and $8 weekends; skate rental is $5, as is small locker rental or bag check.
Lakeside preserves the one great feature of its shabby predecessor: the chance to skate in fresh air, under open sky, with a wooded horizon wrapped around you. And a nifty "ice bridge" unites the outdoor rink to the one sheltered by a deep blue overhanging roof.
The cafe hadn't opened yet, so we exited the park at Lincoln Road and had peppermint-rum hot chocolate at nearby Tip of the Tongue, the coffee shop that has replaced the much-loved K-Dog and Dunebuggy. The crowd was still churning happily as we passed on our return. It's lovely to be able to turn away from the whirl to the wintry quiet of the restored lakeside itself, where skaters zoomed and flirted and face-planted more than 100 years ago. Now the domain of swans, coots, and geese, the lake was already forming a barely perceptible film of ice.
Blame the interminable cold, but I haven't been walking in Prospect Park for ages. (Hey, even my crocuses are lagging this year.) With more proof just in that parks ease brain fatigue, I bestirred myself. There weren't a lot of takers for the strong sun and stiff chilly breeze, but these boys of would-be summer gave it their best.
Nearby, these guys practiced some sort of thing with long, shiny metal sticks. Mostly, they dropped them.
Nothing is greening up yet; the park seemed bleached and bare in spots. The recent loss of hundreds of trees has made a palpable difference in the feel of things: more sky, less sense of remove from the surrounding city.
Babies remained bundled. By now, green leaves, sandals, and the smell of barbecue grills all seem like a distant fantasy.
However, I did find a very cool decommissioned wasp nest, just lying at my feet. Its marvelously engineered pods were all vacant. I was grateful to be carrying an empty tote sack—one looks a bit absurd carrying a wasp nest down Prospect Park West—and bagged it for my cabinet of curiosities. The Daughter found it fascinating but disgusting, and said that if a wasp roused itself from within and invaded the house, "we will kill you." (For even more disturbing Kunstkammer specimens, go here...if you dare.)
Today: A Sneak Peak at Lakeside, Part II. Yesterday, I shared a look at the ravishingly restored original shoreline in Prospect Park's Concert Grove. Now for the rest of the tour: Turn on your heel, and there, looming over the bucolic scene, is an unfinished pavilion so large, it brought to mind those spaceships in "War of the Worlds." (Or maybe I'm just traumatized by the grim landing of the Barclay's Arena downtown.)
Our guide, Christian Zimmerman, the park's VP for Design and Construction, gestured to the insulation-wrapped slice that cut the horizon in two. "This," he stated, "allowed us to do this," pointing toward the verdant lake shore. It seems as if the architects have put much effort into trying to camoflauge the staggering scale of this project, through "green roofs," sweeping berms, and other tricks. The sketches (like this one of the main entry) make the finished product look like a post-modern, eco-conscious utopia. Perhaps it shall be so.
We clomped across what would be a green roof. How you grow trees on a flat roof without disaster I'll never know, but it's all the rage, as at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's new entry pavilion. (The cynical renovator in me wonders, in 20 years, if we'll be sitting around LEED-certified buildings amid buckets full of rainwater, saying, "Remember the green roof craze?")
Looking down at the two rinks, the project's enormity hits you. The old Wollman rink was a pocket-sized affair (and set on a noticeable slant, requiring one to skate uphill), open only in winter. These rinks will offer two vast ice kingdoms in winter (linked by an "ice bridge"), and in summer the outdoor one (above, at left) will be a water playground while the sheltered one (now a dirt field, right) will provide Brooklyn with a roller rink (its only one after the lamented closing of a rink on Empire Boulevard some years ago).
Here's the dream rendering for winter...
...and summer, with (as Letterman says) "Prancing Fluids." (What artist gets the job of concocting these visions of sugarplums to dangle before donors and planning boards? I wish life would look like that.)
Freezing that much water with eco-correctness is an engineering challenge par excellence. I found the shiny, factory-fresh mechanicals pretty cool...like big Tonka toys.
The architectural details are classy, like elegantly joined granite blocks and a rink ceiling in starry-night blue and silver that suggests the swoosh of skate blades.
According to the park's plans, the two new rinks will cover 30,000 square feet, enough room to keep wobbly learners away from speeding hot-doggers. Also promised are a roomy cafe overlooking the ice (which we toured in raw-Sheetrock state) plus changing facilities, parking (on Breeze Hill nearby), and a new dock for pedal-boat rentals and electric boat tours. Lakeside clearly will tip the balance of park-power towards "my" side of the park, the often-neglected southern and eastern side; the Park Slopers will be heading our way with hockey gear in tow.
FUTURAMA, OR VAMPIRE SIBLING?
Lakeside will be dazzling, certainly in its first blush of youth. But recent events cast a shadow over those glowing renderings. Every donor and politician loves a ribbon-cutting, but this $74 million project is rising even as the rest of the park cuts staff and programming to the bone, with education—supposedly one of the park's big missions—taking it on the chin. School programs have already been suspended, as I wrote here, hoping that someone would protest. (No one did.)
The latest round of cutbacks are detailed here. Does anyone remember the fuss over the dramatically rescued-and-rehabbed Boathouse, a brief walk away? It opened with a flourish in 2002 as America's first and only urban Audubon Center, an environmental educational powerhouse for city kids. Now, says the park, the Center is cutting back public programs on-site to just two days a week, and renting the historic Boathouse out on weekends for badly needed "revenue."
The eco-friendly electric boat Independence may have a new dock, but it won't be plying the lake until a private operator steps up, due to more budget cuts.
And we're not done: The Lefferts Historic House has cut one member of its already tiny staff and cut programming and hours, as well as charging a modest admission fee that will still discourage many casual walk-in visitors.
Yes, I know: It's not like you could take dollars earmarked for Lakeside and give them to other players within the park. But there are only so many tax and philanthropy bucks to go around...and only so much public attention span.
BARRIER-FREE...FOR THE WALLET?
When the rink does open, it will be painstakingly compliant with ADA regs. But will it be economically accessible? The shabby Wollman Rink was at least fairly cheap, and non-affluent kids and families could rent skates and still afford hot dogs and cocoa. When I hear terms like "hockey" and "LEED-certified," my red-alert goes off: Will it cost $20 per-person to skate there, with a farm-to-table menu of $15 panini for refreshment afterwards? If so, I'll be watching from the sidelines, and eating a tote-bag banana, sulking.
That is how I would describe Jane's Carousel, the restored 1922 gem that sparkles at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's the undisputed star of the DUMBO Art Festival, making all the latest, ironic "interactive installations" look drab and contrived.
They heart DUMBO, and each other:
A wedding party (Russian, we guessed) took a romantic spin.
The groomsmen took care of the handheld electronic devices, along with a smuggled-aboard open champagne bottle (not shown). Jane's Carousel is the only one I've seen where people compulsively take
pictures from inside looking out, as the Manhattan skyline whirls past.
Everyone is a kid again, including dads...and other grown-ups.
.
In fact, carousel magic might even be more potent for the young at heart...
...than the young in age.
PHOTOBOMB OF THE DAY
Poor fellow, in his official Festival regalia. He's not Moby, and he's not being taken seriously.
The first crazy-warm day, and news pours in to fuel my raging carousel obsession.
First: The Prospect Park Carousel, surely the world's most utterly perfect (here's why), re-opens Saturday, March 31 from 12 noon to 4 pm, and celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. (After April 1, it's open Thursdays – Sundays and school holidays, 12 to 5 p.m.; rides are $2 each or $9 for a book of five tickets, and if you only joined the Prospect Park Alliance for the unlimited free rides, that would be reason enough.) The 1912 masterpiece of legendary carousel designer Charles Carmel, it dwelt in Coney Island from 1912 to 1952, and the Alliance restored its delights in 1990. Note: It has a real Wurl band organ, not cheezy piped-in Muzak!
GUEST PARK ALERT:
NEW CAROUSEL OF MIND-BENDING AWESOMENESS
PLANNED FOR BATTERY PARK
This has come to my attention: "Sea Glass," an aquatic fantasy-themed carousel unlike anything in the known universe, is scheduled to open in Battery Park this fall. Yes, I love every sacred, carnival-esque gaudy detail of traditional carousels, but this new take looks brilliant. Evoking the long-ago aquarium at Castle Clinton on Manhattan's tip (and perhaps even linked to the current Coney Island Aquarium by a ferry), the new herd will consist of translucent, glowing angelfish and seahorses, turning dreamily inside a chambered nautilus with trippy projections of marine life. Engineering marvels abound, as described here. The animated rendering below, Debussy and all, brought tears to my eyes. Plus, if you have lots of money, you can sponsor a fish, which I would totally do if I were rich. Can you tell I am just a little excited about this?
Finally, here's a great wrap-up of all the carousels, operating, planned, and under renovation, in the city. How cool would it be to have a marathon that connected all of them and demanded that runners ride each one before continuing onward! I was shocked to note that there are some I have not yet ridden, a deficit I plan to remedy shortly. I am also reminded of how grateful I am that, despite suffering from embarrassing vertigo, I can still ride carousels without triggering it. Get spinning!