Prospect: A Year in the Park

'The Umpteenth Snowstorm,' a storybook for mommies

(Based on a walk in the snow five days ago, which is the snowstorm before the one happening right now, and with apologies to Ezra Jack Keats--and blame assigned to "Go the F**k to Sleep.")

 

It was the Umpteenth Snowstorm, and Mommy and I went to the Dylan Stewart Playground in Prospect Park.

Mommy, can we go to the playground, I asked?

No, not yet, Mommy said. It's covered with snow.

You could sit on the benches, Mommy, while I run and play!

No, said Mommy, my bottom would get wet and frozen. Look, they're covered with snow.

 

I could swing on the swings, I said!

No, said Mommy, then your bottom would get wet and frozen. Now come on, let's get home, your nose is running onto your snowsuit.

 

I could slide on the slides, I said!

No, said Mommy, they're covered with snow, too. Let's go, I'm freezing.

 

We could run on the soccer fields, I said!

NO, said Mommy, they look like the freakin' North Pole!

Daddy says you only use that word when you want to say another word that's a bad word, I said.

Put down that damn snow, said Mommy, or you'll hear some more bad words.

Look, Mommy, I said, somebody left a bottle in the middle of the street! They're not supposed to litter, they should have recycled it!

And then Mommy grabbed the bottle and opened it and tried to get out the very last drop. "That's a good goddam brand of tequila," she said.

Ew, Mommy, I said, that's gross! You said we should never share sippy cups!

And that was our adventure in the Umpteenth Snowstorm.

Splashpad!

The ice rink at Lakeside is fine, but its summer incarnation—a "water feature" called the Splashpad—is simply paradise: a walk-in orgy of aquatic sensory overload. I was sidelined, since I was over 18 and unaccompanied by a child under 12. I thought of kidnapping the nearest child but refrained.

 

The black marble perimeter magically pulses out arching jets of water, which fascinate and sometimes alarm the small fry. This is already revealing itself to be a design flaw: Everyone wants to jump and run on it, and since it's slippery, this could involve head-cracking, so the boss must routinely bawl over the PA, in no-nonsense Brooklynese, that there is NO RUNNING ON THE "BENCHES."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The few inches of water underfoot are precisely the right depth for babies, a thought that came unbidden after the previous day's heartbreak in the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So many buckets, so little time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Brooklyn, where water play may require some accommodations, like shower caps for cornrows or frum long-sleeved swim dresses for modesty.  No problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most glorious freedom at Splashpad, however, is the right to bear arms—the kind that can't do anything but cool you down. The armamentarium last Sunday ranged from pistols...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...to super-soakers...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...to artillery worthy of a Bruce Willis movie. This guy walked onto the pad with the swagger of an action hero...

 

...but appeared to surrender manfully to a little girl, which is classy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Splashpad is big enough for everyone to do his or her own thing, whether it's zooming through the jets...or peacefully face-planting in the coolness. 

 

 

Printed matter

What's 17 degrees to an intrepid urban walker? Especially when the walk involves a 10-minute skibble from my parked car to the lake's edge?

 

I headed out with a goal: to take pictures of ducks. (Because a cynical college student across the ocean reduces this entire enterprise to "taking pictures of ducks," and I wanted to prove that the game was still afoot.) But the edge of the lake was devoid of ducks; perhaps they were clustered in the open water in the distance, with the gulls that reeled and landed there. Between us was an expanse of freshly snow-blanketed ice. 

It was impossibly quiet, except for a jay and cardinal flashing blue and red in dense bare brush. Both complained while pecking like woodpeckers at branches. Look, guys, 10 blocks away there is a feeder stuffed with expensive seeds, and nobody's eating it but boring house sparrows; what are you waiting for, a written invitation?

 

 

 

All the birds seemed ravenous, including this wee white-throated sparrow, who was foraging near the lake's edge. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Near the shore, two sets of tracks criss-crossed (squirrel and raccoon?), then one set went on alone around the phragmites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How cold was it? There were fewer joggers than stroller moms, testimony to just how cabin-fevered you can get in deep winter with a toddler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A jet overhead appeared ghostly and translucent. I longed to get a wheeling white gull in the same shot, but my fingers were starting to freeze right through my gloves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So...no ducks today, dear Daughter, but the game, as it were, is still afoot!

 

Cold heart, hot soup

The weather warmed to 50 after last week's "polar vortex," but the lake was a patchwork of open water and ice, swirled among the lovely little islands by its southern shore. The question is, What kind of idiot busts up and casts off an ice rescue ladder? May he (probably a he, methinks) never know what it is to need one that isn't there.

 

The phragmites and the winter-white sky lay reflected in the melting top layer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry from a winter walk? Stride for 5 minutes to the section of Church Avenue just south of the Parade Grounds (i.e. "our neck of the woods") and you'll find a burgeoning restaurant row: the pizzeria Wheated, a nouvelle-Southern spot called Dogwood, Am Thai, the kid-friendly cafe Lark, and now a bakery outpost of The Farm on Adderly (that star of the fragile gentrification hub a few blocks still further south on Cortelyou Road).

 

 

 

 

This newest spot, between Stratford and Westminster Roads, has no sign yet but is apparently named Nine Chains (above). There, Daughter and I enjoyed a succulent brownie, coffee, and this gorgeous beet soup with potatoes. The scant four sitting spots encourage meeting and chatting with neighbors (which happened). If spots this trendy had been common on this side of the park 28 years ago, we never would have been able to afford the Crazy Stable...and they're still too pricey for our routine patronage. But they're delightful to have nearby for the occasional treat or meet-up, and along this particular corridor (for decades, close to a retail dead zone), the most gentrification-fearing stalwart would be hard-pressed to object to good hot soup and bread, even the artisanal kind. I wish them luck.

Freeze frame

Not all the ice action is happening at the new Lakeside rink. From blogger-buddy Chris Kreussling comes this spectacular shot of the Fallkill Falls; kudos to him for venturing deep into the park's woodsy heart to capture it.

 

Here is a wintry shot of the falls in 1896. The Fallkill is the source for the Park's flowing water; it was restored in 1998, with manyof its boulders set carefully back into their original places.

Original photograph courtesy of The Brooklyn Historical Society. Digital copy available at the Prospect Park Archives.

 

Pretty slick

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.

Technicolor time-lapse

October 28, 2013.

November 7, 2013.

This is the pristine southern entrance to the new Lakeside area--pristine because it remains fenced off to the public. The garden design is beautiful, done with a painterly eye to composition as well as color. In nine days, the golds and reds appear to have fallen into the undergrowth, where they keep up a dull radiance; soon, that flame will go out, too.

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.

 

Quiet riot

I confess: I've been avoiding Sakura Matsuri, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's cherry-blossom festival, for awhile now. In the rare years (like this one) when the blossoms manage to coincide with the event, it's mobbed; when the blossoms are too early or already underfoot, it's still mobbed. The point of "hanami" ("flower viewing") is admittedly to party; apparently there's a Japanese saying, "Dumplings rather than flowers." But the last time we went, we even waited 40 minutes for a Bento box.

But I won't miss the annual "running of the perennials": the BBG Members' Preview of their annual plant sale. At 4:30 sharp, garden loons descend with rusty red Radio Flyer wagons on the Cherry Esplanade, which was still madly blossoming yesterday after last weekend's orgy of hanamania. Young children did backflips on the tender grass; older ones, like mine, were pressganged into helping plant-crazed parents haul their loot.

 

 

 

I got heucheras, which thrive in my shady, arid problem patches, and 3 different kinds of cherry tomatos, because the big beefy heirlooms keep dying tragically in midseason of unnamed diseases. There's also a rose geranium and an alpine strawberry in there, an Asian eggplant and a "Labrador violet," which is dainty and not at all like a goofy drooling dog.

 

 

 

 

 

It was just about the quintessence of spring, this last day of April—cool breeze, fresh green, and overhead the lavish blooms that my college-bound daughter described at age 5 as looking like "the trees were wearing fluffy pink sweaters." And now, to kill those plants.

All photographs Brenda L. Becker

Yours cordially, God

Prospect Park West, April 27

Spring is the Period

Express from God.

Among the other seasons

Himself abide,

But during March and April

None stir abroad

Without a cordial interview

With God.

--Emily Dickinson