Prospect: A Year in the Park

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Save

Save

Breath, taken (Guest Park Edition)

Dreary day, dreary errand. Got off the Q train a stop too early, was aiming for Lexington and 59th. Somehow, remembered that when I get off at the wrong stop, something wonderful often happens, and squared my tired shoulders and slogged up into the light. By some grace, looked immediately to my left.

 

 

 

 

Saw this.

For us Brooklynites who don't work in midtown and live close to Prospect Park, it's easy to kind of forget about Central Park. For those of us history wonks, it's tempting to get uppity and remind people that Central was not Vaux and Olmsted's masterpiece in their own minds; that came later, here in the green heart of Brooklyn. But on a cold, damp day in early May, what a fresh and exquisite vista to greet one upon arising from the subway--almost like a hallucination.

Pan right, slightly; another masterful composition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pan left, and another.

 

From this vantage point, clinging to the stone perimeter of park and subway, one looks around and sees, mostly, the gracious old dowager hotels that line Central Park South; one must go further north and tip back the head to have the treeline punctuated by the repulsive, scary new supertowers rising along "Billionaire's Row" on 57th Street. Here, I merely gave a loving nod to the Plaza, where my father-in-law worked for 50 years and where we spent our wedding night in 1983. I can't imagine anyone ever gazing so fondly some day upon the icy stratospheric sliver of "One 57" and its ilk.

 

BBG Discovery Garden Redux: No place to hide

It was with some trepidation that I visited the new Discovery Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden late in August. The Children's Garden farm--where my tiny daughter leaned over a plot of seeds in "KinderGardeners"--was unchanged, a tangle of crops worthy of Beatrix Potter with the charming cottage at its heart. But the dear little Discovery Garden that used to be at the Flatbush Avenue/Empire Boulevard entrance has been wiped away for a spacious new entry, and a whole new Discovery Garden created.

 

As a former BBG docent ("garden guide"), I still feel a fierce proprietary interest in its every development. I was very underwhelmed by the much-heralded new Visitors' Center, a sprawling vanity project that manages to incorporate every LEED-certified trend while seeming utterly unconnected to the Garden's historic vibe (and, mysteriously, facing the parking lot with a vast swath of blindingly white concrete). I had high hopes for the new Discovery Garden, but it didn't thrill me, frankly.

 

 

 

It's...very educational, I guess, and far better designed for large groups, laid out as a series of environmental habitats. I'll bet they all "align to Common Core standards." The boardwalk-like paths and rope bridges are fun to explore, and I liked this nest with some building materials in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But everywhere there are signs urging you to be a Young Scientist, suggesting questions and experiments like an earnest progressive textbook. This "meadow" seemed more man-made than meadow-like to me. In the Poconos as a kid, I'd wander in meadows for hours on end--they were wild, lush, untracked, humming with life. Wonderful places to dream and do nothing--not even science. Are kids still allowed to just dream in meadows?

 

 

 

 

The pond feature needed some work; I highly approve of investigating pond scum, but at least at this early juncture, the pond seemed without much (at least of the macroscopic variety) to investigate. No fish, frogs or turtles, for sure. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a variety of bug-houses but a warning not to disturb the bugs (good for not getting sued by kids who forgot their Epi-Pen, but not much fun), and a station for adding to the Curiosity Collection, whose display jars were sealed shut. As a kid, my chief private game was something I called "nesting," which consisted of collecting just this sort of thing--but for a fantasy winter survival cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silky, irresistible treasures like these bursting milkweed pods--it will be hard to balance the "hands-on" thing while keeping kids from "harvesting." The whole project, while state-of-the-art in its eco-friendly zeal, was somehow dispiriting. You could get lost in the old kids' exploration area, amid towering hedges and sunflowers; you could stand at a table full of pine cones and, well, mess with pine cones, with no one asking you to sort, hypothesize, or analyze. It was flowery and messy, full of beauty and a bit mysterious.

 

 

 

I guess that's not on the Common Core. Neither is rolling down hills, but the only two kids I saw really enjoying themselves were doing just that.

Chair views: The Fountainheads

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.

Chair views: Pieces of heaven

Second in our Adirondack Chair POV series: the pair facing the exquisitely reconfigured shore of Prospect Park's lake.

From these "Park It" chairs, you turn your back on the raucous fun at the Lakeside Center rink and splashpad, and face a serene shore-scape more in keeping with Adirondacky thoughts. The quote on one chair's plaque reads: "On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.--Jules Renard"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoom in from your perch on a pair of basking turtles. The other chair's quote is from my "Uncle" Walt Whitman, who I'm sure would've loved my telephoto lens: "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars."

Stay tuned for the view from eight more pairs of chairs! French author Jules Renard, by the way, had another quip perfect for chair-lovers: "Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."

Chair Views: Imperfect Refreshment

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.

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.

Skyscapers

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.

Coasting

That's what they used to call it in the old days...and that's how life felt today, as Brooklynites, spared the Biblical Blizzard Wrath they had been promised, headed out into a sparkling afternoon and a foot of fresh powder, freed from school and workplace by the Impending Doom Alerts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hill by the "Grecian Shelter" was a rainbow of people, sleds, saucers, parkas, scarves.

 

 

 

 

Near the frozen lake, a scattering of snowmen had arisen quickly, in a variety of styles. We dubbed this one "The Hipster"...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and this one, a selfie magnet for exuberant young ladies, is definitely The Classic.

 

The world may not have noticed, but this blog has been dormant since last September. Time to jump up!

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.