Prospect: A Year in the Park

Our collective propensity to forget

The day before yesterday, August 27, was the 238th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, which raged right through Prospect Park. I've written about it here and here, but for a rich and thought-provoking account that asks a key question—"Why the hell is there almost no sign of such a historic battle right in the middle of Brooklyn?"—go here.

 

Detail, 1776 map of Battle of Brooklyn, NY Public Library

 

My easy answer is, because we got our butts kicked (although, as historians remind us, thanks to a magnificently executed retreat, the patriots "lived to fight another day." Well, some of them did, who weren't cut to pieces by the British and Hessians.) The piece, by Ben Nadler and Oksana Mironova of Urban Omnibus ("an online publication dedicated to defining and enriching the culture of citymaking") goes deeper, and examines why Prospect Park boasts just three obscure monuments to its blood-soaked Revolutionary past, all clustered in the leafy glade of Battle Pass (better known as "the East Drive sort of behind the Zoo"). The answers pull in a whole bunch of issues around how we memorialize violence and war, how we pay for parks, and what is demanded by human bones beneath our feet. They wrap it up beautifully, thus:

Olmsted and Vaux’s intention for Battle Pass — topographical preservation, without an ornate memorial — contrasts with commemorations of wars fought beyond the borders of Brooklyn, like the Civil War memorial arch in Grand Army Plaza or the WWI memorial at Lakeside. The Battle Pass approach allows for more open-ended interpretations of history than these nationalistic monuments, but the simplicity of Battle Pass dissatisfied future generations, and more visible memorials were added to supplement Olmsted and Vaux’s memorialization by preservation. Their intention, to imbue an active public space with historical memory, is perhaps too understated to confront our collective propensity to forget. Still, Battle Pass can serve as a prompt to consider how to keep sites of historical memory in the public sphere. If we seek to remember through monumentality, yet fear entrusting our monuments to the private or commercial sphere, we must consider what it means to preserve and act as stewards for our collective history.

 

Turbo-spring

Two weeks of late May mysteriously land in the middle of March, and I manage not to get over to the park more than once or twice. The reason: My own garden has been bursting out and yelling at me to perform every manner of service for it. A dozen rosebushes alone have been screeching to be pruned, and without the excuse of being miserable in the cold, I have been their slave.

But I've got to get over there because all sorts of stuff is going on. From my front porch, I can see that the trees are greening up, smudged with verdant pastel, a full month ahead of schedule. And that's not all.

* The Lakeside project is shaping up to be pretty damn amazing. Here's the Animated Architect Sketch; I love the snowy part, and the part where the trees drop down magically on Music Island. And the part at the very beginning where the Robert Moses crap building just disappears. (Thanks to the Q at Parkside blog for the heads-up.)

* The "Googa-Mooga" festival is stirring wild interest among the hip; it's some sort of food and music fest on May 19 and 20 that mysteriously, while "free," requires a ticket of extraordinary scarcity. Spouse has managed to acquire at least one of these prized tickets, which has him very excited even though we have yet to learn what bands are playing. Oh well: The festival's website proclaims that "food is the new rock," so we can dance along to the artisanal pickles.)

 
  * And on March 31, the Carousel reopens for its hundredth anniversary. It's been given a nice tune-up by Todd W. Goings, a carousel doctor (what a dream job!), nicely profiled here. (Photo, right: Chester Higgins, New York Times)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* At the Prospect Park Zoo, the Golden Tamarins have a wee baby riding around on their blond backs. (Photo: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS)

 

 

Meanwhile, check out a nicely researched gem on the park's mysterious Vale of Cashmere at the wonderful history blog of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklynology. This is the long-gone "Children's Shelter." The Vale, that haunted and troubled gem, looks very different than the playground envisioned by Vaux and Olmsted. Time to get over there and see for myself.

And we can stay all day

The Prospect Park Zoo on Friday, where the California sea lions charmed an admiring cross-section of Brooklyn.

 

A cool and competent-looking Daughter was on duty at her volunteer job; over the summer, in this zoo of intimate scale, she has forged a deep empathy with a number of unlikely creatures. Her favorite, the inscrutable Slow Loris, lives in too much darkness to photograph. But she is also fond (who isn't?) of the zany meerkats.

 

As daughter helped little kids stencil their favorite animals, I peered up into the Great Horned Owl's lair. This guy stared down at my face with implacable fury, as if my nose were a snack but for the glass between us.

Nearby, these cockatoos cuddled like living Peeps.

In the petting barn, Daughter loves the simplicity of this "Baby Doll" sheep named Ginger, a stumpy blob of grubby fleece.

And, incredibly, she has forgiven Loki the Alpaca, who gurgled and then spat squarely on her nose on her first day of work. Mother has not forgiven, you sneaky sleazeball.

When Daughter got off work, we nabbed a bag of Popeye's chicken, ate it in the park, and walked home on a perfect late-summer evening.

Spooky treats for chubby cats

My park walk fell victim to the ever-shifting logistics of parenthood today; I hope someone got out there and enjoyed the sun. Meanwhile, I have got to get the family over to the Prospect Park Zoo to see these outrageous "Pallas cats." They look like a cross between furry beach balls, owls, and Oscar the Grouch, and their keepers have given them a jack-o-lantern with the very best kind of treat inside: the kind that's crunchy and creamy, with a tail. In the full video here, you can watch "Nicholas" savor Vanilla Mousie Surprise after fishing it out of the pumpkin. (And to think I was going to buy boring old Snickers and Reese's for the trick-or-treaters at the CrazyStable! This is much more our style.)

A Brooklyn kid remembers 'the sad ark'

Missed a park visit Thursday, for the usual dumb reasons. Now that it's colder, more willpower is required. To tide ourselves over, here's a fine undated photo (1940s? 50s?) of the Prospect Park Zoo in its rather woeful middle incarnation (after the Victorian menagerie had been replaced by the current WPA-era structures, but before its 1993 renaissance as a humane, education-centered delight).

Image: Brooklyn Public Library archive

Love the expression on that parkie's face. (Compare to sea lion interaction with today's zoo staff here!)  For a brief, marvelous memoir of the zoo in 1965, go here and listen as big-hearted* Brooklyn lawyer Kenneth P. Nolan recalls a summer job from hell that turned into something more:

So for minimum wage, a whopping $1.25 an hour, I cleaned tables, prepared food and watched the thousands—blacks, Puerto Ricans, Hasidic Jews, ethnic whites like myself—pour into this Depression era zoo on hot weekends because they had nowhere else to go. With their kids running wild, they would stare at the two pathetic polar bears or the unlucky seals in their pool or walk through the stench of the monkey house where an old Parkie would whistle and one mischievous monkey would hurl a piece of apple at the people. He rarely missed. He was the good one. The bad monkey pissed on the visitors.

Rebuilt in 1935, the zoo was like Noah’s ark, only sad.

The piece deepens into a wise, funny, and poignant sketch of a lost time and place, much rougher in some ways (certainly on the animals) but far more civil in others. *(Mr. Nolan walks the walk when it comes to Brooklyn nostalgia, not least as a staunch supporter of Holy Name, his old Catholic parochial school, now attended by our daughter.) The story is on a site of non-fiction tales called Mr. Beller's Neighborhood that is new to me, but I will be returning there often. Like Nolan, I come from Irish forebears for whom "a story never loses."

Roo the day

How did it escape my attention that there is a Brooklyn-bred baby kangaroo in the Prospect Park Zoo? Thanks to Gowanus Lounge for alerting us to the naming contest for Pal Joey here; I have submitted "Willink," after the Dutch farmers who owned the land hereabouts. (No word yet on whether the baby, who emerged from Mom's pouch last December, is a boy or girl.) On today's visit, the little shaver spent most of its time with its head in the chow bucket; the 'roos here are basically hopping around right in front of you, a few yards behind some light fencing, with only a mutual respect for the social contract keeping them apart from their human observers.

Nearby, the porcupines were splayed in Jabba-the-Hut-like splendor; one companionably scratched the other's back, which is quite a trick if you have quills.

Does this girl look like a bronze statue, or what? Just before we left, it was sea lion feeding time. (If I ever get too old and jaded to love sea lion feeding time, just take me out and tip me over a cliff.)

 

      

This shot inspired Child and myself to craft our first contribution to our cheap daily fix of idiotic cuteness, I Can Has Cheezburger. If you haven't had the Cheezburger experience, well...it's, um, funny pictures of cats and walruses and stuff, with babytalk captions in fractured syntax. Like this. Hey, if this week has taught us anything, it has taught us that there are worse ways to get your kicks than "LOLcats"!

Jumpgate

Fascinating discoveries on a slushy grey afternoon, and I didn't even make it past the subway station.

My plan was to get off the train 2 stops early and hike home through the picturesque snow from the park's eponymous station at the intersection of Flatbush and Ocean Avenues. Discovering that the snow had turned to drizzle, I decided to "do" the station instead...





...especially after encountering this
"gorgeous mosaic" on the mezzanine. It's called "Brighton Clay Re-Leaf Nos. 1-4, 1994" and was made by artist Susan Tunick; turns out the MTA has a nice web page for every piece of its subway art.
Unfortunately, the rest of this 1905 station is less sparkly and inviting, despite ambitious attempts at renovation over the years; I would have photographed some radical peeling paint, but the knot of surly young persons congregating in front of it deterred me.

The turnstiles are in an above-ground station house whose entry plaza remains awkward and forbidding despite this lovely gateway with its inviting reminder of the nearby Prospect Park Zoo.

The entrance is flanked by a zoo-fantasy mural that must have radiated childish charm when first painted, but is now flaking and graffiti-scarred. Even the decals for the B and Q lines are peeling off, and some enterprising can scavenger has stowed his or her cart in the cul-de-sac.

This karma of failed gateway grandeur extends like a mild curse to the surrounding area at the park's southeastern border. The Bond Bread clocktower, now a ruin, presides over a beer distributor and "Phat Albert Warehouse." Around the corner, in what should be a prime location opposite the park, is a cheesy furniture outlet; nearby, Empire Boulevard presents a vista of fast-food outlets. And of course, just blocks away stand the dismal apartment houses that replaced the holy ground of vanished Ebbets Field. It is as if Flatbush Avenue, having marched proudly between the green flanks of Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, sort of slumps into a gritty urban crouch as it enters Flatbush proper, before soldiering on southward to the sea.

And of course, it was at this very stop that the most hideous accident in New York's subway history took place--the Malbone Street wreck. And that is a story for another time.

Whose woods these are

This morning was apocalyptically dark...thunder in January? Between bouts of torrential rain, I decided to check out some denizens who like it wet.

En route, I walked along Flatbush Avenue and gazed into the deep woods on the park's eastern border. Well, they seem like deep woods, until one spies a car flickering past on the East Drive. I could have entered through any one of a half-dozen breaks in the fence to well-worn shortcut footpaths (I believe they call these "desire lines"), but it looked a tad deserted. Okay, as deserted as Mordor before the Hobbits got there. Sylvan isolation in the Catskills, say, is without menace (unless you have watched too much Blair Witch Project); in the city, it still gives me pause, no matter what ComStat says.

Ah, but some folks were having a grand day already. Here, hours before opening, was a sea lion and his keeper in the Zoo (easily visible through the fence), polishing up the act with the old morning bucket o'herring. Several young ladies were already waiting on the whiskery dudes before most of us were at our desks; somehow, I was put in mind of long-suffering admin assists fetching coffee for a barking boss. (A boss who had to point his flippers the right way before he got that cuppa joe, however.) CORRECTION: An astute reader points out that the sea lions at PPZ are all female...so make that "The Pinniped Wears Prada."

NEW FEATURE: TWIPP

Every Friday, I promise an exciting new bonus at AYITP: 'This Weekend in Prospect Park.' Not a comprehensive calendar (for that, go here), just whatever intrigues me. Like:

* Moonlight Ride. On Saturday night, Time's Up (the enviro-activist group) sponsors a ride from 9 to 10 p.m. open to cyclists and "skilled skaters." Bring a bike with lights and warm clothes, and meet at Grand Army Plaza at 9. (They do one of these a month; I will wait for spring.)

* Nature walk. Saturdays and Sundays, 3 to 4 p.m., from the Audubon Center; look for birds and the source of the Lullwater with a naturalist guide.