Parks

Have you visited the High Line yet? I haven’t but I am looking forward to making the trip in the near future. The High Line is an elevated train track which fell out of use during the 1950s due to the increased use of interstate highways for freight deliveries. In the late nineties, two New Yorkers came together to start Friends of the High Line, a group whose mission was to keep the historic structure from being demolished. Ultimately, the group partnered with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to reinvent the High Line as a public space. Just a couple of weeks ago the first section of the High Line opened up to the public and the city's response has been very positive.

The High Line website offers excellent historical images of the structure and of the surrounding area as it was before the High Line was built. Looking through these great images, I started wondering what kinds of photographs we had in our Digital Gallery of the High Line. Surprisingly, I didn't find anything when searching by its name. There were images from the West Side Improvement Project but all were of locations above 34th Street, which meant, none of the tracks were the High Line. I then remembered that most of our street scene photographs are indexed by cross street. Searching for “Tenth Ave and 15th” I found some Wurts Brother's photographs. Here's the High Line taking its course through the national biscuit company:

This serves as a good reminder to researchers looking for street views of New York City or photographs of New York City buildings in our Digital Gallery. Most often you will not find anything under street addresses or building names (unless they are landmarked or famous). If you don't happen to find photographs for a particular structure you are researching, try searching its cross streets.

But avoid doing too much research this weekend. Go out and visit the High Line if you can!

So the song goes. But may I ask—are you bustin' out all over? If so, it may be time to get moving. Even if you’re smooth, sleek and at your fighting weight, exercise is always a good thing and doing it with others multiplies the enjoyment.

This past Saturday I spent an energizing few hours walking from Manhattan to Ward’s Island, then to Randall’s Island, north to the Triborough Bridge (recently re-named the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) and over it, back to Manhattan. If you didn’t know such a thing were possible, as I hadn’t until I did it, you too might consider taking a walk with the Outdoors Club. Walking with an interesting group of people and a knowledgeable leader greatly enhanced the experience for me.

I learned about the Outdoors Club at the 50+ Fitness Fairs hosted this past April and May at several of the public libraries. If you missed the fairs, you can get the information to start your own physical fitness plan by checking out the websites below. No money? No problem! Many of them offer free activities; others are very low cost.

Bike New York and Transportation Alternatives can tell you where and how to safely ride a bicycle in New York City and its environs besides keeping you up-to-date on cycling-related issues and advocacy. But before you start cycling, be sure to get a free helmet courtesy of the NYC Department of Transportation. Wondering about community gardens and how to get involved with them? The Open Space Greening Program of NYC’s Council on the Environment will give you answers—and gardening is a great way to get in some physical activity while producing something beautiful, and maybe edible. Speaking of beautiful things, I can’t think of a more appealing place to explore than Wave Hill—the Hudson River views, the super-oxygenated air, the flowers, the art, the crafts, the dance, even the urban beekeeping—I could go on and on about the delights of Wave Hill. . .  read more »

What makes stretching out on the Bryant Park Lawn irresistible? This photograph taken in 1925 could easily be a scene of the park today. The similarities, however, would end there considering the Bryant Park depicted in the above photo and the Bryant Park of today. Those of you familiar with the park's evolution know that its history is dappled with periods of renovation and dereliction.  read more »

Yesterday…

…and today!

OK, so this is the thing about which just about all Staten Islanders, no matter what their background or politics, have over the years been least proud. The Fresh Kills Landfill (or as we used to call it, “the dump,”) closed on March 22, 2001, certainly in part as a reward from then mayor Rudy Giuliani to Staten Island for its political support.

The dump opened up in 1948 and was supposed to be temporary. It grew to be by most accounts the largest garbage dump in the world.

I had the pleasure(?!) of growing up about two blocks away from one section of the dump. I can remember before it was there. It was a salt marsh that today we would call wetlands. There was a guy whose nickname was “Yonk” and his family owned horses and a barn, and he used to ride a wagon pulled by horses (I swear this is true!) and harvested the hay to feed his horses. This was in the late 1950s or early 1960s. When they started filling in the area with garbage, some were glad because they felt it would kill the horrible infestations of mosquitos we used to get during the summer. However, the mosquitos didn’t go away, and we had the horrible stench to go along with the skeeters. It was good for weather forcasting, though, as right before it rained it REALLY stunk!

Once they covered the garbage with a dirt layer, however, it became somewhat of an unofficial recreation area. Shallow pools of water quickly froze in the winter and we went ice skating there. Some guys went hunting, sometimes getting pheasants but more likely killing rats and sea gulls. Some went fishing, and some went swimming in the Fresh Kills creek. There was a dock with boats there that pre-dated the dump.

I never ate any fish or animals from the dump, (or went swimming there) but I did eat some vegetables that grew up there. They were pretty good (great fertilizer, I guess) but heaven only knows what kind of chemicals were in them. Well, no apparent effects up to this point!

Today, the West Shore Expressway (Route 440) cuts right through the dump. (It wasnt’t there when I was a kid.) It is amazing how quickly nature took over after the dump closed, along with some human help, to make it look like it does in the second picture above. It is actually quite pretty now. Really! The whole thing is going to be turned into parks. Hope it isn’t the usual city project and takes years and years. I’d like to go up there again before I throw off this mortal coil!