Finding an Old Growth Forest in Manhattan

Tags

history of new york city, inwood hill park, manhattan, new york city, nyc parks, photography

The best thing about moving to a new neighborhood is exploring. A few weeks ago, I dove into the depths of Inwood Hill Park, a 200-acre park at the northwestern tip of Manhattan, about ten blocks north of my apartment. I’d heard, “Be careful, it’s lightly traveled, be alert.” But I finally got fed up with being worried about what might or might not happened if I went for a walk. So who did I meet? Dog walkers, some joggers, couples on romantic strolls and a dad taking his toddler for a walk. Not so fearsome after all!

Best of all, I discovered a fantastic new place.

This is a thickly forested park, hilly and rocky, and contains the last old growth forest in Manhattan. It’s full of birds and small mammals, secluded and beautiful. Just the place to take a walk to clear your head.

Inwood Hill Park is shaped like a big comma. Here it is seen from the north, with the Hudson River on the right (west) and the Harlem River at the bottom of the photo (north). Henry Hudson Bridge is in the foreground, connecting Manhattan to the Bronx. The rest of Manhattan stretches south into the distance. The area where the two rivers join is home to the last saltwater marsh in Manhattan, which attracts diverse bird life.

Although the Henry Hudson Parkway runs right through the park, you wouldn’t know it. It’s separated from the rest of the park by a cliff, which muffles the sound if you’re in the valley to the east. A few ballfields and meadows are the only landscaped areas in the park. As you can see, it’s almost completely forested. This photo shows how unexpectedly green Upper Manhattan is!

Here’s a short video I shot of the old growth forest, with a few details of its history.

There’s a long legacy of Native American tribes in this area. As legend has it, the agreement that passed Manhattan from the Lenape Indians to the Dutch (in exchange for trade goods valued at 60 guilders) was made here in 1626. The Lenape, an Algonquin tribe, are the original New Yorkers, and lived here for about 10,000 years before the Europeans showed up and ruined everything for them. “Manhattan” is derived from the Lenape “Mannahatta,” which means, “Island of Many Hills.”

Here’s a look at the “Indian Caves,” in the valley that’s now called The Clove. The Indian Caves aren’t really caves, they’ve more like overhangs, and were probably used for resting, not living. Bits of pottery and detritus from hunting have been found here.

The topography is a result of shifting glaciers.

There are at least three freshwater springs in the park, and the high canopy, dense underbrush, extensive shelter and lack of predators make it ideal for wildlife. This is a prime birding spot in Manhattan, especially during migration, since the thick forest is perfect for resting and foraging. Over 200 species either live here or pass through annually. Small mammals love it here, too. Skunks, raccoons, bats, groundhogs and lots of squirrels and other small rodents are common. I’m still hoping to see a rabbit. The forest is lightly traveled by people, and dogs are not allowed off the leash.

Here’s a link to the NYC Audubon site if you’d like to know more about birding in this park.

Even under the Henry Hudson Bridge, it’s beautiful. Some paths are cut into the cliffs and take you high above the rivers.

Kids in the Bronx jump off this cliff into the Harlem river. The C is for Columbia University, which has a campus nearby. This is the point where the Hudson and Harlem rivers meet.

As I began exploring Inwood Hill Park, I started reading a fantastic book that helped me learn about Manhattan’s ecological history, “Mannahatta” by Eric W. Sanderson. It’s an amazing resource, investigating the biological diversity that flourished here before the city developed.

The best part about Inwood Hill Park is that it’s simply here, that this forest actually survived. It’s great to know that if I need a break from the city, I can wander through the woods for a little while and experience a whole different kind of Manhattan.

Meandering Around Munich

Tags

germany, munich, photography, travel

Last week, Tom and I were in Germany to attend my youngest cousin Christina’s wedding, which took place just outside of Munich. We spent a week in the city, wandering all around, Tom sampling wurst for the first time, me chowing down on as many pretzels as possible.

Here we are in Marienplatz.

I love the dragon that’s climbing up the side of the building. What’s he doing there?

We visited a few churches.

And admired the beautiful details on the exteriors of buildings.

We stopped for lunch one day in this oh-so-Bavarian spot

and on another day, visited one of my favorite museums, Lehnbachhaus, full of phenomenal work by German Expressionists.

I liked the details I found as we wandered around the city.

 

And had a sudden urge to jump on a bike.

We saw so many beautiful doors. This one had leather inserts.

These two belonged to a church.

One afternoon, we went out to the Olympic Stadium.

And finally, the wedding! Notice the Lederhosen sported by the band. Fun was had by all!

And then it was time to go home again. A short but sweet trip!

Visiting the Olympic Peninsula and the Hoh Rainforest

Tags

Hoh rainforest, Lake Quinault, olympic peninsula, photography, rain forest, Ruby Beach, toy cameras, travel, washington state

In September 2012, Tom and I visited the west coast. After spending a few fun days in Vancouver, we drove south, hopped on a ferry to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and spent two days driving around.

What attracted me to the Olympic Peninsula was the Hoh Rainforest near Forks. I’d never walked through a rainforest. And how does a rain forest end up here, anyway? This is the wettest part of the U.S., at about 175 inches of precipitation a year.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think it through when it came to choosing a camera. I wanted to shoot with my Diana camera. Rain forests are not bright and sunny places, and even with 400 speed film, the widest aperture and the accident of a sunny day, this gorgeously murky forest was way too dark for my camera. The three shots below were the only ones on the entire roll that managed to materialize. Don’t you hate it when stuff like that happens? Live and learn.

Here are two shots from my phone. What a place! Even on a sunny day, perfect for a spooky fairy tale.

Of course, my Nikon had no trouble at all. The root systems of these enormous trees were incredible.

After the forest, we headed south to Ruby Beach, known for its wildly photogenic appeal. No disappointment there. What a beautiful spot. My Diana cameras had a field day in the bright light.

We stopped for lunch next to this driftwood-filled bay.

By afternoon, we’d arrived at Lake Quinault, where we took another stroll in the woods. This was also considered a rainforest, but was quite different from the first, dense and scrubby and not as mossy, although the trees were still skyscrapers.

We spent our last evening at the lovely Lake Quinault. This photo was shot from the restaurant where we watched the sun set while eating dinner, before heading north and home. A memorable trip.

 

 

 

 

Are You Where You Think You Are?

Tags

fort tryon park, hudson heights, manhattan, new york city, photography, travel, washington heights

Where do you live? Do you feel that you know your town or city well? Really well? Can you find your way through the short cuts, do you know the nooks and crannies? I thought I knew where I lived. But did I?

Here’s a place I discovered this year. Where do you think we are? This beautiful overlook faces a long, wide river.

This winding path is perfect for an afternoon walk.

Look how lush it is here, even in the fall.

Where is this forest?

And this street, flanked by a tall wall of rock?

Hmm, what’s this I see? It seems to be a subway entrance punched into the rock.

Yep, we’re in Manhattan.

This is my new neighborhood, Hudson Heights, and we just took a stroll through Fort Tryon Park, which is right outside my front door. Here’s a post I wrote last spring, on my first recon mission to the neighborhood to check it out as a possible place to live.

When most of us think of New York City, we think of skyscrapers and crowds of people and concrete and noise. What I didn’t discover until recently is that New York City has a flip side: 38,000 acres of parkland, leading the country in parkland as a percentage of city area at 19.5% of the city’s land.

Northern Manhattan, where I’m now living, has more than 500 acres of parkland between 155th Street and 220th Street, made up of 5 major parks and 9 miles of shoreline, including Manhattan’s last stand of virgin forest and the last remnant of the tidal marshes that once surrounded the island. Last Saturday morning as I woke up, I heard a red-tailed hawk screeching. I looked out the window and there he was, circling my apartment building with a friend.

It’s fun to be surprised.

Farewell, Sweet Little Gardens

Tags

alphabet city, art, east village, gardening, gardens, maps, new york city, photography, sketchbook

I finally closed on my new apartment, so I’ll be heading uptown later this week and moving in. One thing I’ll miss in the East Village is the plethora of community gardens. I thought it would be fun to sing a farewell love song to Alphabet City, an ode to the gorgeous oases that dot its streets. (If you don’t know where this area is, here’s a little help.)

I drew a map of the neighborhood’s community gardens. Look at them all. Amazing! Each is named. Some are over 35 years old.

When I first started wandering around the hood on my morning walks, I was surprised by the number of gardens. I’d never seen so many gardens in one area before, a number of them mature and substantial. After all, NYC real estate is valuable, and I wondered how these patches of community-supported soil had managed to stave off man’s irrepressible impulse to claim and build, not to mention the city’s ability to use “eminent domain” to seize any patch of earth it chooses.

The story of the development of these gardens is long and rich. In the 1960s and 70s, this part of the city was deeply neglected, falling prey to crime and slumlords. A number of buildings were destroyed by arsonists. The city razed these buildings, leaving open land, and since the neighborhood was dangerous and destitute, there was no interest in rebuilding.

In 1973, Liz Christy, an artist and activist, founded an environmental group called the Green Guerillas. They began by throwing “seed bombs” over the fences surrounding the lots, packed with seeds, fertilizer and water. She caught the attention of the city’s Parks Department, who leased her an empty lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston Streets for $1 a month. This became the Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden, the first community garden in the city. It eventually contained 60 vegetable beds and inspired a horticultural revolution.

In 1978, the GreenThumb program was born, which encouraged neighborhood groups to lease land parcels for sometimes as little as a dollar a year. This program was intended to encourage grassroots neighborhood revitalization and was wildly successful. The catch? The gardens created were considered temporary and the city still retained rights over the land. This concept hummed along nicely until the 1990s, when the city decided it wanted to sell some of the gardens to developers to shore up the budget. By this point, the gardens had become such an integral part of their neighborhoods that the prospect of losing them was unthinkable. This being New York, all hell broke loose.

The Attorney General had to step in to broker a deal. One of the key players in that deal was Bette Midler, who, appalled at the lack of community green space in the city, had founded the New York Restoration Project a few years earlier. Her group bought 52 of the gardens outright. Of the 520 gardens in the city at that time, 400 were saved, many becoming permanent as part of the Parks Department.

Today, NYC has about 640 community gardens scattered among the five boroughs, with about 60 clustered in the East Village and Lower East Side. The gardens boast 20,000 members; the gardens themselves make up about 32 acres. Wow! is all I can say. Each garden hosts events and workshops and all are open to the public.

The garden below is a tiny sliver of land, yet it explodes with greenery.

Each garden has its own sign.

A bonus of the gardens is that lucky apartment dwellers can look out their windows and instead of seeing other buildings, they see trees.

Mural and garden and comfy bench! Does it get any better?

Some gardens contain sculptures, decorative nicknacks, or someone’s latest creative installation.

These lots once represented the detritus of a neighborhood under siege. It’s amazing to see how the concentrated work of determined visionaries was able to utterly turn around this devastation and from it, create not just a sense of community, but a vital part of the local culture that brings people together with a sense of purpose and joy.

Today, it’s thrilling to walk in Alphabet City and stumble on these lush pockets of green, welcoming anyone to sit down and take a deep breath. I’ll miss them on my morning walks, but I’ll be back often to wander among them again.

Meeting the Murals of Alphabet City

Tags

alphabet city, art, murals, new york city, photography, street art, travel

Recently, I moved to a new neighborhood, heading from the Upper East Side of Manhattan about five miles south. I’m now living on 14th Street, perched on the northern edge of Alphabet City, the easternmost part of the East Village.

As in most neighborhoods in New York City, its rich history can be told through the waves of immigrants who moved through its tenement buildings, churches, shops and parks. In a future post I’ll talk about that, but for now I’d like to highlight something that I love about the neighborhood: its incredible number and variety of murals.

If the Upper East Side is personified by wealthy Ladies Who Lunch turned out flawlessly in their expensive attire, Alphabet City is an unacknowledged twice-removed cousin, a street smart girl in a brightly colored dress with tattered shoes and a slew of tattoos. The word most often used to describe the East Village is “bohemian,” and the neighborhood likes to deliver. Alphabet City displays this spirit in its dozens of amazing murals.

Murals are so deeply embedded in the neighborhood’s culture that many businesses use them to advertise themselves and to become part of the street art. Here’s a favorite, a local vet clinic. Look at the detail! It’s painted with such care.

Some murals mix up with graffiti to become a kind of hybrid. They’re so vibrant.

Of course each mural has a story, especially the commemorative murals. I looked up Eva and learned all about an artist I’d never heard of after I saw this mural.

Throughout the city, at the end of the work day, store fronts pull down a metal gate for security. In Alphabet City, these gates are prime real estate for murals. Businesses use them for self promotion and graffiti artists use them for tagging (or sometimes both). Since I take early morning walks, all of the gates are down, delivering maximum mural impact.

Some murals leave me mystified. What’s the story here? I can’t remember which store is behind this gate, but I like the birds.

Other murals are hilarious. “Bad Pussies” cracks me up every time.

I like the way that the murals casually integrate themselves into the buildings.

They’re everywhere!

All of these photos are from a stroll down Avenue B and up Avenue C. Just the tip of the iceberg! It’s such fun to stumble on new murals as I explore the neighborhood.

Lazy Days of Summer

Tags

beach, black and white, landscape, long island, ny, photography, summer

Inside Central Park: The Arcade at Bethesda Terrace

Tags

bethesda terrace, central park, interior design, minton tiles, murals, new york, photography, the arcade, travel

One of the prettiest places to visit in Central Park is Bethesda Terrace. When the park was designed, the Terrace was intended as a place where people could congregate, a spot to see and be seen. It is still considered the heart of the park.

The Terrace divides into an upper and a lower level, with flanking staircases connecting the two. I was shooting the carvings in the east staircase’s balustrades here, but you can see the Terrace below with its fountain on the right. Beyond is the Lake and the woods of the Ramble.

It’s a great spot for a pinhole photo. Here we are looking south from the Terrace into the entrance of the Arcade.

What’s the Arcade, you ask? It’s the passageway under 72nd Street from the street level to the terrace. A wide central staircase descends from above and takes you down into its shadowy depths. The Arcade is amazing.

Handcrafted art surrounds you.

Bethesda Terrace and the Arcade were one of the first structures built in Central Park, begun in 1860. One of the most beautiful features of the Arcade, which is easy to miss if you’re distracted by the murals and the gorgeous architecture, is its spectacular Minton Tile ceiling. The ceiling, designed by the British architect and designer Jacob Wrey Mould, who also designed the Terrace’s decorative carvings, was installed in 1869.

The ceiling is made up of 15,000 encaustic tiles produced by England’s famed Minton Tile Company. Encaustic tiles are made by pressing individual colored clays into tiles before firing them, instead of painting on colors with glaze. Each tile is handmade. The Arcade is the only place in the world where Minton tiles are used to decorate a ceiling.

The ceiling is divided into 49 panels, each containing 324 tiles featuring floral motifs and geometrical forms. There are only two panel designs; the difference is found in the center tile, which is either a small rosette or a large pinwheel.

How much do 15,000 tiles weigh? Oh, about 50 tons. After a hundred years, the ceiling began to fail and in 1987, the tiles were removed. Happily, the ceiling was fully restored in 2007.

In 1991, the walls of the Arcade were painted in 24 trompe l’oeil panels of Botticino marble designed to look like inlays and bas-reliefs. The compositions were inspired by the original ornamental designs of the Terrace’s staircase panels and from sketches completed by one of the Park’s architects, Calvert Vaux.

The artist who completed this work, which is now sadly deteriorating, is Lucretia Moroni, who studied under Lorenzo Mongiardino, one of the most famous decorative painters in the world. The panel below is a flat surface. Many of these murals were vandalized by graffiti artists in 2009 and subsequently cleaned, which may have weakened the paint.

 

 

 

 

 

What I like best about the Arcade is how well it fulfills its intention. It was designed to act as a counterpoint to the open, bright, bustling terrace outside, to serve as a quiet, ornate space. And it does. Its confines create a hushed, dim gallery, a burst of colorful art above and all around, with quiet corners full of visual surprises. It’s like briefly diving underwater, an unexpected reprieve before once again entering the busy park that surrounds it.

A Quick Trip to Toronto

Tags

architecture, black and white, bricks, canada, cn tower, ontario, photography, toronto, travel

Last Christmas, Tom gave me a gift of a long weekend in Toronto, Ontario, and last weekend, we made the trip.

On Friday, we hopped on our flight out of Newark, NJ at 10:30 a.m. and touched down in Toronto before noon. A quick drop off of the luggage at our hotel, and we were walking toward Little Italy in no time, the perfect place to be on Good Friday. As we ate our lunch, we watched the crowds gather for the annual Easter Parade, while the parade’s Grand Marshall enjoyed his pasta across the room.

The audience is gathering on College Avenue.

On Saturday, we jumped onto a streetcar for a ride downtown from our hotel on West Queen Street West. The route we took, the 501, is almost 25 km of track from start to finish. The streetcars, nicknamed Red Rockets, are gorgeous! I like the complicated wires they create overhead. (This was shot on Sunday, on Spadina Avenue looking south.)

We were headed toward the Distillery District. As we entered the District, we were greeted by these two sculptures. They remind me of the creatures that came to life in Guillermo del Toro’s movie “Pan’s Labyrinth.” I wouldn’t want to meet either in a dark alley.

The Distillery District is a group of 47 Victorian industrial buildings, once known as the Gooderham & Worts Distillery. The buildings were carefully restored a decade ago using 19th century materials merged with modern materials and green technologies. Today, the District is a wildly popular cultural center, housing theaters, design shops, art galleries, and restaurants. It’s beautiful!

Did you notice that the buildings are made of brick?

Because Toronto is built on a former lake bed (it’s perched on the edge of Lake Ontario), brick has always been cheap and plentiful. Don Valley Brick Works, which is now closed, provided bricks for thousands of commercial, industrial and residential structures in the city. Today, brick is still the most popular choice for residential construction.

We noticed the brickwork right away. On the street, these two beauties caught my eye.

Although brick is a simple, humble material, masons use it with great skill to create architectural interest with clever use of pattern, direction, texture and color.

Look at this! Bricks in a circle, bricks stepping down, arching over a door, playing horizontal movement against vertical, you name it.

The same techniques used on simple houses are used on fancy ones. An equal opportunity material! On this modest home, notice the way the teeth of the pattern wrap around the side of the house, how altering the brick’s direction creates architectural interest over the windows and how base of the house lifts up by using lighter bricks below.

On this grand house, some of the same methods are used but with more detail, along with horizontal bands and playful patterns below the edge of the roof.

It looks like these neighbors couldn’t agree on the preferred design.

We stayed in the Art and Design District, formerly a derelict part of the city, resuscitated  by artists 25 years ago. Today, it houses the largest concentration of art galleries in the city, along with a slew of little shops, bar, clubs, restaurants, and the Musuem of Contemporary Canadian Art.

I liked the murals that were scattered along the streets and alleyways.

One of the things that we noticed about Toronto is that much of its original architecture is in place. Although there are plenty of shiny new high rises, many of its industrial buildings have been restored for commercial and residential use, while the hundreds of three-story mixed use buildings that line the avenues have been neglected instead of replaced. It makes for a dynamic combination of old and new.

This former industrial buildings is now full of residential lofts.

The warmth and history of the neighborhoods are preserved with the survival of these quietly worn little store fronts (notice the brick!)

On Sunday, we enjoyed a tasty brunch before heading over to Kensington Market. Kensington Market is a living history of Toronto’s reputation as one of the most multicultural cities in the world. The market is a dynamic mish mash of spice stores, fruit and vegetable stands, clothing and vintage shops, restaurants and cafes. Unfortunately, on Easter Sunday morning, it was quiet as a mouse, so back on the streetcar we went, making our way toward the CN Tower, which looms over the downtown core.

At 1,814 feet, the Tower is the fifth largest freestanding structures in the world. Originally conceived as a telecommunications tower, somebody woke up and smelled the money and realized it would be a great tourist destination. Thus modified, it now attracts millions of visitors a year. No big surprise, since the views are incredible.

Looking to the northeast, straight into the downtown center.

Looking west, that’s Lake Ontario.

Then it was time to head back home. Even though we saw only small slices of this city, the biggest in Canada, we loved its warmth, friendliness, diversity, great transit system and good food. We’ll be back.

Travel Sketchbook: Mapping it Out

Tags

art, Australia, drawing, florida keys, france, italy, maps, sketchbook, sydney, travel, uae

I’ve been keeping a travel sketchbook for twelve years now. No matter where I go, one kind of drawing that makes it into almost every trip is a little map.

Drawing out excursions, whether made by foot, boat, train, car or plane, helps to remind me of the little moments that I might otherwise forget. It also helps me to understand the geography of where I’m traveling. By looking at other maps to guide me as I draw, I learn more about the place I’m visiting.

Here’s a little map of a walk I took in Sydney, Australia.

Sometimes I’ll start off a trip with a global map to emphasize the distance traveled.

Or an overall view of the destination.

At other times I’ll document a small excursion, like this London walk…

or a particularly memorable day, which in this case was a day spent puttering around Sydney Harbor in a little motorboat.

I draw with a black pen, filling in with Prismacolor pencils. I like Prismas because they’re waxy, they don’t bleed if they get wet, and the colors can be blended, so I need to bring only ten colors along.

Sometimes I’ll draw the route of a long drive. This is on the North Island of New Zealand.

This was my path by train through Italy to the French Alps in 2004.

In 2006 it was off to Australia again. My sister lived there at the time, and this was my third visit. This is Magnetic Island, off the eastern coast of Australia, near Port Douglas. My sister and her husband owned a house there for a few years. Koala bears perched in the trees, Kookaburras visited us in the morning for their ground beef treats and a bird called the Bush Stone Curlew screamed all night long. Quite a memorable trip.

In 2007, we planned a family trip through Scotland and the UK. My black pen was on its last legs.

2007 was a fun year. In the fall, I went to Australia again. We planned on visiting Ayers Rock, now called Uluru. Where is it again? Oh, right, smack in the middle of nowhere.

While on our way to Uluru, we visited the gorges of the West MacDonnell Range, a beautiful area near Alice Springs.

Here I tracked the routes we skied over four days in Zermatt, Switzerland in 2008.

By 2010, my sister had moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Abu Where? Notice that the Persian Gulf is named the Arabian Gulf from this vantage point.

Abu Dhabi is an unusual city, composed of a group of natural and manmade islands.

In 2010, off to Florence!

I tried to keep a daily record of our epic treks around Florence. It got a bit messy! Sometimes it’s good to know when to start a new map.

And to close, our drive on our most recent vacation to Vancouver and the Olympic Peninsula. May there be many more maps in the future!