Exploring NYC through 26 words
At the confluence of the Hudson and East Rivers, in New York Harbor, sits Governors Island. A mystery to most New Yorkers, the Island served as the longest continuously active military post in the United States, from 1794 until 1997.
Today I visited Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, NY. This sprawling public park was once the site of the 1939 and 1964-65 World’s Fair.
View full album of photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/abecedariumnyc/Vaticinate
Here is an example of Jerry-build in Long Island City. I have watched the progression of this building from the platform of Queensboro Plaza station when waiting for the 7 train.
Fort Totten is the official headquarters of the U.S. Army Reserve’s U.S. 77th Division, the “Statue of Liberty Division”.
Construction began on Fort Totten in 1862 after the land was purchased by the U.S. Government in 1857 from the Willets family. The fort sits on Willets Point, near Bayside in Queens County, New York. The original purpose was to protect the East River approach to New York Harbor, along with Fort Schuyler, which faces it from Throgs Neck on the opposite side of the river entrance. The fort was named in 1898 after Joseph Gilbert Totten.
In 1954, the fort became a Project Nike air defense site. Although no missiles were located at Fort Totten, it was the regional headquarters for the New York area; administrative offices and personnel housing was located at the fort. Fort Totten was also the headquarters for the 66th Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion, Battery D, whose missiles where located at nearby Fort Slocum on Hart Island. This use of Fort Totten was discontinued in 1974.
Much of the fort has become a public park and is open to the people of NYC for tours by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. During the winter months, a large variety of migratory waterfowl can be observed in the surrounding Long Island Sound and Little Neck Bay. Most of the buildings are now run-down and not used. Fort Totten is also a sports complex, as it holds baseball fields and three soccer fields used for youth soccer.
“Originally inhabited by the Weckquaesgeek Tribe, who lived in the area until the early 17th century, this densely forested high ground at the northern end of Manhattan was Lang Bergh or Long Hill to the early Dutch colonists. The Continental Army called the strategic series of posts along the Hudson River Fort Washingtonâ€? during the summer of 1776, until Hessian mercenaries fighting for the British forced the troops to retreat. The British then renamed the area for Sir William Tryon (1729-1788), Major General and the last British governor of colonial New York.”
“Containing one of the highest points in Manhattan, Fort Tryon Park towers above the Hudson River, offering magnificent views of the Palisades and the lower Hudson Valley that challenge the notion that Manhattan’s best vistas are experienced from its skyscrapers.”
– from the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation website >>
Vaticinate: To prophesy; to foretell; to practice prediction; to utter prophecies.
The tippity top of The Bronx? no problem. Fieldston hill here I come.
First, i did a little research here: http://americasroof.com/nyc-bronx.shtml, then i discovered that, for some grand reason, a few members of the bourgeoisie have decided that the tippity top, the culmination, the highest point of the Bronx (with what I imagine will be the best view of the borough and beyond) –will be gated. Off limits. Inaccessible to proles like myself.
I found it ironic, but strangely typical. i debated risking what could have been my second trespassing conviction, (the first was a blueberry patch in upstate New York when i was 16) but my colleagues convinced me that there were other safer, legal alternatives…
I headed to the second highest point in the Bronx, Wave Hill: http://www.wavehill.org/about/history.html
It was beautiful, serene, and far enough away from the city to really feel outside of it (and only a half an hour north from grand central!). I had to keep reminding myself that it was the Bronx.
Before I arrived at Wave Hill park, I had to walk a bit from the train through a little town, which i thought of as a mini-suburbia, but not in that cookie cutter way. The trees were tall and each house was different.
At the park, the gardens were breathtaking, and the staff were helpful and informative. A young gardener pointed me to the highest point in the park – at the wild garden. In between shooting, I admired plant life I’d never encountered, watched bees do their busywork, and contemplated whether i could live this far outside of “the city.” In the end, i think i was sold…
“Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888-1981) first proposed this playground in February 1954. In a letter to the Board of Estimate, he requested the assignment to Parks of “the entire easterly frontage of Sixth Avenue between 55th and 56th Street.” According to the letter, “this parcel is the only vacant area in a densely built-up community in [this] section of Brooklyn and the nearest recreational facilities are over half a mile away.” The Board of Estimate assigned the property to Parks a month later and it became the 56th Street Park In the 1970s, in an effort to revive the deteriorating park, Community Board 7 and other local residents formed the Friends of the 56th Street Park. The group organized a cleanup, initiated supervised play, and banished undesirable elements, all in the hopes of making their park more enjoyable. The organization sponsored a contest to rename the park and “Rainbow Playground” won. A 1984 Local Law formally named it.”
Thinking about the word elutriate in its urban manifestation forces me to reflect in new ways about the awkward intimacy of cleaning our clothes in public. There is an old-fashioned, down-by-the-riverside quality of experience that comes with bringing your clothes to a public place in order to clean them. Some people relish the opportunity to talk to strangers while others turn deeply and painfully into themselves.
I’ve been darting into laundry mats all over Brooklyn snapping pictures. Quick is the key word here, as for some reason not one storefront laundry owner has been even the slightest bit welcoming when it comes to taking pictures in their business. I am not sure if they are worried that I might be from the NYC Department of Health or if they are just camera shy. After one too many evictions, I decided to bring my ten year-old daughter along, and things began to proceed a bit more congenially.
I came across info on this very interesting place in The Bronx: Wave Hill, that may work for Culm.
It is one of the most famous hills in the bronx, although not the exact “culm” (which of course is Fieldston Hill) but there is a botanical garden at the top with apparently fabulous views of the Hudson.
More information here: