COVIDiary: Masked and On Foot

One thing I've been doing during the pandemic is walking for miles. Here are some of the highlights:

The 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library

A small park near the American Museum of Natural History

Week in Seven Words #471

arrival
I need to curb my impatience and allow him to arrive at an answer. He needs to think quietly, then have the time to explain and evaluate his conclusions. I don't want to immediately jump in and tell him what's wrong. He needs to work through it.

disengaged
For most of that one day, I look at the rest of the world as if from another dimension.

pigeons
As she walks, she tosses crumbs from a plastic bag. Pigeons fly in from all around. Their wings make splatting sounds, and they land in a bristling crowd on the sidewalk.

selfies
There's a cleft in the rock, and it overlooks water, trees, and shimmering buildings. People take turns standing in it for selfies. It's practically a photo booth.

squirming
They negotiate eating a pizza outdoors, in an atmosphere of tension and discontent. The seats are uncomfortable. The napkins fly off.

stark
She's unliked, unloved. Maybe deep down she realizes how much, and it hurts to see.

stentorian
A woman uses a bullhorn to remind the kids on the playground, "Keep your coats on."

Wave Hill: January 2013 and June 2019

There's a beautiful set of gardens in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx overlooking the Hudson River: Wave Hill. I was there once, several years ago, in January, and twice just this past month.

I'm going to share some photos of what it looks like in winter vs. late spring/early summer.

First Hike of Spring (Bronxville to Valhalla, NY)

Two Sundays ago (3/24), I joined a group for a hike along the Bronx River Parkway in Westchester from Bronxville to Valhalla (where there are no dead Vikings feasting).

The border between winter in spring is very brown. Though even with few leaves and flowers, the landscape can still be beautiful.






Our lunch stop was in Scarsdale, which is a pretty town.



We walked through some of the residential neighborhoods where the homes have a variety of architectural styles.





However, the most impressive structure wasn't in Scarsdale but in Valhalla: the Kensico Dam.




In total, it was about 12 miles on a day when the temperature climbed from the low 30s in the morning to the mid 50s in the afternoon and stayed sunny, for the most part. A satisfying walk.

Week in Seven Words #444

accompany
When we take the dog for a walk, she trots open-mouthed, tongue lolling, and glances behind her every minute or so to check that we're all still there, not just the person holding the leash, but all of us, her pack of humans.

café
Ice crackling in a plastic cup, silverware rattling, a stream of tables with people chattering.

frantically
A dog tied outside the grocery store lurches to the end of his leash with eyes popping as each person who isn't his owner emerges.

gouache
The river is pink, gray, and yellow as the day fades.

masking
Her bright anecdotes are a barely adequate cover for her unease.

opposite
When she takes my passport photo, she tells me not to smile, so of course I smile and have a hard time stopping.

snaking
It's a sinuous trail. It dips in and out of the trees, bumps against the water, then flings itself inland through tall grass.

Floating Pumpkins, the Battle of Fort Washington, and Autumn Foliage

Two recent NYC parks events worth noting –

One was on 10/28 and involved a flotilla of pumpkins tugged across the Harlem Meer in Central Park by two people in kayaks.



Here is the flotilla getting set up, around sunset.



A little earlier, I had walked around some other parts of Central Park, including the Reservoir:


This brilliant glow was in a clearing a little north of the Reservoir:


Without meaning to, I detoured to the northwest of the park, where The Pool is especially lovely in autumn:


And I crossed east again, to where the Harlem Meer is, through the North Woods:

Flirting With Heatstroke: Two Hikes on 90-Degree Days

Drinking a lot of water and using sun protection (hat, sunscreen, long light sleeves) made these hikes bearable. So did the fact that we stuck as much as possible to shade and enjoyed a leisurely lunch break among trees. Still, I'd never hiked in such weather, and I found the most difficult part was the air. It's more difficult to breathe and sometimes felt like inhaling cotton.

That said, I'm glad I went on these two hikes: one outside of NYC, and the other entirely in it. Both of them with Shorewalkers.

Ossining and New Croton Dam Loop

This hike, which was roughly 13 miles, started and ended at the Metro North station for Ossining, NY and included a visit to the New Croton Dam. Much of the hike was on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail.



Where we spotted deer at one point.

New York City Sites for the Fourth of July (All Five Boroughs)

If you're visiting New York City around the Fourth of July (or want to go armchair traveling), and you're interested in American history, this is the post for you. These sites are either connected to the American Revolution or show something of NYC's colonial period.

This list is limited to sites I have visited (so you won't see a photo from the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene, for instance). For each site, I also mention other neighborhood attractions. Enjoy!

The Bronx

Stockbridge Indian Memorial (Van Cortlandt Park)



You'll find this memorial in the northeast part of Van Cortlandt Park. It's a tribute to a group of Native Americans, allied with the colonists, who died in August 1778 in a clash with an overwhelmingly larger number of British and Hessian troops. (Here's an article that goes into greater depth about the Stockbridge-Mohican community.)

In the neighborhood: Van Cortlandt Park is massive (one of the city's largest parks) and has golf courses, sports fields, and miles of hiking trails. The Van Cortlandt House Museum on the west side of the park dates from the 18th century, and during the Revolutionary War, both Washington and General William Howe, the commander of the British troops, made use of it. If you're in the area, you can also visit Woodlawn Cemetery, where a variety of historic figures are buried. The cemetery is close to the east side of the park.

Kingsland Wildflowers: A Little Greenpoint Surprise

Last Sunday, I visited the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn for the first time. They had an Open Studios event where local artists allowed visitors to stop by and look at their ongoing work.

I found myself less interested in the art than in just walking around the neighborhood.

One highlight was Kingsland Wildflowers, a small, scrappy oasis in a heavily industrial section of Greenpoint.

On Open Studios day, people were out on their fourth floor terrace and the rooftop garden sketching.



Some were strolling.


The metallic domes in the background are from the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The neighborhood is also home to multiple scrap metal yards. Kingsland Wildflowers fits in to this theme of renewal, reuse, and reclamation.

Some Jewish Culture and a Walk up Manhattan's East Side

This past Sunday, I took a tour of the Museum at Eldridge Street, or the Eldridge Street Synagogue. There's still a small active Orthodox Jewish congregation there, but its purpose is mainly to preserve a critical part of the Jewish culture that flourished in Manhattan's Lower East Side from the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century.

This grand synagogue opened in 1887, and the congregants were Jews from Eastern Europe. It's a beautiful example of Moorish Revival architecture.


The congregation began to see a decline in the 1920s when the US enacted immigration quotas that hit hard at people trying to come in from Eastern and Southern Europe. As Jewish families moved out of the Lower East Side, newer immigrants weren't coming in to replace them and maintain a steady level of congregants at the synagogue.

In the 1950s, the main sanctuary was closed off, and the few congregants used only the Beit Midrash (a smaller room for religious worship and study). A restoration project began in the 1980s and was completed in 2007.

Earth Day walk

It started at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn, where there's a memorial for WWII.


Then south to Borough Hall, where I joined a walking group. We headed west into Brooklyn Heights to look out over the East River.

Five Short Stories Set on Staten Island

Staten Island is an underrated borough, sometimes talked about as if it's basically a landfill with some homes. However, there are beautiful places on the island, like these:





And there are plenty of interesting stories to be told there. The ones here are from a collection called Staten Island Noir (part of the Akashic Books noir series, which collects stories about crime and mystery from around the world...). So all of the stories here are dark in nature. A couple are quite funny though. And yes, a landfill plays an important role in a couple of them too (that's inevitable, for Staten Island).

Dyker Heights and Its Extravagant Lights

Yesterday evening I joined a local branch of the Appalachian Mountain Club on a walk that had nothing to do with mountains, forests, or hiking trails - it took us through Dyker Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn known for its elaborate display of Christmas lights and general winter holiday decorations (like smiling snowmen waving from front lawns).

Halibut Point State Park is Amazing

In early September, I went on a vacation for a few days to Boston and to some of the towns within commuting distance, including Rockport on the Cape Ann Peninsula. The highlight in Rockport was walking from the center of town to Halibut Point State Park.

It used to be a granite quarry, and the quarry is full of water now. It's stunning.


Along with walking around the quarry, you can look out over the ocean.


And head down to a beach layered in slabs of rock.


Have a picnic here.


The walk to and from town is also wonderful, with beautiful yards and gardens along the way, and openings to the sea that tease the imagination.


I felt lucky to visit these places.

Van Cortlandt Park and a Laura Mvula song

This past Sunday, I went on a hike through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The hike leader also gave a talk on the role the park plays in the city's water supply, and the challenges of supplying water to a city of millions.

This is a memorial on Katonah Avenue, right outside the northeast corner of the park, for tunnel workers who lost their lives building Tunnel #3, a major piece of city water infrastructure.



Some photos from the hike:







Also, because it's summer - and Laura Mvula's "Green Garden" (and its music video) is full of what I like best about summer - I'm sharing it here.

Two Recent Walks: Governors Island and Harlem

Last time I visited Governors Island was five years ago, when it was still in earlier stages of development and pretty eerie. In late June, I took the five-minute ferry trip from Lower Manhattan to walk around it again. There's more going on there now, and it's a lovely place to walk, bike, and picnic, play around on slides or zip-lines, and enjoy some art and history.

Highlights for me included the view of the NYC harbor from the area of the island known as The Hills. (The crowd of people in pink clothes were attending Pinknic, a rosé wine festival.)



Another part of the island I enjoyed was the small urban farm and composting center. I was happy to see birds that aren't pigeons.

Hike from GWB to Piermont, NY

Last Sunday, I went on a hike that started at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Upper Manhattan and ended roughly 18 miles later in the village of Piermont, NY. Most of the hike took place on the Long Path trail through the New Jersey Palisades, and some of it also cut through Tallman Mountain State Park.

The hike was challenging mostly because of some steep parts and many places where the trail was rough. The weather turned out great, sunny but not too hot.

Here are some photo highlights: