Queensbridge Park

The largish rectangle of Queensbridge Park lies along the East River under the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge, alias the Queensboro Bridge, alias (though this is an alias no one will ever use) the Ed Koch Bridge. I headed for it following my northward trek from Dutch Kills Green to Sixteen Oaks Grove (aren't those evocative names?). Walking down 21st Street, Long Island City's main drag, I passed this wall of glorious graffiti.

The masked green faces are obviously meant as glam-rock spirits of the New York City parks. Don't you think? I knew you'd agree.

I discovered you can't make your way west to the southern edge of Queensbridge Park along Queens Plaza exactly. You have to cut across a wooded grassland alongside the Queensbridge South housing project, a strange walk through grounds that aren't exactly parkland but aren't developed either.

It's a long, strange trip, a little bit spooky even.

On the left you pass the cutely named but disappointing Queensbridge Baby Park, which alas is just a grungy handball court but for some reason gets its own Parks Department name. In fact, according to the Parks Department website, this facility and thus I assume the whole strange grassland is technically part of Queensbridge Park.

But most of the area along the grassy corridor's left-hand perimeter is closed off, and there must be something really valuable – or really evil – there. I was struck by the incongruity of the friendly Parks Department maple leaf together with the threatening KEEP OUT indicators.

And I hadn't even gotten to the park proper yet. But as I walked, a vista opened up indicating that Queensbridge Park was finally near.

The interior was a hive of activity on this sunny spring weekend, with the smell of cookouts and the sounds of semi-live music.

To go with the many interesting human personalities populating the park, there are bird patterns worked into the backstop fences. I always like these when I come across them in the parks.

And there are some trees with personality, like this one.

But observe the fence in the photo above. It runs alongside the whole riverside edge of the park, keeping visitors from what is to me Queensbridge Park's most significant feature – its waterfront. From a distance, through the fence, you can see how nice it'll be when access is restored.

For now, it's just a dream, as seawall construction continues. The work began in May 2013 and was expected to take a year.

Last year, too, the local City Council member announced funding to renovate the Park House, which, from the outside, is one of the odder-looking buildings you'll see in New York City parks.

You can't get to the water right now, but you can sure see the span that crosses it. Not to mention the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

So give a thought to Queensbridge Park next time you cross the 59th Street Bridge, or just hear the song.

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Dutch Kills Green

Frequently when I seek out a new park it turns out to be dull. A path (well-maintained or otherwise), a few trees, a playground – maybe, if I'm lucky, a boulder or a historic marker. But often, too, the opposite happens: a park in an unpromising location turns out to be something very surprising, a strange treasure.

Such is the case with Dutch Kills Green, a sculptured patch in the midst of Queens Plaza, that wide expanse of traffic lanes and elevated tracks I'd known only as the entry or exit from the 59th Street Bridge. Also called the Queensboro Bridge and now the Ed Koch Bridge, the 59th Street Bridge owes its fame to the classic Simon and Garfunkel song, but is otherwise one of the less celebrated bridges in a burg famous for the Brooklyn, the George Washington and the Verrazano. Yet compared to Queens Plaza, the bridge was a cornucopia of personality and thrills.

A few years ago, though, Queens Plaza underwent a renovation, which gave it a bike path and a 1.5-acre park on the site of a former parking lot. (The NYC Economic Development Corporation website has a photo showing the before-and-after.)

The most remarkable thing about Dutch Kills Green is not its location, though, but its wetland. Yes, right here in Queens you can feel for a moment that you're in the Everglades.

The park also features benches created by artists, a small stone plaza described as an amphitheater (though I didn't identify it as such when I walked through it), lush greenery and flower plantings, and two centuries-old Dutch millstones, formerly buried in a traffic island nearby.

The millstones are not marked, so, not knowing they were anything interesting, I didn't take a photo, but there's one at this Curbed post.

Dutch Kills Green may itself be the ultimate in traffic island transformation.

But inside, though it's small it feels like a true oasis, if a humble one.

For a finishing touch, standing guard over the park is the magnificent old Bank of Manhattan building with its wonderful clock tower. Apparently it is becoming, or has become, a residential rental building, though as a Manhattanite I'm shocked when I hear about any developer being willing to create rental apartments, given how unaffordable this condo-choked city has become even for middle-income people.

For historic photos and clippings about the building, this Flickr page probably can't be beat. But don't just look at pictures – pay a visit to Dutch Kills Green, walk over a real wetland, and witness a small but magical transformation of what had been nothing but pavement. "Once there were parking lots," as Talking Heads (and then Caetano Veloso) sang; "Now it's a peaceful oasis."

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Rainey Park

Last weekend's visit to the weirdness that is Socrates Sculpture Park also included a stop at nearby Rainey Park, whose comparative normalcy was almost a shock.

Between the two parks is a huge Costco, and threaded along the riverfront is a walkway maintained by the retailer for the public. The segment of the public most interested in this amenity seems to be the fishing segment.

While Costco isn't known for aesthetically tasteful facilities, it did invest in some nice "street" lamps for its walkway, which I'm happy to acknowledge here. It wouldn't surprise me if I were the only one ever to do so. But I think picturesque lamps add something significant to an outdoor area.

Speaking of aesthetics, I don't know if they planned it, but this blazing red bush goes well with the Costco-red stripe above it.

Once you come around the corner of the giant building, Rainey Park appears, complete with paved biking and walking paths and its own riverfront amble. This waterfront spot honors Dr. Thomas Rainey, "Father of the Queensboro Bridge," who, beginning after the Civil War, spent decades of effort and money advocating for a bridge across the East River between Manhattan and Queens, a vision finally realized when the Queensboro Bridge (recently rechristened the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge) opened in 1909.

Down on the rocks, a pair of ducks kept watch over their brood of youngsters.

Late-fall foliage clung to some of the trees in mid-November, keeping my mood colorful.

Postscript: The same can't be said, alas, for the streetscape further south in Long Island City near MOMA PS1. After seeing Rainey Park we bussed-then-hiked there for some highfalutin lunch at M. Wells (mine included duck parts, lest you worry that the circle be broken). After lunch we walked by the famous 5Pointz graffiti building, not realizing that just three days later the work created there by hundreds of artists over the past two decades would be summarily whitewashed over in preparation for the tearing down of the building.

According to the owner, the whitewashing is meant to lessen the pain of the demolition, as watching the walls come tumbling down with the art still on them would be too painful to imagine. A fair point. Nonetheless it's a sad end for one of New York City's cultural landmarks.