Liz Christy Garden

I don't generally count community gardens as part of this blog's quest to visit every park in New York City. There are six or seven hundred such gardens all over the five boroughs, and they're fundamentally different from parks. A park, for my purposes, is a space free from motorized traffic and intended at least in part for passive enjoyment. A garden is for growing things, whether for consumption or beauty or education.

I've made exceptions in the past when a community garden has something special about it or something that just appealed to me. The Liz Christy Garden in Manhattan's East Village is special, if only for the distinction of being the city's very first community garden.

Originally the Bowery Houston Community Farm Garden, the Liz Christy Garden was founded in 1973 by urban designer Liz Christy, who headed the city's Open Space Greening Program, and her Green Guerillas community activist group. They went on to create more green spaces around the city.

As City Lore explains: "Three decades into the movement, both the Liz Christy Garden and the Green Guerillas are established organizations that continue to provide leadership. Both welcome new gardeners and guerillas, for, as the gardeners’ orientation brochure so aptly states, 'In the dog-eat-dog world of Mother Nature, the weeds usually win.'"

Original founding member Donald Loggins recounted the garden's origin story to NY1 back on 2021.

When Christy died in 1985 the garden was renamed in her honor.

Community gardens often have charming disjunctions, like a path where brick-shaped blocks give way to larger, square slabs of bluestone or just find themselves in a bit a jumble. These bricks were repurposed from the buildings that once stood on the plot.

Unexpected details, like a dollar bill posted on a birdhouse or an antique birdbath on a stump, contribute to the character of places like this.

Wildlife is limited in community gardens because of their small size. Mostly you'll come upon birds, chipmunks, and squirrels. (And rats.) But if you're lucky you may come upon a human perched on a bench concealed by the dense flora. And if you're quiet you might even spot an individual maintaining the garden. Take photos and tread with caution, though, as these creatures are often shy.

The Liz Christy Garden also has a pond that is said to support fish, turtles, and frogs.

With its lush plantings and surprising seclusion this garden can offer a few minutes of nature and whimsy – things we city folk can all use more of.

All photos © Oren Hope

First Street Green Art Park

An "oasis of art." That's how UP Magazine, which covers street art and graffiti, describes First Street Green Art Park on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Also known as First Street Green Cultural Park, this strip of green space is festooned with striking murals, curated by grassroots creative activist Jonathan Neville.

First Street Green is "a non-profit collaboration," masterminded by design and architecture firm TODO DA, "with the goal of converting a seemingly derelict lot of land located at 33 East 1st Street from an inaccessible, garbage-strewn, rat-infested piece of 'vacant' land into an active public space." It prioritizes emerging local arts organizations and artists.

At one time there was a website at firststreetgreenpark.org. The website has expired. That seems almost fitting. This site should be experienced in person.

Much of the park, including all of the paved portion of the irregularly shaped parcel, is at present devoted to the memory of actor and East Village art scene icon Patti Astor and Fun Gallery, the influential showplace she founded in the early 1980s.

Is some of this stuff a bit over the top? Maybe. But then, so was Patti Astor, as I understand it. And after all, as William Butler Yeats once said, "If you don't express yourself you walk after you're dead. The great thing is to go empty to your grave."

All photos © Oren Hope

Spring Street Park

There's a large triangle at Spring Street and Sixth Avenue that I always think of as Christmas Tree Park because years ago a Christmas tree vendor would set up shop there. Once called, variously, Soho Square and Hudson Square Plaza, in 2018 it reopened after a $5.5 million renovation under the name Spring Street Park.

As most New Yorkers know, Sixth Avenue in Manhattan has two names. In 1945 the city, under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, designated the busy thoroughfare "Avenue of the Americas," "to honor pan-American ideals and principles" and perhaps in recognition of the selection of New York City as the home of the United Nations.

The name never totally caught on; some buildings and businesses use it, others don't. But either way, Spring Street Park houses one of six statues of Latin American heroes erected along the Avenue.

Here, then, is a backlit General José Artigas (1764-1850), the Uruguayan independence hero.

The original cast of the statue, by José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín (1891-1975), has stood in Montevideo for the past 75 years.

Facing north, toward the wide end of the triangle:

And facing south:

The unusual backless benches (with under-bench lighting) and squarish metal swivel chairs are interesting features.

Another are the "moonlighting" lamps, atop tall posts, intended to create a moonlight effect in the light and shadows on the ground.

Plain old London plane trees, among the thousands throughout the city, dominate the canopy, but not exclusively.

The renovation also included, according to DNAInfo, "anti-flooding infrastructure allowing the absorption of 1,140 percent more storm water."

My reason for walking through Spring Street Park is almost always because it's just around the corner from HERE Arts Center, where I've seen many shows (including some great puppet theater) over the years. But if puppets aren't your bag, maybe you're in the market for a Ducati racing motorcycle.

Where better to race noisy bikes, after all, than down Avenue of the Americas with its verdant parks and wide-open lanes?

I'm kidding, of course. But a walk along lower Sixth Avenue repays the urban adventurer seeking a bit of respite from the city's craziness.

All photos © Oren Hope except where noted

Ferry Point Park

Ferry Point Park in the Throgs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx is named for the ferries that used to traverse the waters between Queens and the Bronx. It's a nice bit of synchronicity, then, that the latest addition to the 21st-century NYC Ferry network is an extension of the Soundview line to a dock right here.

Today's ferry takes you north along the Harlem River, past populated Roosevelt Island, scenic Randalls Island with its athletic fields and urban farm, uninhabited North Brother Island and South Brother Island (pictured below), and Rikers Island with its sprawl of jails.

North Brother Island

South Brother Island

Then it motors eastward through the crooked East River, under the flight path of the planes landing at Laguardia Airport (also in sight), until the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge looms overhead and the final landing is reached.

And just like that: Welcome to the Bronx.

But where to go first? Randomly deciding, we turned right, toward the bridge.

This turned out to be the picturesque – and desolate – end of the park.

Worn stairways lead up to a fence behind which cricket players labored under the blaring sun (we got a better look at them later).

Continuing toward the bridge, the gravel path parallels a stretch of sandy, stony, debris-strewn beach.

The towers of Manhattan lie sprinkled in a line in the distance.

Away from the water a patch of forest rises.

As we approached the bridge, it looked like the end of the line.

But up ahead we encountered a lone man fishing, who told us we could skirt the fence and continue past the bridge.

Sure enough, a wider stretch of beach opened, with several more fisherfolk at work.

This, finally, was the last accessible stretch of coastline in this direction. So we reversed course back toward the dock, and then hiked up through some trees. There we found the cricket field.

The paved path heads north alongside Westchester Creek. Westchester Creek is a tidal inlet of the East River that runs northward, narrows, and then disappears near Herbert H. Lehman High School. In earlier times the creek extended further north; Westchester Square, the first permanent European settlement in the Bronx, is said to have been founded at the then-head of the creek. Westchester Square is still the name of a neighborhood there.

Ferry Point Park, though, abuts the waterway's mouth, where it's far wider than what one normally thinks of as a "creek." On a hot day, the water looks appealing. But best leave the swimming to the ducks.

On the open fields along this more heavily used part of the park, cricket gives way to soccer, the dominant language is Spanish, and the dominant moods are "party" and "family."

The non-sports action was in the field, by the parking lot, and by the water.

What looked like some sort of closed-up bandstand stood empty. But it's not a bandstand. It is, The City reported, NYC's "most expensive park bathroom ever," constructed over 12 years at a cost of $4.7 million – a cost that City Council Member Joe Borelli described in a most interesting formulation as "borderline astronomical."

Other dominant moods: "beach." And blowing bubbles.

Ferry Point Park is easily big enough to find solitude, though, should that be your desire.

Either way, the park can be enjoyed at minimal or zero cost, whether you drive, cycle, scoot, skate, or sail in as we did.

The same can't be said of the adjoining public golf course, completed about 10 years ago on a former landfill site and recently renamed Bally's Golf Links as part of New York City's divestiture of connections to a certain real estate demagogue. The first part of the park, which opened as such in 1941, got an upgrade when the golf course opened.

However unfortunate the course's former association with Donald Trump, it was "inspired by the rolling hills of Scotland and designed by golf legend Jack Nicklaus," according to the Parks Department website.

But wait a minute, you say. Isn't Bally's a gambling company?

Bingo! Bally's hopes, as reported by the Bronx Times, "to build an integrated resort that combines the existing golf course with a first-class hotel and spa, banquet and events center, and a new gaming facility" that would occupy a part of the current golfing grounds outside the course itself. Stay tuned.

The website also states that including the golf course, Ferry Point Park is about half the size of Central Park. Not too shabby.

In May the park hosted the Bronx County Fair, which included a carnival ride called Alien Abduction.

"It’s pretty crowded, a little unorganized," raved one Fair attendee, who had brought her five-year-old son.

All photos © Oren Hope except where noted