Riverdale Park

When you think of New York City's pressurized real estate market, the amount of dedicated parkland along New York City's Hudson River shoreline is pretty astounding. There's Robert F. Wagner Park down by the Battery, Rockefeller Park to the north of it, and then Hudson River Park, which snakes its miles-long way up the riverside. Hudson River Park runs into Riverside Park, which continues lining the river all the way up to the West Harlem Piers. Riverbank State Park juts out over the the water, and Riverside Park continues northward to Fort Washington Park, by the Little Red Lighthouse and the George Washington Bridge.

Further up Manhattan we have Fort Tryon Park, and finally, at the tippy-top of the island, Inwood Hill Park with its remnants of old-growth forest. Continue north and cross Spuyten Duyvil Creek into the Bronx, and before you know it, behold: Riverdale Park, hugging the river for more than a mile.

The city began acquiring these stretches of riverfront property as far back as 1888 to preserve them from development. The New York Central Railroad came through in the 1850s, making the Riverdale neighborhood popular among rich folks who wanted summer mansions. Many beautiful houses on scenic properties remain to be gawked at today.

But Riverdale Park is a marked contrast. Note the trail marker: You can hike a marked trail all the way through the long, thin, 144-acre park.

Trains still run through, but for long stretches of your walk, they might be the only sound you hear, aside from birds, small mammalian wildlife, and the occasional urban hiker or dog walker. The Parks Department website notes that 27 species of birds have been confirmed as breeding in Riverdale Park, including the screech owl.

About 50 of the park's acres are forested, according to the Parks Department, but the impression one gets hiking through is that almost of it is wooded. All is definitely green in the height of summer—so much so that only in a few spots can you get a good glimpse of the river.

The above marker notes, I think, a restoration project that has improved the Alder Brook (or Alderbrook) wetland and surrounding forest, unclogging the sediment from the stream, compacting soil, and replacing invasive vegetation with native varieties.

The Wikipedia page on Riverdale Park details the different sections of the park. The information there is all sourced from a "Riverdale Park Map and Guide" published way back in 1984. (And I feel bad about linking to merely 10-year-old posts on this blog!) So take the info with a grain of salt (or a speck of sod). The Wikipedia page itself was only created in 2022, though, so I would guess that the writer knows of what he speaks. Wave Hill, the beautiful "public garden and cultural center" that adjoins the northern part of the park, published the original map and guide.

Sources mention ruins and relics, like lime kilns. If I saw any, they didn't register as such. I did come upon these witchy-looking structures, though. "Welcome!"...but to what? There was no one inside, not that I could see anyway, but I sure didn't dare enter.

The best way to get to Riverdale Park by public transportation is via MetroNorth. The Riverdale station is at the park's northern end. The Spuyten Duyvil station is near the southern, and also near Henry Hudson Park and the Half-Moon Overlook, as well as Villa Charlotte Brontë. (Spuyten Duyvil Park (or Spuyten Duyvil Shorefront Park) is here too, but when I tried to access it I found it closed, or at least the entrance I found was closed—what dangerous mystery lurks within?).

Above: the view from Half-Moon Overlook
Above: A glimpse of Villa Charlotte Brontë, a fanciful apartment building dating from the 1920s

However you go, wear hiking shoes. There's no climbing to speak of, but a walk through Riverdale Park is a walk on a real forest trail.

All photos © Oren Hope

Gotham Park

Brooklyn has Brooklyn Bridge Park. Why shouldn't the Manhattan side of the famous span have a park too? Now it does. As planned, on completion Gotham Park will be "nine acres of joy, discovery and wonder." Quite a claim.

But Gotham Park is a strange beast. Hiding under the bridge's ramps and not really connected to any particular neighborhood (unless you count the great gated compound of 1 Police Plaza as a neighborhood – technically this is Chinatown, I guess, but you wouldn't know it), the new park is not a creature of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation.

Instead, it's the brainchild of the New York Department of Transportation, Trinity Church, two Community Boards, and a nonprofit, with support from the mayor's office.

At the inland end there's an enclave for passive recreation. This is all part of what was once, and can now be again, known as The Arches.

Crossing to the area jutting towards the East River, you find a long banked wall perfect for skateboarders, and a fairly wide brick plaza adjoining the arches themselves. Those arches, according to the master plan, will house additional facilities for the community, including a library branch and a museum.

The facilities available now include basketball, pickleball, and, for some reason, shuffleboard.

Sometimes a bit of whimsical art is just what you need, especially right beside a great big police headquarters.

I've been to well over 300 parks in the course of writing this blog, and this is certainly one of the weirder ones. Unusual location. Unusual layout (determined by the unusual location). Interesting choice of facilities. And an unusual genesis. It's an oddball all right.

A park from an alternate universe?

Still, any place that gets skaters off the sidewalks is all right by me! Welcome back, Brooklyn Bridge Banks.

Also always welcome: touches of whimsy.

All photos © Oren Hope

Orchard Beach in Summer

Park Odyssey's first trip to Orchard Beach was on a chilly spring day in the early throes of the pandemic. We returned this summer for an Urban Park Rangers tide pool walk, which started at the Nature Center. While there, we made it a "beach day" too. Which, for us, usually means an hour or two at most, taking turns going in the water.

Down the middle of the photo below you can see the transition between the sparsely populated section with no lifeguards (on the left) and the crowded part of the beach where the swimming zone starts (on the right). The lifeguards were pretty strict about keeping swimmers out of the water outside the zone.

The beach is a long curve of sand built on landfill at the innermost armpit of Long Island Sound. The water's very calm, with no waves to speak of. And you can go quite far out and it's still only up to your waist.

But back to our main plot: Armed with nets supplied by the Nature Center, our group walked out towards the rocks at a point far from the crowds.

Did this tide-pool excursion mostly draw parents with their kids? Sure. But clearly we, Mr. and Mrs. Odyssey, are in a certain way kids at heart.

After catching, viewing, and releasing a whole assortment of small sea creatures temporarily stranded in tide pools (tiny fish, clams, etc. – even a jellyfish), we took a mini-hike to a spot at the edge of one of the adjacent former islands (now attached by landfill) to look at the hermit crabs scuttling in and out of their holes in the sand.

When the party broke up we headed to the beach to partake of the sun and sand, and do a little "swimming." Other beachgoers, though, were enjoying the grass and trees – or partying like it was Labor Day weekend.

Condé Nast Traveler recently named Orchard Beach one of the best beaches near New York City. But there's a caveat: There are no fewer than 17 beaches on the list. So, is Orchard Beach really New York City's "Riviera"? It depends how far you want to stretch your imagination. For sure, though, the Bronx's only beach stretches a long mile-and-change, fronts swimmable waters, and is absolutely right here in NYC.

All photos © Oren Hope

Luther Gulick Park

On my recent walk from the F train to check out the new elevated section of East River Park by the Williamsburg Bridge, I passed a small neighborhood park I'd been unaware of. And I admit that the first thing that caught my eye about Luther Gulick Park were the bathrooms, set in a friendly, modern structure.

This 1.6-acre Lower East Side park has a playground and courts for basketball and handball.

But it's also a pretty nice place for a break from the urban landscape. The park has well-maintained tree stands and a looping path. In fact, it received a design award from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2021. And just this year, Luther Gulick Park was cited as an example of best practices for designing family-friendly spaces in a report from the New York City Public Design Commission.

I assume the ping-pong tables, and maybe the nice bathroom facilities too, were part of the park's $10 million renovation in 2009–10. That work, according to the press release, "transformed the mostly asphalt site into a lush green park that addresses the needs of the community." The renovation was part of Mayor DeBlasio's Community Parks Initiative.

But who was Luther Gulick? Funny you should ask, because this may be the only New York City park honoring two different people with the same name.

The elder Gulick, Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr. (1865-1918), was a medical doctor and an important figure in the invention of basketball. Also, his "belief in a trilogy of mind, body, and spirit inspired the YMCA’s inverted triangle design," explains the Parks Department. Gulick founded NYC's Public School Athletic League and, with his wife, founded the Camp Fire Girls in 1910, just a year after the foundation of the Boy Scouts. In the early 20th century he served as the head of physical training in NYC's public schools and as president of the American Physical Education Association.

His nephew, Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick (1892-1993), was also a national figure. In 1921 the New York City-based Bureau of City Betterment and its associated Training School of Public Service evolved into the National Institute of Public Administration, later the Institute of Public Administration (IPA). The organization focused on improving cities' administration, and was affiliated over the years with several universities, notably Columbia. A political scientist, the younger Luther Gulick headed the IPA for most of the period between 1921 and 1961.

Alongside its sports and playing areas, Luther Gulick Park has grass, trees, and – in my view, equally important for a New York City park – rocks. Rocks link a park, even if sometimes only symbolically, to the underlying body of the planet. Which city life detaches us from, to our detriment.

Vegetation around the edges gives the park a somewhat secluded feel.

Gravel is something people don't usually think about, but it's important to a lot of parks. Gravel takes you off the hard pavement that dominates our city lives. It's not grass, it's not alive, and it's not exactly soft. But it's not pavement either. Dirt-like, it feels like something natural. And it doesn't require the maintenance that grass does.

Before it was a park, the plot was part of the R. Hoe & Company headquarters. This manufacturer of printing presses and saws had a magnificent factory building.

The New York Public Library Digital Collections

They don't make them like that anymore.

But next time you're on the Lower East Side, whether visiting the newly elevated East River Park, shopping at Essex Market, or climbing the walls at the nearby climbing gym, spare a few minutes for under-appreciated Luther Gulick Park.

All photos © Oren Hope except where noted

John V. Lindsay East River Park: New Elevated Section

After much effort both physical and political, a new raised section of John V. Lindsay East River Park opened this past Memorial Day. When completed, the new park, as part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, should withstand the rising levels and tides of climate change.

Residents and some parks advocates complained as the project was proposed and planned. So many mature tress would be sacrificed. Neighborhood playing fields would vanish for years.

When the new section opened, visitors complained too – this is New York, after all. There's no shade! So much concrete! Plus now, the section north of this one is shut down. All the way up to Stuyvesant Cove.

Well, yes. These huge projects do have to be completed step by step.

Meanwhile, of course there's no shade at this new section by the Williamsburg Bridge: The freshly planted trees are still mere young'uns.

With all its amenities, this piece of riverfront parkland isn't yet connected to adjacent acreage, so as it's fairly far from the subway it's not so easy to get to if you don't live close by.

But lots of people do live close by.

The present access is via a footbridge at the the south side of Delancey Street, hard by the soaring arches of the Williamsburg Bridge itself.

(Biking would be a good option, but not if the biking itself is your reason for going – the bike path within is necessarily a mere stump.)

Once inside, you come upon square stone blocks picturesquely fringing snazzy new basketball courts.

The bridge looms overhead.

Past new plantings and wide grassy fields the Brooklyn skyline rises. That's right – the Brooklyn skyline. Whodathunk? (That tallest building is called Brooklyn Tower. Get used to it. The years when Brooklyn builders weren't allowed to build higher than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower are long past.)

The intervening brick structure in the photo above is the East River Park Fireboat House. The Village Sun reported last year as construction of the park was underway that this "two-story Moderne-style building was erected in 1941 in East River Park for the Fire Department’s Marine Company 66, replacing similar structures that had operated from a pier at the end of Grand Street since 1898." Most recently the building served as the headquarters of our friends at the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

The barbecue area wasn't in use at 10 in the morning on a Sunday. But it's ready.

A handful of people were about. Strolling. Fishing.

The black dog you see in the distance in the next photo ran up to me eagerly, tennis ball in mouth. Dogs, right?

The day was already hot, making this fountain tempting.

The soccer field, baseball field, and tennis courts are already popular. Another complaint: there are only half as many tennis courts as there were before climate change got so urgent. People were already queuing for a court at the Brian Watkins Tennis Center. (It's named for "a Utah tourist and University of Idaho tennis player who was slain in the subway while attending the 1990 U.S. Open," Courts morbidly explains. The Courts article also has some good photos of this part of the park in former days.)

It was a slow Sunday morning. But the amount of trash this worker had collected suggested much heavier recent use of the grounds.

Some doubted whether this park would actually get off the ground – or off sea level, to be precise. Well, it did. And there's clearly much more to come. A small but maybe not insignificant bit of evidence that this chaotic, almost ungovernable city can actually get important things done. Sometimes.

All photos © Oren Hope