Sutton Place Park

Checking Google Maps to remind myself where Greenacre Park was in preparation for my recent visit there, I noticed a tiny sliver of green all the way to the east, hugging the FDR Drive between 53rd and 54th Streets. Couldn't be a park, I thought. But I zoomed in, and sure enough:

Sutton Place Park is indeed tiny, but it's a park all right.

Complete with landscaping, a curved path, plants and flowers, and locals relaxing and walking dogs, Sutton Place Park (or Sutton Place Park South, to distinguish it from Sutton Place's enclosed vest-pocket parks) is dedicated to landscape architect Clara Coffey (1894–1982), who became the Parks Department's Chief of Tree Plantings in 1936.

Coffey supervised numerous landscaping projects, including the Park Avenue Malls. At the base of a handsome urn decorated with Greek-style reliefs in a small garden (a onetime sandbox) in Sutton Place Park, a stone plaque commemorates her work.

There's even an armillary sundial (or armillary sphere), like the one on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade but more ornate. Albert Stewart designed it, inspired by Ancient Greek astronomical models.

Look out over the East River and you'll see Roosevelt Island's Smallpox Memorial Hospital, which is just north of Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the southern tip of that island, and beyond it the now landmarked Pepsi sign just north of Gantry Plaza State Park, where a landing just opened for the newest NYC Ferry line, the Astoria Route.

Everywhere you look in New York City, there's a park. And another park beyond that one. And another one beyond that.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Greenacre Park

"Greenacre Park." Sounds homespun and country-ish, right? But Greenancre Park in East Midtown Manhattan is exactly the opposite: planned, artsy, sculptured to within an inch of its life. And yet a peaceful oasis of relief in a busy, blocky neighborhood with very few such.

Upon entering you're greeted with a block-paved plaza with tables. It looks more like a sparsely furnished outdoor cafe than a park. And, in fact, a prominent sign points you to Carol's Cafe, a refreshment window tucked into the southwestern corner.

Carol's Cafe, Greenacre Park, morning. (It gets busier at lunchtime.)

But step in a little further, keep your ears open, and the park's most unusual feature begins to dominate: a loud, 25-foot-high, granite waterfall, really a water sculpture. The mechanism pumps 2,500 gallons of water per minute to keep the roaring sheet of liquid in action.

The raised terrace under the trellis roof on the west side is part of Hideo Sasaki's design, which reflects – to my unpracticed eye, anyway – a Japanese influence. The layout of the park's mere one-seventh of an acre "conveys an impression of far greater size through a series of well-defined, separate spaces, lush planting, textural variation, and the dramatic use of water," according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation.

The terrace offers a view of the waterfall from above. amNewYork's Mark Chiusano interviewed me here for the article about Park Odyssey he wrote for the paper a few weeks ago, and was kind enough to pose for my camera before I did so for his.

The water theme extends to a stream that runs along the edge, visible clearly from the street but easy to miss amid the raucous excitement of the waterfall.

Privately owned and managed by the Greenacre Foundation, the park opened in 1971 on East 51st St. between Second and Third Avenues with the hope that the people of New York City "will find here some moments of serenity in this busy world" in the words of the founder, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé.

I had been by a few times before, but the park had always turned out to be closed. It's open from March to December, but not late into the evening. Google tells me the hours are 8AM to 8PM, but I recommend stopping by during business hours on a weekday, when you can observe not only the park but some of the people who work in the neighborhood taking a well-deserved artificial-nature break – and take one yourself.

Walk close to the waterfall and I can almost guarantee you won't hear a spit of noise from the street.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Macri Triangle

As I endeavor to visit every park in New York City, I bring you via this blog the beautiful and the interesting, the time-honored and the new, the vast and the pocket-sized. I also find among the city's green and open spaces the neglected and the sad. Case in point: Macri Triangle, in one of the not-so-hipster-cool parts of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Two things appear to be of note. First, there's a memorial to "the men of this community who made the supreme sacrifice in World War II." Most of the names are Italian, reflecting the composition of the community in the 1940s.

The other item also indicates a heavy Italian-American presence – and the dwindling thereof too. It's an overgrown bocce court.

The little park is not being entirely ignored. A website called Friends of Macri Triangle Park asks residents to "Join us in working together for our lovely little triangle park" and "Help us fix up that amazing – but seriously dilapidated – bocce court." The group formed just recently, in the fall of 2016, when it held a "family fun day" and clean-up event. Perhaps things are looking up for Macri Triangle.

A couple of new plantings offer a glimmer of hope.

Still, when we visited on a weekend afternoon in July, we were met with this sad sight:

It's hard to get more pitiful than a "lock" improvised from rope and duct tape. It did seem to be having the desired effect, though – no one was inside. Not that there was any reason to be. Benches line the sidewalks around the park, which sits by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. But there's no real seating inside, nothing to do (at least until that bocce court gets revived), and nothing nice even to look at, aside from the memorial.

Even the Parks Department website offers no historical information on Macri Triangle. It took me some digital digging to come up with a 2009 article that mentioned the park's creation "in 1946 from land seized by the city in the aftermath of the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway." The Courier-Life piece also tells us that after the park had been neglected for decades, in 1990 Assemblyman Joseph Lentol got funding to build the bocce court, "though fewer people use the court for bocce these days" as "[t]he demographic that might play bocce is moving out of the neighborhood and going to Long Island and other places where rent is cheaper."

As recently as 2008, a blogger described Macri Triangle as "well kept-up and is a rather nice little park," and presented photos to prove it. But it quickly declined, and a 2014 presentation described it as "Not Cared for" and "Not Inviting."

A nearby gay bar, Macri Park, shares the name. But where that name came from – who Macri was – my internet search has not revealed; if you know, please leave a comment!

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Brooklyn Bridge Park South

So much has been added to Brooklyn Bridge Park over the past few years that a fresh visit reveals a whole new park – or really a string of small parks.

For a good view of them from above, see my recent post about the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. For a snapshot of Brooklyn Bridge Park's older, northern section four years ago, take a look back in time. To delve inside the newer stretches, read on.

The park now encompasses Pier 6, Pier 5, Pier 2, and various tracts between. Pier 6 is also where Brooklynites can catch the Governors Island Ferry.

Parts of the park have been landscaped with so much greenery you could forget you're in the city – if not for the waterside and skyline views.

There's a lot for children and families here, and not one, not two, but three soccer fields on Pier 5.

But there's also plenty of green grass and peaceful spots for quieter adult pleasures. And lots more room to breathe than in the DUMBO section of the park, not mention at places like Coney Island.

For good measure, we headed to the northern section to see the park's newest art feature, Anish Kapoor's Descension whirlpool, at Pier 1, where it will remain until 10 September 2017.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media

Brooklyn Heights Promenade in Full

Recently I discovered that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade was actually a park. That day I didn't have time to walk its full length. I hereby remedy that. Here's the southern entrance.

A quick look south offers a good view of Tom Fruin's steel and plexiglass sculpture Watertower 3: RV Ingersoll.

Instead of industrial or undeveloped waterfront, the view now takes in the manifold segments of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

There's even a swimming pool now.

But cast your eye inward and there are picturesque sights closer to hand, like beds of greenery, flowers, and a pleasingly curvilinear entrance to the promenade.

Two-thirds of a century old, the Promenade remains a felicitous place to just sit and enjoy the air and the views.

You can even watch kayak polo.

The lower Manhattan skyline as seen from the Promenade is an ever-popular backdrop for photographers and filmmakers.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media