Pier 44 Waterfront Garden

Regular readers know that this blog project isn't only about parks administered by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. My intention is to visit every park within the city limits, whether it's a city park, a state park, a private park, or anything else. All it has to do to count as a park for my purposes is have a name, be bigger than a traffic island, and offer "passive recreation" (that is, it can't be just playgrounds or playing fields).

Though the vast majority of the places I document are New York City parks, two of the parks I recently visited in Red Hook, Brooklyn fall under the rough rubric "private park." I've already described Erie Basin Park, which was created along the water by Ikea when that giant box landed on and blew away the old Todd Shipyard. The second private park, and the final stop on this Red Hook mini-odyssey, is another waterside park hidden away behind a big store: Pier 44 Waterfront Garden, a grassy area nestled picturesquely beside Fairway Market's overflow parking lot.

Opened in 2004 with funding from local developer Greg O'Connell, the Garden is the docking station of the quirky Waterfront Museum, a preserved 1914 barge that's worth a visit on its own.

But its waterside setting and sense of peace give the park its own raison d'être.

A Curbed essay reported last fall that the park didn't appear on Google Maps, but if it didn't then, it does now. Sooner or later Google gets everywhere, doesn't it? (Usually sooner.)

Someone else who seems to get everywhere, at least in this neighborhood, is our friend Greg O'Connell, the developer. Just now I did a Google search for "red hook brooklyn." Look at what (who) popped up when I moused over the pin on the resulting map. Coincidence? (I hadn't even posted this yet.) Or is Google reading our thoughts? Resistance is futile…

We took the water taxi back to Manhattan from the adjacent Fairway Market dock, but not before one final adventure. As the ferry pulled in and unloaded its passengers, one crew member disembarked to wrangle the people waiting to board. All of a sudden the boat backed away from the dock and started heading back across the river, leaving its crewman behind.

After a minute or two, and lots of yelling, the pilot realized his or her mistake and came back for us. Never a dull moment on the high seas of Gotham!

Louis Valentino, Jr. Park and Pier

The high point of our recent mini-odyssey through Red Hook was a sweet waterfront spot called Louis Valentino, Jr. Park and Pier, named for a firefighter who died in the line of duty in 1996. The spot has been a city park since 1999, but known to me only since May 2013, and I'm glad I made its acquaintance.

Historic buildings from the time of the shipping industry have their own picturesque quality.

Back in the 1920s, according to Wikipedia, Red Hook was "the busiest freight port in the world." According to the same entry, though, in 1990 LIFE named the neighborhood "the crack capital of America."

How things do change. And change again. Walking around Red Hook today, you could almost think you're in a hipster tourist town. Follow the signs to the artisanal fun!

In Louis Valentino, Jr. Park is another kind of sign, a historical one that tells us about General George Washington's Fort Defiance, which was located on a nearby island. That garrison didn't have a long life, of course, since the British occupied New York City in late 1776. Still, General Nathanael Greene (one of the Continental Army's few real generals of distinction) called it "a post of vast importance."

Gunfire from the fort's three island redoubts did cause damage to British ships, though the sign indulges in what smacks of hyperbole when it lauds their efforts as "enabling the Americans to escape and fight again, ultimately defeating the British and securing independence." Still, I'm perfectly willing to grant the history-conscious Parks Department marketing team some leeway in expressing their pride in New York City's too-often-forgotten importance in the Revolutionary War. A final note on the fort: though it is centuries gone, we ended our excursion a little later at a local house of food and mixology called Fort Defiance. Bottoms up!

There's no island now; I suppose it has since sunk beneath the waves like Atlantis. But there's nice landscaping:

And the main attraction: the pier itself, with views of islands that still do exist, like Governor's Island and Liberty Island. And Manhattan Island.

Looking back from the pier you can see playfully jumbled giant cement blocks – jumbled on purpose, I assume – for kids to play on (look to the far right) and residents to gaze at as they reflect on how cool they are for living in Red Hook, the Land the Subway Forgot.

Finally, there's the "beach." "No diving," warns yet another sign as you set foot on the pier. 'Nuff said.

We visited yet one more Red Hook park on this day before adventuring back across the deep, so stay tuned for the final installment.

Erie Basin Park

After discovering the curious sidewalk plantings known as Mannahatta Park on our way to the free-on-weekends Water Taxi off Wall Street, we boarded for Brooklyn. A look back provided a good view of the lower Manhattan skyline…

…while a look forward as we approached our first stop showed us the waterside flank of the recently reopened Fairway supermarket, which features long-ago-decommissioned trolley cars languishing picturesquely by the water.

Docking here made me wonder at the whole idea of taking a ferry to a supermarket. In New York City, no less.

It is Ikea, though, that sponsors the line, which makes a lot more sense, as nothing the size of an Ikea store could be built in Manhattan. Overcoming a lot of local opposition, the store went up in 2008, after obliterating the Todd Shipyard which, as described in this Curbed photo essay, was an active repair facility that dated back to the Civil War.

And around the fringes of its parking lots, along the waterfront, Ikea created Erie Basin Park, a ribbon of pavement with semi-secluded seating areas and displays of artifacts from the site's industrial past.

I didn't see the torrents of litter, discarded condoms, or misbehaving teenagers the Curbed article complained of; everything was clean and quiet. Creepily quiet, in fact. It was Memorial Day, and I was in a park on the waterfront. Behind me, hundreds of people, if not thousands, were shopping at Ikea. But practically no one was venturing into Erie Basin Park. Which suited me just fine.

I remember years ago spending a few hours in Sunny's Bar, one of Red Hook's longest-surviving businesses, looking through the anti-Ikea literature scattered through it. Those protests were no more successful than the anti-Atlantic Yards forces that centered in another bar, the much-lamented old Freddy's, since stamped out by the Barclays Center development (and reopened in another location). I wonder what the denizens of Red Hook – the old hands, and the newcomers – think now. Has Ikea put the neighborhood back on the map? Or is it the destructive blight we were warned of?

From here we headed to Red Hook Park, the next target on this Park Odyssey and a food destination too.

Coffey Park

Red Hook's famous food trucks frame Red Hook Recreation Area, but for an actual park, Coffey is your destination in this legendary neighborhood.

Coffey Park, named for an Irish-born local politician, is 8-plus acres of passive and active recreation in the middle of Red Hook, the formerly scary-dangerous Brooklyn neighborhood that, in spite of a lack of subway service, has undergone a cultural renaissance in recent years – as well as a commercial one with the arrival of a Fairway supermarket, an Ikea, and a cruise ship dock.

The park's flat lawns welcome small fry and their dads.

Shapely evergreens line up proudly… and April flowers are a colorful sight.

The park provides a good view of Visitation Church and the (sort of) famous "R" sign. And this last shot…well, it's just a nice picture. So check out Coffey Park when you're in Red Hook. And there are plenty of good reasons to visit Red Hook. Bars. Waterfront. Fairway. (And Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies – way better than what Ikea has the nerve to serve as "Swedish meatballs." Just sayin'.)