Mullaly Park

Nobody deserves to have a park named after him more than the park visionary John Mullaly, who became known as the "Father of the Bronx park system" in the late 19th century, before the Great Consolidation of 1898 in which the five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island – became one New York City.

Mullaly, Secretary of the New-York Park Association formed in 1891, aimed "to secure increased park area for the City of New-York" and called for "at least…two great breathing places beyond the Harlem River." By "beyond the Harlem River" he meant the three towns New York City had annexed in 1874: Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge, which became part of the new borough of The Bronx.

The results of Mullaly's commission: nearly 5,000 acres of parkland, comprising Van Cortlandt, Claremont, Crotona, St. Mary's, Pelham Bay, and Bronx Parks. (That last one encompasses the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo.)

Mullaly died in 1911, or 1914, or 1915. (Internet sources disagree.) In the 1920s the City of New York acquired the land that would become Mullaly Park in the High Bridge section of The Bronx. The city has developed it over time beginning in the 1930s "as a multi-use recreational facility that complements Macombs Dam Park to the south," to quote the Parks Department website. It includes playgrounds, a pool, a skate park, basketball courts, and more.

But passive recreation is very possible here too. I entered at E. 165 St. and River Ave. and immediately encountered two totally passive people.

A second later, and a good deal less passively, I was nearly bonked on the head by a stripped ear of corn dropped out of a tree by a squirrel.

I didn't see the squirrel. But the people on the bench explained that my attacker was indeed one of those ratlike creatures whose furry tails and liking for trees rather than trash make them cute. And it did seem the only rational explanation.

Up ahead was a large, densely planted garden area "with an irrigation system, blooming trees, and landscaping." (The pretty tower in the distance isn't a church, it's PS 114, the Luis Lorens Torres School.)

Actually there are two of these garden areas, both threaded with narrow winding paths. I had the southern one all to myself. An organized group of teenagers from The Bronx is Blooming was tending the northern one.

A splashing sound drew my attention, and I was just quick enough to catch this robin after his water-fountain bath.

I like these playground dolphins too.

Back in the southern section, besides the skate park there's the big Mullaly Recreation Center (the brick building), more athletic facilities, chess tables, another playground, and a view of Yankee Stadium.

John Mullaly published a book in 1887 vividly describing his vision for the Bronx parks. Google has digitized the book and below is a screen shot of the fancy cover page. He was a fascinating character whose exploits went well beyond park planning: born in Belfast; Civil War draft resistance; a stint as New York Commissioner of Health; and finally dying "almost penniless…in a Second Avenue hall bedroom on a bitter day in 1914," according the October 20, 1929 edition of the New York Herald Tribune, a paper he had written for at yet another stage of his peripatetic career.

"Nearly 4000 acres of free playgrounds for the people." Now that's my kind of visionary. If no one has written a biography of John Mullaly – and it doesn't seem that anyone has – someone ought to.

Macombs Dam Park

I've been a Mets fan all my life, always carrying some of the Yankee Resentment that goes with that. Having never been to a Yankee game, I've never gotten to know the Yankee Stadium area of the Bronx.

It was time to change that, so this past weekend I explored five parks in walking distance of the stadium. The first is an extravagant exception to my blog rule disqualifying parks that exist only for athletics. Macombs Dam Park, on the site of the old Yankee Stadium, merits coverage twice over: for its history and for its aesthetics.

Just across 161st Street from the new Yankee Stadium, Macombs Dam Park is named after an actual dam built across the Harlem River in 1814. I'd always wondered why the nearby Macombs Dam Bridge was named thus. Dams are not the first thing one thinks of in reference to New York City's waterways. But gristmill operator Robert Macomb managed to get the city's approval to build one two centuries ago.

Years later concerned citizens protested the blockage of the river by attacking the dam both rhetorically and physically. It was gone by 1858. In 1890 the accompanying bridge was replaced with the current Macombs Dam Bridge, described in this Forgotten New York post dating from before the creation of the park.

The bridge was already 13 years old when the New York Highlanders (later renamed the Yankees) came into being in 1903. Ten years later the team moved across the river from the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to the newly built Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. One of the baseball fields in Macombs Dam Park is situated exactly over the diamond of that original Yankee Stadium, so you can stand (and even play ball) where Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Mickey Rivers, and Derek Jeter once batted.

Grassy landscaping and markers of the history of the Yankees and the stadium ring the baseball fields.

No doubt the fields are bustling with baseball on weekends. But on this weekday afternoon, as beautiful a day as it was, only a few people had come out.

One forlorn-looking young man sat alone in a dugout. Was he dreaming of the big leagues? Or just early for a practice or a friendly game?

From the baseball fields you can ascend via stairs or a ramp to the Joseph Yancey track and field area, which was much busier.

Driving? Park in the Ruppert Plaza Garage, named for Colonel Jacob Ruppert, onetime Yankees co-owner, and builder of the original Yankee Stadium. Ruppert has a park named for him too, in upper Manhattan.

Eye-pleasing design makes this big athletic facility parklike and just plain nice to walk around in. I'll close with some aesthetics. Here's a view showing some of the landscaping. The curved shape on the far right is the Yankees - East 153 St. Metro-North train station, which opened in 2009. I'm sure Yankee fans from the northern suburbs appreciate its utility. This Mets fan appreciates its architecture.

Good job on this one, MTA.