Blooms and Blaze in the Cold and Rain
Rose Garden still in bloom at the NY Botanical Garden.
We had the whole botanical garden to ourselves recently. It was cold, rainy, windy and super grey. Who wanted to be outside that day? We Did! We walked through the native forest which was still quite green, then along Magnolia Way. And we saw no one. Not even a hare.
I was shocked to see roses still in bloom in the Rose Garden! We went straight there. And I forgot how cold my fingers were. The rose garden had that look of smudged lipstick and messy hair. Rose petals were strewn about the pavement…petals withered and blooms missing while some still going strong. I like this look.
A sweet contrast to the Kiku exhibit which has just opened. I’m not one for my blooms in rank and file formation. But the Japanese maple trees are ablaze.
Bonsai trees in the Japanese Autumn Garden at the NY Botanical Garden.
Japanese Autumn Garden at the NY Botanical Garden.
Kiku (chrysanthemum) in rank and file formation at the Japanese Autumn Garden.
7 comments October 26, 2009
10 Things to Do During Lunch Break While on Jury Duty in the Bronx
Executive Towers at 165th Street & the Grand Concourse. Notable curved balconies and the only circular driveway on the boulevard. It was the last luxury building built on the Concourse in 1963.
The spring before last I was called for jury duty and spent those gorgeous hour and half lunch breaks chatting on my phone in the park across the street from the Courthouse. What a waste! If only I’d known then what I know now about that area and The Grand Concourse. I could have taken a short stroll in any one direction to find something of interest.
So here are 10 Things To Do During Your Lunch Break While On Jury Duty at the Bronx County Courthouse:
(To maximize your time “sightseeing” I suggest bringing your lunch. That way, you don’t have to spend precious time waiting for and paying for lunch).
1. Stroll around the Courthouse itself. {built 1931-1935} The statues that flank each staircase are related to the images on the frieze, around the top edge of the courthouse.
Bronx Time Capsule Marker at the Bronx County Building
2. Time Capsule – buried on the courthouse grounds in 1989 — imagine what the Bronx will look like in 2089 when it is opened up. Fernando Ferrer contributed his cigarette lighter in an effort to stop smoking. I wonder if he misses it/replaced it. What would you put in the Bronx Time Capsule?
3. Walk in Joyce Kilmer Park: bring your sneakers and get your heartbeat up by taking an energizing power stroll around the park. I saw a couple of women doing this in business dress and their sneaks. As you’re walking, memorize Kilmer’s famous poem:
“Trees”
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
4. The Tree Museum: brilliant creation by artist Katie Holten who has tagged over 100 trees along the Grand Concourse — each with an accompanying audiocast by Bronxites who live(d) along or near the Concourse speaking their thoughts of the grand boulevard. Trees in the museum can be identified by a marker on the sidewalk bearing a phone # to call to hear the audiocast. Maps available at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The Tree Museum was scheduled to “close” October 12th, but will remain open until January 3rd, 2010.
5. Bronx Museum of the Arts (165th and the GC) It is a great space — modern and open and the zig zag facade follows that of many of the art deco buildings along the Concourse. Check out the current exhibit in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Grand Concourse.
6. Andrew Freedman Home (166th and the GC) — the grand palace of the Grand Concourse, the only building on the boulevard with a lawn, built in 1925 as a retirement home for poor rich folks.
7. Yankee Stadium(s) — you can relax and sit on the benches here at Babe Ruth Plaza, taking in the new stadium and reminiscing on the old, catch yourself between two stadiums. I am no baseball fan but the enormous banners and photos of the players do give you the feeling of walking in a canyon.
8. Find the Statue of Liberty — on 161st between the Courthouse and Jerome Avenue is a small Statue of Liberty, see if you can spot it. Hint: look on the rooftops.
"Fish House" the ultimate example of art deco -- rounded corners, angled windows and the fish mosaic.
9. The Grand Concourse — This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Grand Concourse. It was modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris for all its art deco and art moderne buildings – the mosaics, the rounded curves, the zig zag facades — the most found on any boulevard in the country. “Fish House” at no. 1150, is the ultimate example — including angled windows, designed to maximize sunlight streaming into the interior.
10. Bronx Walk of Fame – Follow it from the courthouse going downtown, to where it ends at Hostos Community College on 149th Street. A lot of greats here. My childhood favorites Rita Moreno (“HEY YOU GUYS!”) and Sonia Manzano (aka Maria on Sesame Street) are here. For me, Rita Moreno was famous for Electric Company waaay before Westside Story.
Rita Moreno's marker on the Bronx Walk of Fame.
Bonuses for those jury duty days ending at 2 o’clock:
11. Ben Shahn murals at the Bronx Main Post Office (149th & GC) — lobby filled with large murals painted by artist Ben Shahn and his wife Bernarda Bryson Shahn, during the Roosevelt administration. The panels depict the American worker of the 1930s and include one of Walt Whitman speaking to a crowd of people. In 1933, Diego Rivera asked Shahn to be an assistant on his infamous mural at Rockefeller Center and Bernarda Bryson was a reporter from Ohio who’d come to New York to interview Rivera.
Ben Shahn mural at The Bronx Main Post Office.
12. Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos (149th & GC) — directly opposite the Bronx Main Post Office, check out whatever is on exhibit there, it is a bright airy gallery space.
Add comment October 9, 2009
Podcast: Professor Lloyd Ultan, Bronx Borough Historian (Part 2)
Professor Lloyd Ultan in Bronx Historical Society library.
Here, at long last, is the second part of my interview with Bronx Borough Historian Professor Lloyd Ultan.
{The first part is here.}
Or download the podcast as an mp3.
Show Notes
00:00 Intro
01:14 What makes the Bronx unique? Its size / parks / types of homes. The Bronx is large enough to be the 6th largest city in America.
02:41 Bronx population is very diverse.
04:45 “The Bronx has always welcomed the other.”
07:03 European immigrants come to the Bronx from Ireland and Germany.
10:00 Eastern European Jews arrive in the Bronx.
Baron de Hirsch Fund established workshops to teach Jewish immigrants industrial skills necessary for living in an urban environment.
11:34 African-Americans and Puerto Ricans arrive in the Bronx.
11:56 In 1980s to 1990s, the Bronx becomes still more diverse.
12:54 Bohemian Community in the Bronx near Fordham in the 1860s:
John Savage, Irish poet
Robert Barry Coffin, writing as Barry Gray, wrote “Cakes and Ale at Woodbine: from Twelfth Night to New Year’s Day”, “Out of Town: A Rural Episode”.
14:15 Edgar Allan Poe lived in Fordham in 1846.
17:08 Small bohemian community of Broadway actors and actresses lived on Wilton Street near St. Ann’s Avenue, west of St. Mary’s Park.
17:50 East and north of Crotona Park, writers gathered in Crotona Park.
These writers were Eastern European Jews who wrote in Yiddish.
18:43 Literary salon in the home of a Bronx dentist and his wife every Sunday.
19:38 Today, artists in Mott Haven
Jazz musicians live on Manida Street in Hunts Point
Additional Resources for topics discussed in this podcast:
The Bronx County Historical Society
Intersections The Grand Concourse beyond 100
New York Public Library: The Bronx on the Web
Books by Prof. Lloyd Ultan
“The Bronx In The Innocent Years, 1890 – 1925″, with Gary Hermalyn (1991 2nd ed).
“The Beautiful Bronx, 1920-1950″ , (1979).
“The Bronx: It was Only Yesterday, 1935 – 1965″, with Gary Hermalyn (1992).
“Bronx Accent: A Literary And Pictorial History of the Borough”, with Barbara Unger (2000).
“The Northern Borough: A History of the Bronx”, to be released this year. It is the first single volume on the history of the Bronx since 1912.
This podcast features Creative Commons music:
“One for Me” by SackJo 22
“Que Pena” featuring Tamy by s.c.mixer
A Special Thank You for all things IT related to:
Colin Turner, Chief urbologist, urbTek, LLC
2 comments September 21, 2009
17 Minutes of Summer
A summer day in Parkchester.
Summer arrived late this year and left in a big ol’hurry.
Why the rush?
How long did it stay?
Seventeen minutes?
All of us waited the entire month of June for the rains to stop.
Every weekend thereafter, I was sitting on either a plane or train or bus en route to another station or to wait in a customs line or to visit family.
Back home in the Bronx I was missing outdoor concerts and film screenings and biking to Orchard Beach and taking dips in the Castle Hill Y pool.
I’d been squeezing a normal June-to-August-summer into the 17 minute one we were dealt this year.
Though it warmed my heart, and ego, to read your emails and posts, I was sorry that some of you had to ask my whereabouts. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed since my last update. I was certainly writing posts, very good ones in fact…in my head.
My hiatus has come to a close and I’m glad to be back.
*
Tell a friend, or two, about this post…
2 comments September 21, 2009
Paddling the Bronx River
We saw these paddlers yesterday morning on our hike thru the New York Botanical Garden. The water was amazingly clear. But that doesn’t necessarily mean clean we were told. This was a private canoe tour but the Bronx River Alliance schedules public tours too.
6 comments June 15, 2009
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