Look at a map of Brooklyn and Queens and you'll see a long swath of green straddling the borough line. It's not a park, but a jumble of the Jackie Robinson Parkway, two great wooded parks linked to Olmsted, a golf course, and more than a dozen cemeteries. This run circled the whole complex, mostly by way of Myrtle and Jamaica avenues. It was a slightly disappointing outing: Heavy snow made the going difficult and prevented me from exploring much of the parks. I also felt a bit chilled toward the back half and had to cut short a planned 20-mile run at about 15.
Still, I reached the main goal of the run: The little-known, hill-climbing Brooklyn enclave of Highland Park, and the park of the same name. The park sits on top of the borough line and includes the old Ridgewood Reservoir. When Brooklyn was its own city, it drew its water from Long Island. The borough was later linked up to NYC's system, which draws from the Catskills, but traces of the old system survive on the map: Conduit Blvd./Ave., Aqueduct Racetrack, and the magically named Force Tube Avenue.
At very the end of A Walker in the City, Alfred Kazin describes his walks around the reservoir, which sits atop a high hill, and its views of the city skyline on one side and the flatlands of East New York and Brownsville on the other. The park appears as the center point on which his whole life has balanced.
On Google Maps, the reservoir looks like three lakes with a running path. I had expected a scenic run around a frozen pond. But as you can see in the photos, what I found was a chain-link fence surrounding a sunken wood. Turns out the reservoir's been drained, although a small natural pond remains in the middle basin. The land is closed off, creating a huge natural green space in the middle of the city. Here's a Flickr set I found which suggests that its quite beautiful on other side of that fence. The parks department acquired the land a few years ago and there's been a fight over what to do with it. Environmentalists, preservationists, birdwatchers and people who choreograph dances about abandoned reservoirs want to keep the land much as it is. The parks department and some church groups and community activists would like see a part of the land used for ball fields. Highland Park is adjacent to some of New York's poorest communities, so there's a case to be made that recreational facilities could be the greater good here. I can see both sides on this one—here's a fairly balanced take. But whatever happens, I hope there's a way to make the reservoir more accessible. If a fraction of the civic energy that went into opening up the High Line in Manhattan could go into Highland Park, it seems like we could do something spectacular in part of the city that could use a little love.
Other highlights:
- Along Myrtle Ave. in Bushwick, the remnants of the old Myrtle Ave. El, which used to have a station right at my building's front door.
- A tumbledown Bushwick mansion that used to be the home of Frederick Cook, who—depending on which part of the Internets you want to believe—was either robbed of the distinction of being first to reach the North Pole or was "a criminal sociopath whose ill gotten gains were inherited by his equally vindictive daughter to carry on a trans-generational perversion of history." Gosh.
- The Justice League of America's insufficiently secret hideout.
- Ridgewood, Queens, and its distinctive yellow-brick row houses.
- Forest Park, one of my favorite running destinations. Frederick Law Olmsted played some role in designing the main drive that runs through the woods. Although the park is in Queens, it was originally planned by the then-City of Brooklyn as "Brooklyn Forest Park."
- Richmond Hill and Woodhaven... and the least-justifiable historical marker in a city that hasn't gotten around to marking Walt Whitman's house.
- A peek through the gates at Hunterfly Road, the last remaining houses from one of the earliest settlements of free African-Americans
- A Ghost Bike
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Wow, great blog. I would love to join you on some of these runs.
ReplyDeleteHey, I hope the marathon went well. I took a bike ride up to Highland Park today - finally satisfying the curiosity brought about by this post. I found a hole in the fence surrounding the reservoir! It was fun to explore inside, and beautiful. Thanks for the tip!
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