Walking Is Transportation

FROM AUCKLAND TO ST. GEORGE VIA WILLIAMSBURG

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Meet the Neighbors

NOT POSH

When Auckland, New Zealand native Victoria Munro and her husband Rodrigo Sanchez checked out St. George for the first time, "I assumed it was a posh neighborhood," she told me recently, as we talked in the sunny kitchen of her large pre-Civil War clapboard house not far from the ferry.


St. George sculptor Victoria Munro and her daughter Violeta out for a stroll on St. Marks Place.

"The closeness to Manhattan, the grand old houses, the large properties, the views--all of it seemed to suggest 'posh,' " she said, adding that she and her husband were surprised to discover, after they'd been here a while, that not all Staten Islanders share their perceptions of St. George as beautiful and desirable.

But no matter. The couple is far too busy, getting settled in the house and neighborhood, caring for their no-longer-quite-an-infant daughter Violeta, and pursuing their career interests--she as a sculptor; he as an attorney--to worry about how some people view their home community.

With all the demands on her time and energy, the transplanted New Zealander has nonetheless managed to make her mark locally with "Going Bush," a recent exhibition at St. George's SHOW Gallery of her own sculptures, combined with a small show she curated of the work of an international group of artists with whom she's exhibited before, in her homeland and in Europe. That show was entitled, "We Go Far . . . And Way Back."

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VICTORIA MUNRO GOES BUSH

The photo below shows four of Victoria Munro's porcelain sculptures, each representative in its way of the show's theme, "Going Bush," which is explained below in text from the SHOW Gallery's website.

In the New Zealand-English-to-U.S.-English dictionary, ‘going bush’ is translated as “to drop out of society or become reclusive." The expression is widely used not only when referring to a reclusive period but also to a notion that Kiwis and Aussies hold onto, that they, at any time, may be able to drop everything and be successfully self-sufficient in the wilds of their native countries.

Having grown up in New Zealand, this notion is firmly rooted in Victoria Munro’s perception of her own abilities to ‘go bush.' With no real inclination for, or experience in, the art of basic women vs. nature survival, this is a mere romantic ideal. Nonetheless, she holds onto this ideal, joining the long list of New Zealand artists to memorialize the intrinsic connection to their native bush.

More information: E-mail/[email protected]; blog/http://victoriamunro.wordpress.com

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THEY BOUGHT THE FIRST HOUSE THEY SAW

Victoria first arrived in the states as a one-semester exchange student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where she found winters impossible (by contrast, she finds New York winters 'difficult'). That one semester included a three-week stay in New York, where, despite the weather, Victoria says that "after three weeks living here, I found it hard to imagine living anywhere else."

And eventually she did wind up in New York--in an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which soon was transformed, in places, into a high-priced tourist trap, from what had been a vital artists' community sharing space with a long-established working-class community. But Victoria says she and Rodrigo weren't really house-hunting when they arrived on Staten Island for the first time; they were on their way to a barbecue, invited by friends who'd moved to West Brighton shortly before.

"What we saw amazed us," Victoria recalls, referring to their friends' new home. "No, it wasn't a fancy house; it sat on a small plot of land, but it was a comfortable amount of space for under $300,000. You'd pay that for a studio in Williamsburg."

When Victoria and Rodrigo returned from Staten Island--just to see what was available, mind you--they checked out Craigslist, where they found the house they ended up buying--and never looked at another. The couple were married in the garden of their new house and, even before it was officially theirs, Rodrigo proposed in the garden, where his proposal was accepted. The couple's offer on the house was accepted, too.

Though much of her life is now situated on Staten Island's north shore, Victoria Munro still maintains her connection to the sector of north Brooklyn where art is made and shown. Her sculptures will appear next in a group show at Williamsburg's Minus Space.

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AN ISLANDER WITH "ST. GEORGE ROOTS OF SORTS" COMES HOME

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Meet the Neighbors

(Photo by Willie Chu)

SOUGHT AND FOUND:
A BEAUTIFUL OLD APARTMENT
NEAR THE FERRY

Professor, working poet and performance artist MARGUERITE MARIA RIVAS did her growing up in pre-Bridge Huguenot, in what Rivas calls The Lily Cup House, at a time when large tracts of land nearby were still densely wooded.

But before that, before becoming homeowners, Rivas's parents settled as newlyweds in an apartment in St. George Gardens (now Seaview Estates), a recently rehabilitated 1929 courtyard development that straddles the hill between St. Marks Place and Hamilton Avenue near Curtis High School--giving Rivas what she describes as "St. George roots of sorts."

Often referred to as Staten Island's Unofficial Poet Laureate, Marguerite Maria Rivas is an Assistant Professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College. She holds a Doctor of Arts and Letters from Drew University and a Masters in English from CUNY. Her work has appeared in The Americas Review, The Multicultural Review and Earth's Daughters, among others; and her chapbook, Poetry Cannot Save You, was published in 2003 and reprinted in 2005.

(continued below)

Sea Meets Land Dreams of Sky, ceramic art by Judith Eloise Hooper

A PLACE TO MAKE A FRESH START

A while ago, finding herself with two grown daughters on their own and a large apartment in a neighborhood she didn't much care for, Rivas determined it was time to make a very different sort of move from those she'd made earlier as a wife and mother and then as a single parent. "It seemed like a natural choice," Rivas told me recently, "for a single woman who loves the Island, and enjoys working and playing in the city as well, to move to St. George.

"I wanted to live in a beautiful old house again," she explained, "and St. George and Silver Lake were the two neighborhoods I most wanted to live in." So Rivas advertised herself as a prospective tenant on Craigslist and on the St. George Civic Association e-group and before long got a call from a St. George homeowner with a one-bedroom apartment for rent. "The minute I stepped in the door and saw those high ceilings, the many large windows and the garden views," she recalled, "I was hooked."

The apartment had another key selling point. Its two-rooms-and-kitchen layout, though quite large, simply would not accommodate the three truckloads of accumulated possessions, including many books, that Rivas had to divest herself of before she could move in. "That was what I needed, though," she admits, "as I was still mourning the loss of my second marriage and needed to move on.

"St. George was the place that I wanted to do that in, and as soon as I saw the apartment, I knew that I was truly coming home again and that I could make a fresh start here, as my parents had made their start some 60 years before."

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MEET THE NEIGHBORS • BEAUTIFUL BUT DEADLY

Neighbors

Will Gregg and Nadia Lazrova were on a food-shopping trek when I asked them to stop for a moment so I could take this photo in front of the Every Thing Goes Book Cafe on Bay Street, Tompkinsville. 

In between shopping trips, the pair--he, a general contractor and musician; she, a student at Hunter College--are restoring the Queen Anne Victorian they live in on Westervelt Avenue, St. George.

*         *         *

(May, 2008)

SO BEAUTIFUL,
YOU COULD JUST DIE FROM IT

Actually, you could.

We didn't know that, of course, when we planted what we thought was a perfectly benign mid-size ornamental tree called the Laburnum, also known as the Golden Chain Tree, in a small plot next to our driveway on Westervelt Avenue.

Like a lot of flashy plants, the Laburnum doesn't have all that much to recommend it beyond its spectacular seasonal display, which, in any event, occurs not every year, but every other year.  The shape is kind of gawky, the leaves are nothing much.

Fortunately, after the show's over, the Laburnum's hanging racemes bleach out to a dull beige and the whole tree goes into a kind of visual hibernation. Which is why we're glad we planted it in a corner. This is not the sort of tree you'd want in the middle of a front lawn.

THE LABURNUM'S DARK SIDE 

Imagine our surprise (and mild discomfort) when we learned that this striking specimen emits seeds that, when properly prepared (sorry, the recipe didn't come with the tree), can have a deadly effect.

We learned about the Laburnum's dark side from a PBS Mystery! series in which a murderously overprotective mother reveals how, as a little girl, she read of the Laburnum's potent effects and tried them out on a playmate who had thwarted her, baking the mashed seeds into an individual plum tart made especially for her little friend.

The playmate thwarted her no more.

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MEET THE NEIGHBORS

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BUT FIRST, MEET THEIR WORK.

EVERY TIME, THE FIRST TIME

If you let them hang around long enough, even the art works and objects you feel most passionately about can become too familiar, turning into wallpaper and candy dishes. But some art works seem to escape this fate. The untitled, undated box-framed painting at left by St. George artist Robin Locke Monda is one of two paintings I seem never to tire of.

It's not that I discover something new in it at every encounter; it's that I never stop noticing it, never stop looking at it as though I'd never seen it before.

Its creator describes herself as "a visual artist, writer, photographer and graphic designer for web and print. For fun," she adds, "I write a blog about artmaking: http://bordertalksblog.com ."

WITH STAINED FEET AND A RED MOUTH

St. George poet Robert Monda, Robin Locke Monda's husband, responded to my request for a poem to appear in Walking is Transportation with these words, accompanying his poem, "Lament":        

"There are numerous reasons to recommend one piece of writing over another," he writes, "--theme, point of view, target audience, among others. My reason is that in my opinion, it's a good poem."

LAMENT

    I mocked myself
    in the caves
    on the rocks by the shore
    I held myself
   in scorn and contempt
   and wept
   in the vineyards
   for I was sore and tired
    and the music left me
    and I lay down without rest
   and rose without hope
   and went to a shallow place
    to dwell among slaves
    and ate the corn
   that had turned to stone
   and saw no reflection
 when I peered into the well
   and my clothes stank
   from the seed I spent
    upon the ground
    and I crushed grapes
    from the vineyard
    to make the bitter wine
    and drank it all my life
    and they buried me
    with stained feet
    and a red mouth.

Though the facts of the life narrative Monda lays out here, line upon line, are more abstract and existential for all their specificity, they reminded me of some of the poems in Philip Levine's National Book Award winner for 1997, "What Work Is."

Here's Levine in a fragment from his poem, "Every Blessed Day":

Waiting at the corner he feels
the cold at his back and stamps
himself awake again. Seven miles
from the frozen, narrow river.
Even before he looks he knows
the faces on the bus, some
going to work and some coming back,
but each sealed in its hunger
for a different life, a lost life.
Where he's going or who he is
he doesn't ask himself, he
doesn't know and doesn't know
it matters. He gets off
at the familiar corner, crosses
the emptying parking lots
toward Chevy Gear & Axle #3.
In a few minutes he will hold
his time card above a clock,
and he can drop it in
and hear the moment crunching
down, or he can not, for

either way the day will last

forever. So he lets it fall.

I howled at Monda's stained feet and red mouth for their tragic absurdity (is this what a life comes down to?) as I considered the idea that a person's life experience could be imprinted on his body, as though the body were simply the receptacle for all the side-effects, the waste products of that experience. And that we lend out our bodies--as, for one example, colliers lent and finally gave their lungs and lives for bread and shelter.


Neighbors

About the photo shown right, Robin Locke Monda admits to some doctoring:

"Here's the photo of your neighbors, Bob Monda and Robin Locke Monda. (It's a composite, obviously. We don't often get good shots of each other--together--for some reason.)"

 

PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES: Meet the Neighbors • Random Objects • Snug Harbor: Theme and Variations

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Neighbors

ASSEMBLED ON THE SOFA are Charles Boday, a house-husband and artist; Martha Neighbors, senior director at a not-for-profit; and their daughter, Mia (12) and son, Alex (9). The four live on St. Marks Place near Westervelt Avenue with several cats and a fish tank that's more populous than it appears at first glance.

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Gallery of Random Objects Close to Home

Cast-iron coal chute cover, St. Marks Place.

Skylight, 1 St. Marks Place.

My father made these.

 
Exterior construction panel from a Fort Greene, Brooklyn church, now demolished.

Light fixtures in my office.

*         *         *

Snug Harbor: Variations on a Theme

THEME

VARIATION 1

VARIATION 2

VARIATION 3

MEET THE NEIGHBORS + ST. GEORGE IS BETTER FOR YOUR HEALTH

Neighbors

2 ARTISTS
+ 2 CHILDREN
= 1 NEW BRIGHTON FAMILY

Emily Smith and Myunghae Yoon are both artists (Emily, a painter; Myunghae, a potter) and both high school art teachers.

Here they are in the back yard of their Craftsman period New Brighton bungalow with daughter Soojin Yoonsmith, 2; and son Leo Yoonsmith, 3.

*         *         *

(Photo by Ben Jeayes)

The research results are in:

WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOODS
LIKE ST. GEORGE
ARE BETTER
FOR YOUR HEALTH

The spring issue of Reclaim--the print quarterly of Transportation Alternatives, the principal advocacy group for bicycling, walking and public transit in New York--reports that a critical milestone in the way we think about walking has been reached, not just here, but nationwide.

The net-net? More and more people are coming to understand that car-centered suburban environments promote physical inactivity, leading to greater risk of heart disease, stroke, some cancers, and diabetes, along with diminished mental health and quality of life.

Living in a walkable neighborhood like St. George, by contrast, is not only more convenient and less expensive to get around in; it's actually better for your health. (This assumes, of course, that you take advantage of this benefit and actually walk to the store, the park, or the ferry instead of driving.)

(Photo by D. Goodings)

GROWING PUBLIC SUPPORT;
NOW POLICIES MUST FOLLOW

In an article entitled "The Rx for Better Streets," James F. Sallis, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of active living research at San Diego State University, reports growing unanimity among influentials such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Institute of Medicine and the U.S. Surgeon General, that "we must create environments and enact policies that help people be active."

Adding weight to this positive trend among medical professionals, a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research Program uncovered a 44 to 59 percent increase in public support for "traditionally designed (walkable) communities between 2003 and 2005, as people became more aware of the links between community design and health."

Two of the study's other findings lend support to the proposition that we in St. George and residents of other north shore Staten Island neighborhoods must enhance and expand the walkability of our neighborhoods by demanding policies that move us away from cars and toward better health for ourselves and our families. The two additional key findings are:                                                     

(Photo by Ronald Hudson)

WALKING AWAY
FROM CARS AND
TOWARD BETTER HEALTH

•People who live in walkable neighborhoods like St. George, with connected streets and nearby destinations, do more total physical activity than those who live in low-walkable suburbs (and suburban-style neighborhoods, of which Staten Island has plenty).

•Parent concerns about traffic are the strongest predictors of children walking to school, and those concerns are higher in low-walkable suburbs.

[To read the complete article, go to http://www.TransAlt.org and request a copy of  Reclaim's Spring 2009 edition (single issues are provided at no charge upon request). At this writing, only the PDF of the last (Winter, 2008) issue of Reclaim is available for download.]

SHE HAD TO LEAVE IT TO FIND IT + ARBOREAL PHILOSOPHY IN TOMPKINSVILLE

Photo of Mary Bullock by Flint Gennari

Neighbors

FINALLY,
A PLACE TO PAINT

Can you believe it? Some people actually don't seem to care for the distinctive, uh, sense of place our neighborhood has in such abundance. But don't count New Brighton artist Mary Bullock among them. She has chosen to live here not once, but twice. The second time, she says, for good.

The first time was in the early 1980s, St. George's pioneer period, when young people with more vision than money were buying broken-down houses for less than $10,000 and moving in, sometimes with and sometimes without basics like water or heat. They formed a civic association, established baby-sitting pools, organized a food co-op, and began to pursue designation as an official New York City historic district, which was achieved in 1994--the first historic district on Staten Island.

Artist Mary Bullock created the City Tropics Pink Suite photo collage, right, by cropping 16 square images from an original photo taken in the Carl Grillo Glass House at the S.I. Botanical Garden.  She assembled the images into a sequence, creating an image that “works” according to a visual logic that has nothing to do with botany. Available as a print in sizes up to approximately 7"x7".

The second time was in 2000 , when Bullock divorced her second husband, sold her 3-bedroom house with the 11,000-gallon in-ground pool, most of the house's contents and the two cars, and moved into a small room in St. George to paint full time.  As she tells it, “I finally began to live the life I was born to live when I came home to St. George.”

*         *         *

TREES UNDER TREES,

West side of Westervelt Avenue
between Benziger and Hendricks avenues.

ARBOREAL PHILOSOPHY
IN TOMPKINSVILLE

Maybe, like my wife Ellen and me, you look at trees. Maybe you have favorites you watch out for and check up on, following their changes through the seasons.

Like the cruelly abused and now dying beech in the front yard of a house at the corner of Davis and Henderson avenues in West Brighton. Or the knockout weeping willow in the large open lot on the west side of Montgomery Avenue near Victory Boulevard--this one, we hear, loved and appreciated by the lot's owner.

Because my wife and I are tree-watchers, we've been heartened by the stratospheric leap in the north shore's tree census--part, I assume, of the current administration's aggressive tree-planting program citywide. But we've been troubled by a planting practice that, it seemed to us, defies both logic and intuition. As shown in the two visuals here, that's the practice of planting trees under or very near other, larger trees, which presumably would deny the younger trees the light and/or the space they need to develop properly.


TREE DWARFING TREE AT SNUG HARBOR: Does the healthy, newly planted specimen at left--bordering the road leading to the Henderson Avenue gate--stand a chance against the encroaching maple to its right? Stay tuned.


AN EXPERT OPINION

So I asked the opinion of our friend and neighbor, Tompkinsvillian John Kilcullen, an arborist with the city's Parks and Recreation department.

I didn't consult John simply because of his job title; I asked because, newly planted across the street from John's and partner James Carter's house on Westervelt Avenue, are two redbuds sitting in the shade of a stand of volunteer maples [SEE TREES UNDER TREES-CAPTIONED PHOTO, TOP RIGHT--ed.].

John explained that planting philosophy has changed a bit on this score. "Current thinking," he said, "is that--depending on location and the size, habits and requirements of the two trees you're looking at--the filtered light coming 'through' the taller tree is probably adequate to keep the smaller tree healthy. Not in every case," he cautioned, "but in many."

I hope arboreal philosophy turns out to be right about the three newly planted specimens shown on this page. But I'll admit I'm still skeptical. Thanks, John.

MEET THE NEIGHBORS + FROM THE ARCHIVES

Neighbors

Meet sculptor Marc Zimetbaum and educator Janet Rispoli, seen here in their art-filled Craftsman- era cottage in the Fort Hill area of St. George. Janet teaches in the Inter- national Baccalaureate Program at Curtis High School, St. George.

*         *         *

From the archives

THE VERTICAL LIFE, or,
Hill-Walking on Staten Island's North Shore, Part 4

This post, one that readers say they're particularly fond of, appeared originally on WIT in October, 2007.

Adobe Blues mural, south side of Lafayette Avenue near Fillmore Street, New Brighton, Staten Island.

IN NEW BRIGHTON, HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

There was no way I could survey hill-walking in Staten Island's close-to-the-ferry neighborhoods and not include New Brighton, one of New York's earliest suburban developments, organized in 1839.

But I'll admit I wasn't expecting much.

Like a lot of locals, but not many others, I knew all about the one derelict but still functioning stairway between the corner of York Terrace and East Buchanan Street at the top, and York Avenue, just up the hill from Fillmore Street, at the bottom.

Seen from a passing car––like so many other experiences walkers have and drivers don't––it would appear to be just another concrete stairway leading who-knows-where and not worth a second glance or thought.

East Buchanan Street from the bottom of the hill at Franklin Avenue--the starting-off point.

Sure enough, a few yards past the top of the hill, just as I remembered, the narrow path leading to the stairs begins, then continues down the hill to York Avenue.

NEW BRIGHTON CLIFF-DWELLINGS: A DIFFERENT ANGLE

Turning right and continuing up York Avenue, I wasn't surprised to see more cliff-dwellings; I remembered them from past treks, but not in detail. I'd never noticed how far back from the street these hilltop houses were sited--especially as compared to those on Corson Avenue in Tompkinsville (Part 1) and St. Pauls Avenue in Stapleton (Part 2).

Because the grade here is less steep than on other nearby streets with hillside houses, there's less need for buttresses, terraces, retaining walls and the like. In several cases, a single continuous stair runs from the sidewalk to the front door.

A little farther up York Avenue near Carlyle Street, I half-saw this stairway as I passed it. But that glance was enough to make me turn back and take a second look. Even in its deteriorated condition, the stairway's proportions told me this was either a public amenity or the entry to a substantial residential property. There was no sign, no marker, nothing.

For a while there, going up the steps and continuing up an overgrown path, I worried that I might be trespassing.

But soon enough, I saw a familiar street sign ahead: Highview Avenue. I knew exactly where I was. I turned right and walked back to East Buchanan Street, the starting point.

*         *         *

HAVE I MISSED SOMETHING? If you notice I've left out a stairway, path or walkway in one of the neighborhoods mentioned in this four-part entry, please let me know: [email protected] And thanks.

Adobe Blues mural, south side of Lafayette Avenue near Fillmore Street, New Brighton, Staten Island.

IN NEW BRIGHTON, HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

There was no way I could survey hill-walking in Staten Island's close-to-the-ferry neighborhoods and not include New Brighton, one of New York's earliest suburban developments, organized in 1839.

But I'll admit I wasn't expecting much.

Like a lot of locals, but not many others, I knew all about the one derelict but still functioning stairway between the corner of York Terrace and East Buchanan Street at the top, and York Avenue, just up the hill from Fillmore Street, at the bottom.

Seen from a passing car––like so many other experiences walkers have and drivers don't––it would appear to be just another concrete stairway leading who-knows-where and not worth a second glance or thought.

East Buchanan Street from the bottom of the hill at Franklin Avenue--the starting-off point.

Sure enough, a few yards past the top of the hill, just as I remembered, the narrow path leading to the stairs begins, then continues down the hill to York Avenue.

NEW BRIGHTON CLIFF-DWELLINGS: A DIFFERENT ANGLE

Turning right and continuing up York Avenue, I wasn't surprised to see more cliff-dwellings; I remembered them from past treks, but not in detail. I'd never noticed how far back from the street these hilltop houses were sited--especially as compared to those on Corson Avenue in Tompkinsville (Part 1) and St. Pauls Avenue in Stapleton (Part 2).

Because the grade here is less steep than on other nearby streets with hillside houses, there's less need for buttresses, terraces, retaining walls and the like. In several cases, a single continuous stair runs from the sidewalk to the front door.

A little farther up York Avenue near Carlyle Street, I half-saw this stairway as I passed it. But that glance was enough to make me turn back and take a second look. Even in its deteriorated condition, the stairway's proportions told me this was either a public amenity or the entry to a substantial residential property. There was no sign, no marker, nothing.

For a while there, going up the steps and continuing up an overgrown path, I worried that I might be trespassing.

But soon enough, I saw a familiar street sign ahead: Highview Avenue. I knew exactly where I was. I turned right and walked back to East Buchanan Street, the starting point.

*         *         *

HAVE I MISSED SOMETHING? If you notice I've left out a stairway, path or walkway in one of the neighborhoods mentioned in this four-part entry, please let me know: [email protected] And thanks.

MEET MARIO + SPRING TOUR OF A WHITE AND PALE PINK GARDEN

Neighbors

MEET MARIO

Many of the faces we see simply glide by us. We glimpse them briefly and then they're gone. But not this one.

Meet Mario, whose smiling face and friendly attitude you don't forget. That smile and that friendliness are two of the reasons we do our local shopping at Pak's Grocery, in the Saint George Gardens Stores on the west side of Westervelt Avenue near Hamilton, where Mario's a counterman.

When I spotted Mario taking a break the other day, I knew I wanted him to be the focus of this second installment of WIT's new feature, Neighbors. Thanks, Mario.

*         *         *

SPRING TOUR OF A (MOSTLY)
WHITE AND PALE PINK GARDEN

Colors in the garden will soon become riotous, but for now everything's very demure, very discreet, and very virginally white. (Or pale pink--close enough.)

Bridal Veil
Front garden,
One St. Marks Place,
St. George

Viburnum
Small side yard
facing east side of Westervelt Avenue
between Carroll and St. Marks places,
St. George

White and Pink Rhododendrons
and a screaming red Azalea
Broadleaf evergreen bed,
patio, rear  garden,

Skimma Japonica
Perennial bed,
rear garden, lower level

Hardy Geranium
Perennial bed,
rear garden, lower level