Walking Is Transportation

RANT-O-RAMA 4

 Don't get me started

THE MOST NEGLECTED
GREENSPACE
IN ST. GEORGE

To call the North Shore Esplanade a greenspace is to dishonor that term.

At its northwestern end, between Nicholas Street and St. Peters Place, the North Shore Esplanade is little more than a long sitting area punctuated by london plane trees where hardly anyone ever sits.

Why would anyone bother--except those who have nowhere else to sleep?

The elegantly named esplanade's magnificent harbor views are obscured by stands of volunteer maple, polonia, and ailanthus, which are themselves being choked by the unchecked growth of porcelain-berry vines.

Though the strip is swept and its garbage cans emptied regularly, it is a derelict, deteriorating piece of waterfront real estate whose configuration assures that it will remain what it has been since my wife and I moved here in 1977: an otherwise unused route to and from the ferry--or to and from a parking space. And it's not hard to understand why.

NEAR ST. PETERS PLACE

There's nothing to do, nothing to see, and seemingly no official interest in moving beyond the dreary status quo. Why bother shoring up collapsed seating no one will ever sit on anyway, right? Just block it off with sawhorses and yellow tape for an 'indefinite' period.

 

NEAR NICHOLAS STREET

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that this section of collapsed sidewalk has been in this condition for a decade at least. The sidewalk widens at Nicholas Street, so pedestrians and joggers just go around it. And since the esplanade lacks a vocal constituency, the city's Parks and Recreation Department has little reason to devote funds to fix it.

(Photo above by Rachel Icolari)

BETWEEN NICHOLAS STREET
AND STUYVESANT PLACE

The deteriorated state of the esplanade's beautiful iron railings is another example of Parks and Recreation's minimal investment in upkeep. The department obviously is more concerned with avoiding lawsuits (those hideous highway buffers shown below) than with maintaining the original ironwork. Like Snug Harbor's, these iron railings can last indefinitely, given the proper maintenance (and replacement, where appropriate, with ironwork of the same design and density).

 

(Photo above and photo above, right, by Rachel Icolari)

DON'T 'REFURBISH' IT--
RECONFIGURE IT FOR ACTIVE USE

On the esplanade, at about the halfway point between Nicholas Street and St. Peters Place, stands a concrete flagpole dedicated to local soldiers whose lives were lost in World War II, which is probably when the esplanade was designed and installed.

In terms of park design and use, it was the era of 'Keep Off the Grass' signs and genteel after-dinner strolls. That era is not coming back. So it's not just a matter of painting the benches once again and installing better lighting.

The model made for after-dinner strolling was retired long ago--as evidenced in the 1970s design of the nearby Lia Park, which includes sitting areas but also has sprinklers, swings, and provisions for active play. As anyone who lives near it can tell you, Lia Park a pretty popular place.

FRIENDS OF THE NORTH SHORE ESPLANADE?

I don't presume to know what mix of seating, play, performance, athletic facilities and other types of offerings might draw users to what amounts to an abandoned park. But especially now, with Cromwell Center shut down yet again, the community's lack of recreational space has become more severe. And it will only continue, as our area draws more young families to its affordable apartments, houses, condos and co-ops, if we don't demand additional park and recreational resources to accommodate them.

We need to begin the process of reclaiming this bit of St. George parkland now. Friends of the North Shore Esplanade, anyone?

#         #         #

A NEW DAY DAWNING AT SNUG HARBOR !

Once-in-a-lifetime development opportunity

WELCOME TO THE NEW
SNUG HARBOR,

where a new, even more aggressively
pro-development day has arrived !

Finally,
after decades of questionable so-called 'cultural' activities
financed by too many of our top-bracket tax dollars,
the full development potential of this magnificent site
is about to be realized through private initiative
(and public subsidy, of course)
to the exclusive benefit of a select few
with the requisite vision and resources
to make a substantial financial commitment.

Highlights of the New Day Dawning:

To-the-Well-Connected-Go-the-Spoils-style management to be made official!  Under a pending proposal, the 80-acre facility will be operated as a completely profit-making enterprise with access available only to Snug Harbor board-approved applicants prepared to make a significant investment for the long term.

As a gesture of private generosity, non-members will be admitted for a brief visit within a three-hour time period on alternate Thursdays for a modest $5-per-person 'strolling fee' during hours to be announced. We regret it will not be possible to accommodate those who seek strolling rights but lack the ability to pay for them.

Fruit of the Vine Estates, the Ultimate Gated Community  A development of magnificent midrise condominium residences overlooking the site of a discredited proposed vineyard operation that deflected focus from the maintenance and improvement of existing arts facilities and programs, devoting it instead to money-squandering follies. These sumptuous habitations feature Self-Flushing Carrara Marble Toilets and Armani®-Designed Gold Lamé Shower Curtains at no extra charge.

Il Blundero Stupendo  A new concept in gustatory excess featuring Gondola Dining, allowing diners to cruise the tranquil waters of the duck pond adjoining the 9/11 memorial garden in an authentic Italian gondola replica. As diners sip their Carlo Rossi Red, their very own chefs prepare the evening's specialty entrée, right on board their vessels. The prix fixe charge includes provision of Renaissance-themed bonnets and capes to protect diners from the excrescences of the Canada Geese circling overhead.

*         *         *

Watch these pages for more exciting news about the
NEW DAY DAWNING AT SNUG HARBOR
with lots of profitable opportunities
for you, your associates, and your clients !

Another GONIFFE ENTERPRISES Project

S.I. Greenbelt plan to banish invasive plants may benefit walkers, too

Section of cobblestone street-tree base, Richmond Terrace, St. George, Staten Island

NOT, I ADMIT, WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

First, Staten Island Greenbelt Administrator Adena Long spoke about the park's need to accommodate alternative forms of transportation. She actually used those words. Then Long described plans to provide a path for walkers and cyclists.

Long addressed the November 1 semiannual meeting of Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, Staten Island's largest environmental organization. I was there not only as a Protectors member, but to make my case for safe access to the Greenbelt for walkers and cyclists, which I assumed meant installing sidewalks. I had expected opposition to this idea. Maybe even confrontation. And then, before I could open my mouth, Adena Long made it clear the pedestrian and bicycle path I planned to fight for was already in the works. Not a discouraging word was heard from the audience, many of whom had fought long and hard to create the Greenbelt decades ago and are determined not only to protect it, but expand it.

Long said the path will be created as part of a plan to defend the Greenbelt at its perimeter, which is the usual point of entry for invasive weeds and vines that can destroy very quickly the diversity and balance of plant life within the park. This perimeter 'strip' won't be just a poured concrete walk along the edge of a roadway. It will be designed, landscaped and maintained--with the bicycle and walking path included as part of the design.

This project will take years to complete, of course. What matters more, I think, is that it's being done at all. And that it just may represent a change in consciousness at the city's largest park. A change that begins to acknowledge pedestrians and bicyclists as co-equal users--with motorized vehicles--of public streets and roads.

More on pedestrian access to Staten Island's Greenbelt

Sculpture: Victoria Bellinger, Silver Lake, S.I. ( victoriabellinger.com/index/html )

Unfit for pedestrians

Last August, I walked from home to the perimeter of Staten Island's Greenbelt, whereupon all pedestrian amenities vanished and I was forced to continue my walk in a gully at the side of the road, along with the beer cans, bottles and other assorted trash thrown there. Drivers whizzed by, leaving only a very few feet between me and them. It was scary and I was mad.

Here's some of what I wrote about that incident in a post dated August 27:

"Walkers have right of safe access to the Greenbelt, just as those who arrive in cars do. We represent a fraction of the footprint of a car, in terms of the space we occupy and the impact we have on the environment. Yet cars, often with only one occupant, are provided roads that are built and maintained by the tax dollars of walkers as well as drivers. For our tax dollars, we get a narrow, dangerous strip of deteriorated macadam.

"Sidewalks should be installed bordering every main road, street or avenue in the Greenbelt. I understand the legitimate concern of those who see only another encroachment on the Greenbelt's 'Forever Wild' mandate. But providing a means of access for those who walk rather than ride is a matter of fairness and equity--a pretty fundamental ideal."

A meeting with the Greenbelt's administrator

I learned later from fellow blogger Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL.com that there is a national organization called Complete the Street which is promoting precisely this idea--but a better one than mine because it provides for cyclists as well as pedestrians.

I intend to state the No Safe Access for Pedestrians problem and suggest the Complete the Street solution at a meeting tomorrow evening of Staten Island's premier environmental organization, Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, of which I'm a member. The Greenbelt's administrator is scheduled as guest speaker, so I'll be directing my questions and comments to her.

I'll report on the meeting in a day or two.

The vertical life: An afterword

Exterior section of east wall, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Tysen Street at Fillmore Street, New Brighton, Staten Island

PRESERVE THE PEDESTRIAN INFRASTRUCTURE

I've just finished the The Vertical Life, a four-part entry that appears in the four posts immediately preceding this one. Originally, I planned an idiosyncratic profile of the five hilly neighborhoods at the northeastern tip of Staten Island, the fifth and oft' forgotten New York City borough.

What I wanted was to celebrate a life spent marching up and down hills and the sometimes amazing accommodations people have made in order to be able to live that life. What I've come away with is the conviction that these accommodations to hillside living--steps, stairways and paths--are much more than quaint throwbacks to a time when we walked rather than drove up hills.

Our history and our future

Hillside stairways aren't rarities. In upper Manhattan and the west Bronx, these vertical pathways are often massive feats of engineering, overlooked by equally massive apartment blocks of the 1920s and '30s.

In the hilly, close-to-the-ferry neighborhoods of Staten Island's north shore, the scale of hillside stairways is smaller, simpler, more intimate. Paths are bordered by trees, shrubs and grasses, sometimes overgrown by them. These vertical connecting links are, no less than some of the century-old buildings that surround them, a part of Staten Island and New York City history that deserves preservation and restoration.

Whether in upper Manhattan, the west Bronx, or the north shore of Staten Island--and even in their sometimes derelict state--these stairways are part of our city's pedestrian infrastructure. People use them. More would use them if they were in better physical condition and better maintained. Now that serious and ongoing health and environmental degradation is finally acknowledged even at the federal level, state and local policy-makers are actively seeking ways to reduce our dependence on private transportation. These and other forms of pedestrian infrastructure are a perfect fit.

As support systems for walking--an activity promoted by the N.Y.C. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Department for the Aging--these steps, stairs and walkways deserve substantial upgrading, with new concrete, railings, signage, lighting and drought-resistant, low-maintenance landscaping. Like the reopened walkways on the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, these hillside amenities are part of New York City and Staten Island history. If we're serious about encouraging alternative forms of transportation, we'll make these steps, stairways and paths part of our future too.

The vertical life, or Hill-walking on Staten Island, Part 4

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.

The vertical life, or Hill-walking on Staten Island, Part 3

Detail, ironwork gate, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2007

A LITTLE UNFINISHED BUSINESS

If you're looking for stairs, paths, walkways and myriad other weight-bearing toeholds that people have cobbled together to help them get up and down hills, this is the place. Stapleton, Staten Island.

We'll get there shortly. But first, there's a little unfinished business on Ward Hill to take care of. [For more on Ward Hill, see Part 2.]

URBAN ARCHAEOLOGY: THE HIDDEN PATHS OF NIXON AVENUE

Walking along Nixon, a U-shaped block with great views of the Narrows, there's no reason you'd notice this rusting iron stair-rail sticking out of a blanket of leaf-cover. It's the only clue that an old stairway leading to the Ward mansion, at the very top of Ward Hill, began here.

If you lift the leaves that cover it, you can see the foundation stones that support the stair-rail's bottom step.

The story goes that the father of a little girl who lived on Nixon Avenue at least a decade ago created a path for her to use on her way to and from Trinity Lutheran School. The path began here (see that concrete ledge on the right?) . . .

. . . and ended here, in what is now a lot-size forest at the bottom of the hill on St. Pauls Avenue near Cebra Avenue, Stapleton. Trinity Lutheran is right across the street. Only the barest trace of the path survives, and only where it began, up on Nixon.

UP ST. PAULS, INTO THE HILLS

Our walk up St. Pauls Avenue starts in Tompkinsville, where St. Pauls and Van Duzer street begin their parallel routes. They start from a single point--Van Duzer below, St. Pauls above--then fan out into a wider and wider V.

The long, slow rise of St. Pauls Avenue begins to pick up here, at Paxton Street.

Almost immediately on the right--and up!--are cliff houses rivaling those on Corson Avenue in Tompkinsville for dizzying height and complex stair arrangements.

A PEDESTRIAN INFRASTRUCTURE

Staten Island's close-to-the-ferry neighborhoods were developed at a time when many, perhaps most, people walked. An old pedestrian infrastructure survives.

These stone steps up from the roadway at the corner of Beach Street and St. Pauls Avenue in Stapleton are an example.

There are steps up from the St. Pauls Avenue roadway at the entrance to each house as well.

There's even sidewalk seating.

WELCOME TO STONE STREET, UNLESS YOU'RE A CAR

Located opposite Trossach Road off St. Pauls Avenue in Stapleton, Stone Street is probably more accurately described as a hilly alley than a street. It's a slice of old Staten Island the home improvers haven't caught up with yet.

Stone Street is only one block long––from St. Pauls to Van Duzer. Too narrow for cars, the street has only one house on it, a modest cottage.

Walking up Stone Street from Van Duzer to St. Pauls. Handrails run almost the entire length of the street. There's not a car in sight. Bliss.

Glimpsed on a porch on St. Pauls Avenue near Cebra Avenue, Stapleton.

The vertical life, or Hill-walking on Staten Island, Part 2

Cobblestone walk, Wall Street between St. Marks Place and Belmont Place, St. George.

They didn't flatten Ward, Grymes, Todt and Emerson hills on Staten Island in order to lay down a street grid, as they flattened Murray Hill in Manhattan, according to a recent article in The New Yorker. On Staten Island, it looks like they just made roadways around the hills, or built access roads where they could––that is, wherever the grade wasn't impossibly steep.

Staten Islanders found another way to make their ascents and descents less arduous and more convenient. They built a series of steps, stairways and walkways that people still use today to get up and down the hills.

Two of these stairways––both on the south side of Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville––are longer, wider and more substantial than any I've found in St. George or in Tompkinsville north of Victory Boulevard.

But first, a few urban-archaeological stair-remnants. Catch 'em while you can.

STAIRWAYS TO LOT-SIZE FORESTS AND STOCKADE FENCES

Close by on Victory, also on the north side, near Fiedler Avenue, are the remnants of two sets of stone retaining walls and slate steps. One will soon disappear under leaf-cover, then earth. Both led to what probably were residences. Today they lead to lot-size forests of maple, ailanthus.

Maples are growing undisturbed in and around another stone-wall-with-steps remnant, this one leading directly into a stockade fence. You'll find it south of Victory Boulevard, on the west side of Westervelt Avenue between Hendricks and Benziger avenues in Tompkinsville.

GETTING UP WARD HILL

Of course you could just walk up Fiedler Avenue––shown here on its rise from Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville––and use the sidewalk like a normal person, as my Aunt Harriet would have said. For the rest of us, there are other ways up Ward Hill. The east stairway, and the west. As you'll see, both have their charms.

THE EAST STAIRWAY. This is the closer of the two stairways to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. There's no sign or marker. It's just sort of there, in a little down-at-the-heels courtyard off the south side of Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville, roughly parallel to Monroe Avenue, across the street.

Not an auspicious beginning, but wait. It gets prettier, the commercial clatter from the street below starts to subside a bit, and then . . .

. . . before you know it, you're at the top--Tompkins Circle--where you stop a moment to look out at the bay, take a brief rest, and maybe do some stretches before heading down the hill to Victory Boulevard.

THE WEST STAIRWAY. This handsome Craftsman-style stone and timber archway leads to a wide and open stairway, obviously much used, that takes you to Willis Avenue and the adjacent Avon Place.

If you'd like to sample some of Ward Hill's panoramic views of the bay--with Brooklyn in the distance--walk left on Willis to Fiedler Avenue. Turn right on Fiedler and continue up the hill to Tompkins Circle. Stay on the bay side of the circle and you're practically guaranteed to see water. And Brooklyn.

UP NEXT: The third part of this entry, covering small sectors of Ward Hill and Stapleton.

The vertical life, or Hill-walking

Fiedler Avenue, Ward Hill, Staten Island, looking down at Victory Boulevard at the bottom of the street and across at Tompkinsville and the New Brighton hills. The ferry is a 15-minute walk away.

WHO KNEW?

We'd both grown up in Manhattan. She in a spacious, old-fashioned walk-up flat facing Morningside Park, near Columbia. I in a cramped two-room apartment in Chelsea before it became a gay mecca.

These experiences hadn't prepared us for a move to a place where the ferry is the boat, where Manhattan is the city, and where PTAs hold Chinese Auctions, which after 30 years of living here are still a total mystery.

I'm talking about Staten Island. Specifically, the north shore of that island, and more specifically the neighborhoods of St. George, New Brighton, Tompkinsville/Ward Hill, and Stapleton. All within walking distance of the ferry and the island's bus and rail lines, and all hilly. Sometimes very hilly.

GETTING UP THE HILL WITHOUT A CAR

What I've come to appreciate are the ways in which people have adapted to living on hills, the same way they've adapted to the ferry schedule.

One of the most interesting of these adaptations are a collection of still-functioning stairways, walkways and paths up and down the hills in the older close-to-the ferry neighborhoods. As well as the bizarre arrangement of retaining walls and stairways some residents have to negotiate, just to reach their front doors.

What follows is the first of a two-part entry about these adaptations in the neighborhoods of St. George and Tompkinsville, many still in active use, others well along in the process of reverting to nature. The second part of this entry will cover Tompkinsville/Ward Hill, New Brighton and Stapleton.

HILLSIDE STEPS AND STAIRS
St. George and Tompkinsville

Stone retaining wall and public stairway, St. Peter's R.C. Church, St. Marks Place, St. George, connecting St. Marks and Carroll places.

Stairway from Carroll Place to St. Marks Place. St. Peter's R.C. Church, left.

Stone wall and steps leading from Sherman Avenue, Tompkinsville, to Fort Hill Park, which is both the name of a street and a recently dedicated 'Forever Wild' park on the adjacent property.

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The three photos directly above show (1, 2) the steps leading down from Fort Hill Park to Sherman Avenue; and (3) the road up Fort Hill Park to the top, from the corner of Hendricks and Westervelt avenues.

STEPS AND STAIRS TO HILLSIDE HOUSES
St. George and Tompkinsville

Our first house on St. Marks Place near Westervelt Avenue, St. George. The negatives of living 18 steps above the street are obvious. Less obvious are the sense of privacy and relative solitude that, most of the time, were adequate compensation.

Garden gate and stone retaining wall and stairway, Carroll Place, St. George

Stone wall and slate step entry to the Schoverling mansion, a New York City landmark, Westervelt Avenue at Benziger Avenue, Tompkinsville.

This amazing group of cliff dwellings is on the north side of Corson Avenue between Jersey Street and Westervelt Avenue, Tompkinsville.

STEPS AS SIDEWALK
St. George and Tompkinsville

In this photo, walking west from Westervelt Avenue, the rise on the north side of Scribner Avenue, Tompkinsville, is gradual.

These photos show the stairways leading to the north and south sides of Corson Avenue, Tompkinsville, walking west from Westervelt Avenue. The north sidewalk also rises gradually as it continues west, becoming fully elevated, with entries and lower stairways leading to each house cut into the massive retaining wall that looms over the roadway.

An approach to the elevated sidewalk on the north side of the street, looking east.

[Up next, the second part of this entry, covering New Brighton, Tompkinsville/Ward Hill and Stapleton. Coming very soon.]

Get off the train and you're practically on the Greenway

Yesterday, I walked perhaps one-fifth of Pelham Bay Park in the northeast Bronx--at more than 2,700 acres, the city's largest.

Let me tick off the negatives first: The park's Mosholu-Pelham Greenway, dedicated in 1999, is kinda shabby and could use an upgrade overall.

Signage--directional, advisory and informational--is inadequate and usually directed at cars, not people. (So what else is new?)

But those are small complaints. What matters more is that the park is accessible to walkers and cyclists.

The accessibility started as soon as I got off the 6 train at Pelham Bay Park--about an hour's ride from Bowling Green (4 to 125th; transfer to 6 to last stop). At the Pelham Bay Park station, a major exit led me onto an overpass above the Hutchinson River Parkway. The ramp on the other side deposited me only steps from the Mosholu-Pelham Greenway, from which it appears you can reach any destination within the park on foot or bike (see map link below)

http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/vt_pelham_bay_park/images/Pelham%20map-rev2005.pdf

There's more. At the key intersections I saw, pedestrian crosswalks were clearly marked. Lights were timed to give pedestrians adequate time to cross the road.

This place is a remarkable natural environment--a place where, to an unusual degree, you witness an interplay between sky, water, land and vegetation that at first is almost startling.

Yesterday, I walked a bridge over the Hutchinson River . . .

. . . passed by Turtle Cove . . .

. . . ate an al fresco brown-bag lunch at Orchard Beach, facing Long Island Sound . . .

. . . and walked around the salt marshes in the Lagoon.

As you can see from the map, I've only begun my explorations at Pelham Bay Park. Still to come: Goose Creek Marsh, the Thomas Pell Wildlife Sanctuary, The Hunter Island Marine Zoology & Geology Sanctuary, the Kazimroff Nature Trail, Rodman's Neck--and City Island!