The Urban Forest

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 6

2011-05-28T10:18:00.009-04:00

This Nature Vs. Pavement shot got me thinking about whether the relationship between an urban tree and its pavement isn't more of a symbiotic one. Here, I think the tree needed a little space, but liked the support of the Bluestone slab on its root structure. And clearly, that Bluestone enjoys the shade and beauty of the tree.

Washington Avenue between Willoughby Street and DeKalb Avenue

My Beloved Bronx

2011-02-27T12:19:00.016-05:00

In Casablanca (1942), there's an exchange between a Nazi officer and our hero, Rick:

Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris?
Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris.
Major Strasser: How about New York?

Rick: Well, there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

I don't think I'm the only one who always imagined Bogie was referring to the Bronx, which has a reputation for being our toughest and grittiest borough. It's a great line, because, well, wouldn't we all like to see Hitler get his ass kicked in the South Bronx? But it got me thinking that Paris oddly has something fundamentally in common with the Bronx: topography.

Paris' natural high point is Montmartre in the 18th arrondissement, crowned with the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. To reach the basilica, you can either be a tremendous dork and take this little white Disney-esque trolley up the hill, or you can climb hundreds of steps. But steps are something you see throughout Montmartre, because even in the residential areas the elevation change between parallel streets can be dramatic.

The Bronx's high point is in the western part of the borough in Van Cortlandt Park, and throughout the area you will also find steep staircases that traverse the terrain. As in Montmartre, these "step streets" actually extend mapped roadways and are endlessly frustrating to motorists unfamiliar with the area. It just goes to show that despite our prevailing perceptions of the Bronx, it has its own je ne sais quoi!

Left: Montmartre
Right: Bronx (photo courtesy of sixes & sevens)

Philly the Philodendron

2010-11-14T16:33:00.005-05:00

During my junior year of college, now seven years ago, I welcomed my first house plant into a tiny one-bedroom I shared with three other women. My parents purchased the philodendron at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, and I dubbed her "Philly the Philodendron." Philly has lived in four different apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn with various roommates and light levels. She suffered set-backs, like the time she was fried by a prematurely functioning radiator or when the shock of transplantation to a larger home was overwhelming. And she put up with neglect. But she always muddles through, reborn after a hair cut and some R&R. There's a lesson there.

Sukkah City

2010-09-26T18:44:00.010-04:00

Earlier this week, an old friend and I wandered through Union Square taking in this year's finalists in the Sukkah City architectural competition. For those of you not "in the know," a sukkah is a temporary structure built for the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot to commemorate the 40 years the Israelites spent in the desert following their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

There are an elaborate set of talmudic rules in constructing a sukkah. For example, the roof must be made using the leaves or branches of a tree or plant and be sufficiently permeable so that one can see the stars at night. Also, on the stranger end of the spectrum, a whale or living elephant may be used to make the walls. (I laugh, but I've been told it's not much different from the City's Building Code.)

There's been some debate about how kosher this year's finalists actually are, but it's fascinating how much they varied in building materials and design. My favorite, and incidentally the winner of the competition, was "Fractured Bubble" by Queens-based designers Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan. This sukkah was fashioned from phragmites (an invasive marsh grass) and looked like a cross between a Pieter Bruegel painting and, as my friend put it, a really bad hair day.

What I like about the tradition of building sukkahs is the way it acknowledges how we can be both dependent on wilderness and at its mercy. Forty years in the desert doesn't sound like a party, but the Israelites worked with what they had and muddled through with a little help from upstairs (if you go in for that).

Tornadoes Vs. Trees

2010-09-18T18:17:00.010-04:00

I would be remiss if I didn't address the immense damage to the urban forest as a result of the two tornadoes that ripped through New York City on Thursday evening. The storm was brief, but devastating. I was astonished at how dark it got and then realized that the streetlights hadn't yet turned on. Then it hailed and everything went white. In the aftermath, thousands of the city's trees are damaged or destroyed. Such loss.

Fairwell and Adieu to You, Fair Spanish Ladies

2010-09-05T10:06:00.007-04:00

I blame it on Jaws, but whenever I'm in a body of natural water, my flight response kicks in the second any fish or, let's face it, piece of seaweed comes anywhere near me. I also have an all-consuming fear of suspicious dark objects in the water, which usually turn out to be rocks. Well, it could have been a man-eater.

Despite my Spielberg-induced neurosis, I'm excited to report that, as a part of the effort to restore the Bronx River's ecosystem, the Parks Department's Natural Resources Group (NRG) has reintroduced two types of herring to the river. The alewife and blue herring are diadromous fish, meaning that they live in salt water, but migrate to fresh water to spawn. The Bronx River, New York City's only freshwater river, was prime spawning ground for the herring until access was compromised by the construction of several dams beginning in the 17th Century. (Just think what would happen to Park Slope if subway service was disbanded – adios triple-wide strollers.) The dams are here to stay, but NRG will be implementing fish ladders – which are exactly what they sound like – to allow passage over the dam so the herring can successfully get it on!

"Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..."

Draw the Green Curtain

2010-08-22T19:38:00.006-04:00

There are few things less appealing than razor wire, but then I suppose that's the point. Razor wire speaks volumes -- it says, "keep out" with sharp edges, but also suggests indifference and uncertainty. Because razor wire is cheap and ugly. It is the manifestation of urban neglect. It's what makes people cross to the other side of the street.

But what happens when nature takes over, enveloping the cruel metal with tangles of green vines, transforming the spiraling razor wire into a trellis? I'm awed by this phenomenon. As we know, the woods have long represented an escape from the complexities and ugliness of urban civilization. To me, the vines are an envoy of the woods, shielding us from the harshest of realities, softening the sharpest of edges.

Justice is a Dish Best Served in the Shade

2010-07-15T07:41:00.013-04:00

In my experience, Forestry, though staffed with very burly men (I like to think of them as reverse lumberjacks), doesn't usually bare its political teeth. Fees for damaging the urban canopy are often nominal and give property owners little incentive to go the extra mile to care for street trees. I often daydream about one day ruling the division with an iron fist, extracting my pound of flesh for every maimed or murdered tree. (And yes, in this dream I often don green spandex a la Batman's Poison Ivy.) So you can imagine how thrilled I was to read this morning in The New York Times that the City has thrown the book at the arboricidal maniac wreaking havoc in Prospect Heights. Obviously, my heartfelt condolences go out this disturbed man's family, but I'm pleased to see that Forestry has manned up. Way to go, boys.

The Ruins of New York's Industrial Past

2010-06-12T14:12:00.015-04:00

Perhaps due to an overreaction to a recent birthday, lately I've been thinking a lot about decay. As I touched upon in an earlier post, Hollywood has given us our fair share of desolate New York City ruins. But we don't really need Hollywood; we have plenty of real-life examples of urban decay, most notably of the city's industrial past. These are, admittedly, in most cases less cataclysmic than zombie-apocalypse or sudden onset of an ice age, but they can be just as visually striking.

A few years ago, the Times ran a photo essay by Nathan Kensinger that included images of Brooklyn's industrial ruins, including an abandoned powerhouse on the Gowanus Canal known as "The Batcave" (you'll see why) and the infamous Admirals' Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I keep coming back to these photos; they expose the tender underbelly of New York's past -- spaces occupied now only by our city's most destitute.

On my recent visit to Staten Island, my friends and I sought out another industrial ruin: the Ship Graveyard, the site of dozens of scuttled vessels left to rust in the wetlands. Not much is known about the Ship Graveyard, I suspect it's because its the result of illegal dumping. Indeed, to reach the spot, you must pass through the neglected 18th-century Seguine family graveyard and down a steep hill overgrown with phragmites and poison ivy. But it's worth the effort.

Staten Island Ship Graveyard from Alicia West on Vimeo

Hawk and Awe

2010-05-04T17:44:00.008-04:00

City Hall, like so many other houses of government, is set within a park. It's a small park, but the significant tree canopy offers relief from the chaos of the city's civil and financial centers. I'm lucky enough to work in the attic of City Hall, which affords me a great view of the park and its inhabitants, which I thought consisted only of squirrels, office workers and nannies. That is, until today, when an enormous hawk landed on our office's AC window unit, scrambled to keep its grip on the metal, and then stared at me and my officemates as we screamed (from shock and delight) and rummaged frantically for a camera before he took off again (to no avail, sorry). I saw him again a few hours later coasting upward over the clock tower. We've named him Stokes in honor of I.N. Phelps Stokes, the author of The Iconography of Manhattan.

While I wait for Stokes' return, I'm obsessed with the live feed of the hawk's nest at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. After watching the three nestlings nap, stretch and feed, I am trying to figure out how I can make my life a little bit more like theirs.

Title pun courtesy of Alex Hills.

674,725 Trees To Go!

2010-04-25T11:02:00.009-04:00

Thursday was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and, in honor of this, my friend Keri and I, along with roughly 150 other volunteers, including a troop of chubby Boy Scouts, ventured to Wolfe's Pond Park in Staten Island to plant trees as a part of the City's MillionTrees initiative.

Here's a video of Keri planting her very first tree. (Just a note: the video is cut a bit short because one of the event leaders came by and suggested that I actually help Keri, rather than film her. I assure you, we did get this tree -- and many others -- planted.)

Keri Plants a Tree from Alicia West on Vimeo.

I Never Knew the Charm of Spring... Til April in Paris

2010-04-18T09:03:00.015-04:00

I'm fresh back from a week-long visit to Paris. I still have that great jet-lag that lets you feel rested upon waking up at 7:30 a.m. (of course the flip side is that I fell asleep at 9:00 p.m. with all the lights on). Regardless, I am up and feeling industrious.

I've been to Paris before, but previously had not had the benefit of touring the city with natives. Forgive the anthropological leaning of this post, but this experience allowed me to begin to understand and try to embrace the rhythms and customs of the town. While I'll never get the double-cheek kiss down (awkward!), it was liberating to sit down and enjoy a coffee, rather than taking it to go on my way elsewhere.

This joie de vivre-type atmosphere was refreshing. But I also noticed a strong vein of formalism and tradition that we seem to lack stateside. (We're a little more rough around the edges and, well, rude.) I noticed this everywhere -- in interactions in shops, in fashion, and, quite surprisingly, in tree pruning (you didn't think I'd be able to tie this in, did you?)! Parisians love square trees. I don't get it, and I cannot find any explanation thus far. Parks are a priority in Paris, and as far as I can tell, this specialized pruning is a part of keeping them neat and tidy. It's the french cuff of urban forestry!

Jardin du Luxembourg

Orchard Beach: A Transplanted Oceanfront

2010-03-14T20:45:00.009-04:00

I purchased Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York in 2007 with every intention of diving right in. But all 1,246 pages of that tome have sat on a bookshelf for the past three years. I never even cracked it. That was until last week, when I eagerly foraged through its index for information on Orchard Beach in the Bronx.

Before Robert Moses got to it, the beach was a narrow pebbly sand bar that linked Rodman Neck and Hunters Island, two of the easternmost landmasses of the Bronx in Pelham Bay Park. Moses reconceived Orchard Beach by connecting Rodman Neck, Hunters Island and the Twin Islands (east of Hunters Island) using fill and white sand dredged from the Rockaways to create 115 acres of parkland and a mile-long crescent-shaped beach. The result, even seen from satellite photos, seems otherworldly.

View Larger Map
What I'm beginning to understand from Caro's book is that Moses was practically an unstoppable force. He rearranged the city with a confidence fed by brilliance and arrogance. The pebbly sand of the Long Island Sound wasn’t good enough for Moses, so he simply transported tons upon tons of white sand from oceanfront Queens. Ecosystem, shmecosystem.

This type of urban planning would never fly today, but I can’t wait to check out Orchard Beach for myself this summer.

More, I'm sure, to follow on Robert Moses....

Hope Renewed

2010-02-21T15:52:00.005-05:00

I was walking along Willoughby Avenue, sidestepping mounds of melting snow, when I saw it: a budding tree.

Spring is on the way!

A Failed Attempt at a Positive Outlook: Legacy Vs. Men in the Cities

2010-02-15T21:21:00.011-05:00

In hopes of redeeming myself from my "I Hate Winter" post from mid-January, I had planned to write about Joel Meyerowitz's photo collection Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, which includes some breathtaking wintertime images of nature. Meyerowitz's photos of the furthest reaches of the city's parks provide a glimpse of what so few New Yorkers experience – actually being in nature, completely cut off from the trappings of urbanism, all within our five boroughs. These photos express a calm and beauty that is transcendent.

As I said, my plan was to write an uplifting, positive post about natural beauty. But as I was shuffling through our collection of monographs in search of Meyerowitz's work, I came across Robert Longo's Men in the Cities.

The Men in the Cities series, created by Longo in the late 70s and early 80s, includes large-scale drawings of suited men and women writhing in response to unseen stimuli. Longo saw the figures as representative of Downtown types – both CBGB's and Wall Street, and he described the violent gestures he captured as emblematic of the time: "that jerking into now." What's special about the book I have is that it focuses on the photographs Longo used as the basis of his drawings, and many of these, unlike the drawings, which are closely cropped, are set against the backdrop of New York City as seen from the rooftop of Longo's South Street apartment building.

It's easy to identify with Longo's frenetically contorted figures. In wending my way through early adulthood in New York, I frequently feel pulled in too many directions, not sure which expectations to fulfill, all the while my business casual attire twisting uncomfortably.... But it's nice to know that Meyerowitz's New York City is out there too, and someday I'll get there.

Left: Pelham Bay Park, Hunter Island, marsh grass and tidal pool, winter, Joel Meyerowitz

Right: Photographic study, Robert Longo

Mythologizing Trees

2010-02-06T19:26:00.006-05:00

I read into trees. In them I see symbols of strength, perseverance, stability, renewal. I'm not alone. In revisiting Ovid's Metamorphoses, I came across the beautiful story of Baucis and Philemon. I'd like to share it here. Enjoy.

One day, Jupiter and Mercury visit Phrygia disguised as world-worn travelers in search of shelter and kindness. House after house, the gods are turned away, until they come a hovel and are welcomed by an elderly couple, Baucis and Philemon. The couple is near destitute, but generous nonetheless. Moreover, they are happy and not at all ashamed or self-pitying. Jupiter and Mercury are impressed and resolve to reveal themselves.

As Baucis serves a modest meal, she and Philemon notice that the wine stays plentiful, seeming to replenish itself. The couple realizes they are in the presence of gods and hastily apologizes for the humble offerings. Jupiter and Mercury transform the hovel into a temple and assign Baucis and Philemon as priests, agreeing to grant the couple’s wish that neither should outlive the other.

And so Baucis and Philemon attend to the temple until one day, while reminiscing over their long and happy life together, each notices the other putting forth leaves. "Fairwell, dear companion," they whisper as they transform into an oak and a linden tree, sprouting from the same trunk.

For Alex, my oak tree.

Tu B'Shevat!

2010-01-29T21:51:00.003-05:00

I found out that today is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish celebration of the New Year of the Trees. From what I've read so far, this holiday marks the first bloom in Israel. It seems to have begun as a way to calculate the maturity of trees for harvest and tithes. Accordingly to Leviticus, fruit is forbidden for three years, sacred in the fourth and up for grabs in the fifth. Celebratory customs include planting trees and eating fruits and nuts. More recently, many have embraced Tu B'Shevat as a means to further environmental awareness. Happy Tu B'Shevat!

Applied Sciences: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2010-01-24T16:11:00.010-05:00

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. This is a principle that we all learned in high school, but so few of us understand how it relates to the practical world.

A few weeks ago, on Clinton Avenue, I looked on as sanitation workers loaded a perfectly sound couch into a garbage truck. Although watching the truck's compactor snap this huge piece of furniture in half was pretty cool, I was troubled that anyone would consider a seemingly pristine and functional couch disposable.

When I had to part with a beloved hand-me-down loveseat because it wouldn't fit in my new apartment, I made sure it had a home at a friend's place. When he no longer needs it, we'll find it a new home, provided his cats haven't torn the poor thing to pieces. I guess it's equal parts fanatical pack-ratism and responsibility to ensure that that loveseat lives out its useful life.

My guess is that whoever threw out that couch on Clinton Avenue gave little thought to its ultimate destination. Out of sight, out of mind. But that couch was trucked to a marine transfer station, tipped onto a barge and shipped to a landfill, where it will sit -- providing comfort to no one -- for many, many years, when it could have been reused by others or disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.

Wasteful behavior is a mix of ignorance, denial and laziness, and we all have our weak moments. But there are ways to make responsibility for the environment fun. For instance, yesterday, my friends hosted a clothes swap party, where I unloaded a few impulse purchases and snagged myself a super-awesome NY Jugglers t-shirt. The party hosts donated the remainder of the clothing to the Council on the Environment’s textiles recycling program. Our unwanted apparel will be redistributed to those in need or, if deemed non-usable, recycled for use as insulation or even car upholstery.

So next time you edit your wardrobe, replace a working appliance or part with a couch, think twice about taking the easy way out!

I Hate Winter

2010-01-18T12:01:00.004-05:00

It’s my refrain these days: “I hate winter.” I say it almost unconsciously; it slips out dully as an expression of boredom or more sharply as an articulation of stress, frustration or panic. Winter makes me feel cornered and desperate: the pervading grey that slips too quickly into black, that stench on the subway, the dormant trees twisting in the relentless wind.

I find myself conjuring images of pioneers struggling though the barren winter, cut off from the world, huddled around a wood-burning stove, eating the last of the cured meats and praying the livestock doesn’t die. I think I read too much historical fiction, but I relate to the strange combination of restlessness and lifelessness.

Rationally, I know that winter is what makes summer so grand. I know that nature is merely resting, not dead, preparing to emerge renewed in spring. I get the yin and the yang of it. But I miss spending time outside, and I hate this desolate landscape. I hate winter.

Clearly, I have a serious case of cabin fever, and I apologize for being such a downer. We’ve got a lot of winter to go, so I resolve to find the life out there and report back soon.

MulchFest 2010

2010-01-02T17:30:00.007-05:00

Not to bore you with yet another Xmas tree-related post, but this one comes more in the form of a public announcement. For those of you who are ready to oust your trees, the City has a great program called MulchFest that will allow you to recycle them! Just bring your Xmas tree to a local park on January 9th or 10th from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to feed it through a wood chipper. (You can find listings of MulchFest sites by borough at the Parks & Recreation website or by calling 311.) The City will use the mulch to nourish trees citywide with enough mulch left over for you to take some home!

(I just love PlaNYC's spokesbird!)

O, Christmas Tree! Thy Leaves Are So Unchanging!

2009-12-20T11:50:00.010-05:00

I've never had a Christmas tree before. However, raised in a loving, nondenominational household, I always had a proxy to fulfill my desperate urge to decorate in the holiday season. In early childhood, I made a succession of two-dimensional construction paper trees with removable paper ornaments. My parents finally broke down and bought me a small plastic tree from CVS, which I lovingly draped with origami ornaments. Last year, I greatly enjoyed the irony of hanging small glass ornaments from my tropical bonsai tree, a specimen that droops without a heat lamp in Brooklyn's winter climate. Poor thing.

This year, my boyfriend begged for a real Christmas tree. Although he had an upbringing similar to mine, he always had a Christmas tree. His entire family would trudge into the wilderness of Massachusetts (or drive to a Christmas tree farm; whatever, it's all weird to me) and chop down their tree themselves. How rugged.... As much as I love my boyfriend, I just couldn't do it. I could not have a dead tree in our apartment. So, I compromised: I bought a live, three-foot-tall Blue Dwarf Spruce (Picea glauca 'Haal').

Perhaps like many environmental enthusiasts, I didn't exactly think this one through. Evergreens go into a dormancy in cold weather. If they are brought indoors for an extended period of time, they come out of this dormancy and begin to grow. Once this happens, taking them back outdoors can shock them. Even if they don't emerge from this dormancy, one needs to have had the foresight to dig a hole in which to plant them before the ground freezes. Given the recent snow fall, I'd say that's no longer an option. Looks like I've got a new houseplant!

In Defense of Poison Ivy

2009-12-12T09:23:00.015-05:00

I have always been a die-hard Batman fan, and one of my favorite characters besides the Bat himself is Poison Ivy. The origin story goes like this: Pamela Isley, a shy but attractive botany grad student, is seduced by her professor, who later poisons her. She survives and finds she has developed an immunity to all natural toxins. A supervillain is born. Yet this supervillain has a cause: Poison Ivy is a environmental preservationist turned fanatical bio-terrorist.

A friend of mine recently gave me a sweetly sinister little book by Amy Stewart titled Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities, which details some of the "unfathomable evils [that] lurk within the plant kingdom." Stewart posits that plants should be approached with a guarded respect, noting that "we all benefit from spending more time in nature -- but we should also understand its power... [plants] can nourish and heal, but they can also destroy."

In an episode of Batman the Animated Series, Ivy poisons Gotham's DA, Harvey Dent, in revenge for his destruction of nature in the pursuit of civic development. She reasons, "Plowing up a field of beautiful wild flowers for that silly penitentiary of his." "This little rose," she adds, gesturing to the poisonous agent, "would be extinct today if I hadn't saved my precious from those horrible bulldozers. The blood of those flowers is on his hands!"

It's hard not to like to Poison Ivy. She understands the power of nature and defends it, albeit in a twisted way. As the scales of the built and natural environment continue to tip in my Gotham, there's a small part of me that fantasizes about donning a green unitard and kicking some ass in the name of plants everywhere. But I'll settle for more reasonable methods. Persistence is key. As Ivy says when vanquished, "They can bury me in the ground as deep as they like, but I'll grow back. We always grow back!"

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 5

2009-11-27T14:57:00.005-05:00

I don't know how someone thought a sufficient amount of water could get through those holes in the concrete. Clearly the tree thought this was stupid as well.

Park Place between Classon and Franklin Avenues, Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Rage, Rage Against the Change of Season

2009-11-21T18:58:00.008-05:00

Since most of the fall leaves are grounded, I was delighted to find some ginkgo leaves on Greene Avenue that, though they have been separated from their branches, have stubbornly seated themselves within the links of the fence surrounding the adjacent handball courts. Here, they cling, mimicking their former canopy, as if to say, "Do not go gentle into that good night!"

But that good night has come, so I thought I'd share some photos that I took of the beautiful changing foliage in the past month. Enjoy.

Challenges of Embracing a Waterfront

2009-11-17T20:12:00.013-05:00

I picked up Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan by Phillip Lopate at the new Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene the other day. I am not too far into it and suspect it may be a bit outdated (published 2004), but Lopate has hit upon an interesting phenomenon: New Yorkers' mysterious hesitancy to "maximize [the city's] aqueous setting" and propensity to, instead, turn inland.

Lopate attributes this trend to several factors. He argues that the waterfront's past as an occupied industrial site deterred New Yorkers from conceptualizing it as a space open for residence and recreation, as they do Central Park and Central Park West. And, he posits, "nothing can replace the beautiful, urgent logic of felt need" that characterized the development surrounding industry (docks, warehouses, customs offices, bars, brothels and churches). While I agree that Manhattan doesn't yet adequately embrace its waterfront, I am not so sure about Lopate's argument. As noted in an earlier post, the waterfront was used as a recreational space even when that meant bathing in human and industrial waste, and, given many neighborhoods' current lack of inland park space, I would argue that there is certainly a "felt need" for public waterfront access.

Where Lopate and I do agree, is that the perimeter highways and railroad tracks in Manhattan constitute physical barriers to the waterfront. Unwelcoming and seemingly unsafe underpasses and overpasses create daunting obstacle courses that, let's face it, for many New Yorkers, is just too much of a schlep. Lopate dubs the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive "the Original Sin of Manhattan planning." To that I would add with heavy sarcasm, "thanks a lot, Robert Moses." As designs for new waterfront spaces are developed, designers continue to grapple with these obstacles to bring the public to the new amenities. My favorite proposal so far is to paint the underside of the FDR Drive a lavender color called "Mighty Aphrodite." I am not sure this will work, but I love the name!

I Want to Wake Up In the City that Doesn't Sleep

2009-11-07T15:04:00.012-05:00

People seem to like disaster movies, particularly ones that leave New York City completely desolate. In these films, the city's infrastructure is intact, but bereft of human activity, it is defenseless as nature creeps back in. These movies play on the idea that urbanism and nature are mutually exclusive. As Eric Sanderson writes in one of my favorite passages of Mannahatta, "It a conceit of New York City—the concrete city, the steel metropolis, Batman's Gotham—to think it is a place outside of nature, a place where humanity has completely triumphed over the forces of the natural world, where a person can do and be anything without limit or consequence." The people are what make this city great.

This has been a frenetic, but exciting New York week for me. With Halloween, the marathon, the mayoral election and the Yankees' ticker-tape parade, I spent most of the last week overwhelmed by masses of people, their excitement and frustration crushingly palpable. At each of these events, I felt pride and enjoyment (yes, even at the ticker-tape parade, thanks to Jay-Z), but I also found myself searching for a quiet moment, a place to breathe, my own personal empty Times Square with meadow grass sprouting through the asphalt.

And this is why I think we like these disaster movies: because New York is as stressful as it is uplifting. Though we love our skyscrapers, sports events and over-the-top celebrations, there is a part of us that wishes for a quieter and more profound experience, which we see distilled by an idealized natural world.

Image from I Am Legend.

Sounds of Fall in the City

2009-10-25T16:11:00.004-04:00

Nothing says fall like the sound of a brisk walk through paved streets covered in fallen leaves. That spectacular "clomp-swish-swish-clomp" heralds in the change of season in a way that is, I think, uniquely urban. And new fall boots always put a spring in a girl's step.

The Sounds of Fall in the City from Alicia West on Vimeo.

On the Waterfront

2009-10-18T12:15:00.006-04:00

Earlier this year, I accepted the dubious challenge of writing a historic plaque for the park at Catherine Slip in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. While trying to explain how a space that was once a docking place for boats between piers was now terra firma parkland, I was surprised to learn that much of the shoreline was filled in not only with earth, but with refuse. This tidbit didn't make it into my plaque text, but it's fascinating to me to think about how we have physically blurred the edges of our city both purposefully and through neglect and how our relationship with the waterfront has changed over time.

The shores of Manhattan once consisted sandy beaches, intertidal mudflats and salt marshes. With industrialization, the waterfront was put to work, much to the detriment of the ecosystem. Industry flourished with easy access to water transport and few regulations about waste dumping. According to Mark Kurlansky's book The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell, by 1910, 600 million gallons on untreated sewage was being dumped into the waterways daily. Surprisingly, New Yorkers still used the waterways for recreation, though they would often emerge caked in filth.

Today, under the auspices of the Bloomberg Administration, the City is endeavoring to return the waterfront and waterways for safe public use. Vast swaths of the waterfront have been rezoned for public access and new parks and esplanades are under construction. Oyster and mussel beds have been reintroduced to the waterways to naturally filter the water.

Of course, there are still areas where the waterfront is completely closed to the public, notably in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. Here, the giant Con-Edison plant bars access to the water. I'd love to post a photo to show you how Con-Ed plant completely blocks views of the water, but a small man stepped out of a guard booth to inform me that photography was not permitted, as though I had not seen the signs.

Finally: Mannahatta, Ho!

2009-10-12T17:47:00.007-04:00

It took me three months, but I finally made it up to see the Mannahatta exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. (Nothing like realizing it's the last weekend of the exhibit to send me scurrying up to the northern-most reaches of Museum Mile!)

Having read most of the book, the information within the exhibit wasn't new to me; but I was impressed by the presentation, particularly the 15 foot long topographical model of Mannahatta, onto which the curator projected the many maps and diagrams included in the book. This display was a brilliant synthesis of information, illustrating not only the island's transformation from Mannahatta to Manhattan, but also the different types of bedrock, levels of beaver population, areas of the Lenape's controlled fires, and more. It was really breathtaking at times. Since the exhibit is closed, I think it's okay to post a video of this central display, but I do encourage you to buy the book!

Mannahatta from Alicia West on Vimeo.

Ode to the Ginkgo Tree

2009-10-10T17:41:00.011-04:00

This week, the Times picked up an AP story about US cities removing perfectly healthy ginkgo trees because of the "stink bomb" seeds they drop this time of year. A forester (a forester!) in Iowa City commented that these seeds present a sanitation problem, noting, "No matter what we do, two seconds after we leave, there are more on the ground and somebody can step in it." I find this absolutely ridiculous. It's nature, people! God forbid you get your Manolos messy walking down the sidewalk. (Do people wear Manolos in Iowa City?)

Ginkgo trees are amazing. First off, they are one of the few species of trees in this country that is dioecious, meaning it is distinctly male or female (it's the females that drop the "stink bombs"). They are also incredibly hardy and resilient trees, making them uniquely suitable as urban street trees. As the AP article points out, there were some ginkgoes that survived the atomic blast in Hiroshima. And they are beautiful, as evidenced by this grove of female ginkgoes in Fort Greene Park.

So, watch your step, but don't cut down healthy trees.

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 4

2009-09-28T19:16:00.011-04:00

I'm not even sure how this happened, but the tree roots here look like they took molten form at some point and engulfed the decorative brick tree pit edge treatment. Awesome.

5th Street between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn.

A Weed Grows in Brooklyn

2009-09-21T21:51:00.005-04:00

At a backyard barbeque in Gowanus this summer, I complimented my host on his spectacular tree (pictured below), to which he responded, "It's a weed." I didn't understand at first, thinking of dandelions and stammering, "But it's so pretty!" Then I realized he meant the tree was an invasive species, one that (often non-native) is able to outgrow and edge out others by monopolizing resources. While I know that I shouldn't like invasives because they detrimentally impact native ecosystems, I can't help but admire their pluck.

It occurred to me that this tree might, in fact, be the fabled tree from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith. Used by Smith as a metaphor in the book for the protagonist's perseverance despite every disadvantage, this tree "grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement." This tree knew how to overcome obstacles and would be a sure thing in the Nature vs. Pavement arena. Further Internet research revealed that many people believe Smith's tree is an Ailanthus altissima, which looks a little different, but I have been unable to definitively identify my host's tree. Whatever it is, those pink pom-pom flowers are fabulous!

Mon Oncle: A Lesson in Urban Design

2009-09-12T15:56:00.024-04:00

This week, I went to see a screening of Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle (1958) at MoMA. Mon Oncle focuses on the absurdity of the bourgeois' obsession with modern invention, which imprisons them as much as it sets them free. The film's main expression of this condition is the ultra-modern home of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Arpel, Monsieur Hulot's (Tati's cinematic alterego) sister and brother-in-law. The house (Villa Arpel) is strikingly sterile -- outfitted entirely in modernist furniture that no one finds comfortable, cabinets that open and shut with complex mechanical programming and a garden consisting of concrete stepping stones, steel edges and plants so manicured they hardly seem real.

There's a fantastic scene in Mon Oncle, where the Arpels host a garden luncheon. During this scene, Hulot's nephew, stifled by Villa Arpel and bored to tears by the shallow social display, rips down a portion of climbing vines, destroying the sad, manicured symmetry. The party rapidly deteriorates, ending in insult and injury (due in no small part to Hulot's bumbling navigation around the awkward "natural" space) and the nephew running around the garden in a Native American headdress. Later that night, when Hulot sneaks back to the house to finish tearing down the vines, the circular windows of Villa Arpel transform into patrolling eyes (the silhouettes of the Arpels' synchronized heads).

Obviously, I got a kick out of this battle enacted between the attenuated natural world and the anthropomorphized built environment. In reading Eric W. Sanderson’s Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York (as noted in a previous post, this study is also an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York), I learned that the Lenape, the Native American inhabitants of Mannahatta, created the structural beams of their wigwams by transplanting tree saplings in a circular plan and bending them inward. The contrast of the Lenapes literally building shelter from live nature with Villa Arpel's precise, tamed gardens brings me back to Anne Whiston Spirn, who posited in 1984 that to ensure the continued success in the urban environment, "nature in the city must be cultivated… rather than ignored and subdued." I think Tati would have agreed.

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 3

2009-09-07T19:57:00.009-04:00

This tree has not only overthrown the concrete surrounding its once tiny tree pit, but it has split the granite curb and pierced the surface of the asphalt roadbed. This tree kicked three kinds of pavement ass!

Carlton Avenue between DeKalb Avenue and Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Take a Look, It's in a Book

2009-08-29T16:49:00.008-04:00

You might have heard that after 26 years on PBS, Reading Rainbow aired its last episode this week. As an overly nostalgic, progressively educated 26-year-old, I am saddened by this news. Reading Rainbow didn't teach children to read; rather it taught children to love to read. This got me thinking about some of my favorite children's books, and among them is the Shel Silverstein classic, The Giving Tree. Just like the title character, this book offers me different things as I grow older and learn new things. When I was little, it was a simple story of a tree who loved and supported a boy as he grew into a man. When I was a teenager, it irked me as a disturbing allegory of a woman who gave all of herself to a man and received little in return. Lately, I see it as a commentary on shifting priorities in life and, with more recent study, as a testament to humankind's dependence on nature to preserve our way of life.

For those of you who don't own a copy of The Giving Tree, you can find the 1973 animated version narrated by the author here. Enjoy.

Book 'em, Danno -- Arborcide!

2009-08-24T22:20:00.015-04:00

Always a lover of trees, I have become increasingly sensitive to the way people take them for granted. Many of you may have heard about the extraordinary tree loss in Central Park last week due to the violent storms. A sudden destruction of so many trees in a landmark park makes people stop and think about the significance of such a loss. But most of the time, many people think of trees as hindrance -- some object in the way of a view, or, in the case of my parents' neighbor in Philly, a post to be used as a fence anchor (see photo -- this iron necklace will strangle this tree) or something in need of ridiculous decoration (again, see photo -- I hate this tasteless tree art, and note it is affixed with long screws). Never mind the fact that a single mature tree can produce 1/4 of the amount of oxygen breathed by an adult human per day, that a tree can noticeably reduce the temperature on the sidewalk and remove harmful pollutants from the air! I am, therefore, extremely grateful that in 1996 NYC made it illegal and punishable by law (up to $15,000 in fines or jail time up to one year) to remove, murder or damage any street or park tree. Next time you see someone disrespect a tree, please remind them of all the wonderful things that tree is selflessly doing for them.

Photo by Alex Hills

Secret Garden

2009-08-16T21:25:00.004-04:00

Today, while doing laundry, I spent about an hour in the backyard of my building. It was too hot to focus on my book, so I spent nearly the entire time admiring the plants that my neighbor so carefully cultivates. (He even waters my little rosemary plant.) The variety and abundance of these plants in our shady little yard is amazing, so I wanted to share some photos of them here.

Bonus Post (To Make Up for the Week I Missed)

2009-08-08T21:13:00.004-04:00

Little bit off topic, since this video was taken in upstate NY, but I like how this vine is slowly making its way onto the deck and spiraling up the leg of this chair.

Untitled from Alicia West on Vimeo.

A New Perspective

2009-08-08T13:31:00.009-04:00

I'm about 30 pages into the seminal text The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design by Anne Whiston Spirn. Spirn argues that, contrary to prevailing notions, the city is part of nature. She writes, "The city is neither wholly natural nor wholly contrived. It is not 'unnatural' but, rather, a transformation of 'wild' nature by humankind to serve its own needs." To Spirn, nature is a continuum, and its influence on how cities are designed is undeniable. One of her most striking examples of this so far is the Manhattan skyline. I have always thought it was strange how Manhattan's financial districts and their skyscrapers were located so far apart -- one at the tip of the island and the other in midtown. It seemed arbitrary, and I assumed money and influence gave rise to these two forests of steel 60 blocks apart. Not so! According to Spirn, these locations are particularly suited for building high because of the proximity of the underlying bedrock to the surface. There's something comforting about nature's power and endurance. As Spirn puts it, "Civilizations and governments rise and fall; traditions, values, and policies change; but the natural environment of each city remains an enduring framework within which the human community builds." Wise words.

Ruining Nature, Then Beating it at its Own Game

2009-07-30T19:58:00.005-04:00

Nature has a way of purifying itself, but then we come along and make of mess of things and throw nature off its game. Then we realize how much we screwed things up and devise ingenious ways of replicating natural systems with technology. It's a bit of a hopeless cycle, but it brings me to the topic of this post: water pollution control plants.

Water pollution control plants use physical and biological processes to closely duplicate how wetlands, rivers, streams and lakes naturally purify water. In the natural environment, this process can take weeks; at water pollution control plants, it takes only seven hours.

At New York City's 14 treatment plants, wastewater (i.e. whatever is flushed down the toilet or washed down the drain) undergoes processing to eliminate roughly 85% to 95% of pollutants before the treated wastewater is disinfected and discharged into local waterways. The "sludge" that is the byproduct of the treatment process is stabilized by converting it into biosolids, which can be utilized as a fertilizer, water, carbon dioxide and methane gas.

I had the unique opportunity to visit the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and it is really the coolest place I've ever been. The design of the plant, established by Polshek Partnership, makes an (admittedly) icky process positively chic. Keep an eye out for the huge metal domes (these beauties are literally full of shit) when driving on the BQE or flying into Laguardia Airport.

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 2

2009-07-18T22:45:00.004-04:00

This tree has seemingly eaten the remnants of the long-ago vanquished cobblestone tree pit treatment. It has actually grown around the stone blocks to the point where they cannot be removed.

Greene Avenue and Clinton Avenue, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Into the Woods: Shakespeare in the Park

2009-07-11T00:10:00.006-04:00

To me, the Delacort Theater in Central Park is the absolute perfect place to see Shakespeare. Set against the backdrop of the Turtle Pond and Belvedere Castle and enclosed with a scrim of trees, this open-air stage epitomizes the transition and balance between the urban zone and the woods, a dichotomy that Shakespeare frequently explored and, after all, the subject of this blog.

To attend Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacort is to cast yourself in a Shakespearean comedy. New York City can easily be aligned with Athens in A Midsummer Night's Dream or Milan in The Tempest, cities where obligation and law reign, where passion is restricted by culture and power is worth killing for. The C train ride uptown to 81st Street is clearly a shipwreck (akin to Viola’s in Twelfth Night) that leaves you gasping for air and thankful that you arrived unharmed at such an idyllic locale. The park is a world of freedom, magic and romance. And hotdogs. I really love those hotdogs... but I digress.

Shakespeare in the Park is always a cathartic experience for me, "converting all [my] sounds of woe/into hey, nonny, nonny!"* At least until I get back on the subway.

*William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, Scene iii

America the Beautiful, Manhattan the Sweet?

2009-07-05T13:19:00.009-04:00

Independence Day weekend seems like a good time to write a bit about the ecological history of New York City. The city is situated on an estuary, a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with rivers and streams flowing into it, where saltwater and freshwater meet, creating a diverse ecosystem. Early European visitors to Manhattan describe it as an Eden with fresh air, verdant landscapes and an abundance of wild fruit, fowl, fish and oysters (more on those bivalves in later posts).

I’ve always been amused that many of these early written accounts speak of Manhattan as having a "sweet smell." Anyone who is familiar with the unique putridity left behind after a rainy-day garbage collection in Manhattan, can attest to the seeming absurdity of the idea of this place ever smelling "sweet." Some time ago, I had the extreme misfortune of slipping and landing in a puddle of this muck. After three washes, my jeans still reeked of garbage, and I ended up throwing them out.

I find this dramatic juxtaposition fascinating, and cannot wait to see the exhibition Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City, currently at the Museum of the City of New York. The show recreates Manhattan as it was when Europeans first arrived and explores the balance of nature and urban development over time.

Tree Finder Guide

2009-06-28T14:24:00.004-04:00

For my birthday this year, one of the excellent presents I got from my parents was a tree finder guide my science class used in the 7th Grade. It’s kind of like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books. You know, "If you decide to descend into the dark basement to investigate the low growling noise, turn to page 8." Page 8: "The last thing you ever saw was the gleaming white teeth of the werewolf that lay in waiting." Except with trees.

Apparently this guide – and the 7th Grade science curriculum – is extremely memorable, because when my brother saw the book, he was instantly jealous and eager to ID some trees. "This one has a compound leaf – turn to page 16!"

Fort Greene Park has a great "Tree Trail," which identifies many of the species/varieties in the park. It's a great opportunity test out the guide and make sure you're using it correctly.

Nature vs. Pavement: Round 1

2009-06-14T11:54:00.010-04:00

One of my earliest memories is of being pushed in my stroller by my dad on Waverly Street in Philadelphia. As we rolled over the huge, canted flags of pavement that had been lifted by the roots of the hundred-year-old trees, he’d intone, “Uuuuup and dooooown, uuuuup and doooown.”

And so, in honor of my dad, this post and many in the future pays tribute to the sheer awesomeness of street trees in the ultimate battle of Nature vs. Pavement.

Lafayette Avenue and Carlton Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Snapshot: Urban Forest

2009-06-13T12:26:00.005-04:00

I thought I’d start with a snapshot of New York City's urban forest. According to the Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR), there are currently 5.2 million trees in the city. Through the 2006 tree census performed by DPR staff and over 1,000 volunteers, at least 168 different tree species were identified in NYC. The most predominant type of tree planted along the city’s streets is the London planetree (Platanus x acerifolia), easily recognizable by its peeling bark.

5.2 million trees is a lot of green, but there is room in our city to expand the urban canopy. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative has set the goal of planting one million trees across the city over the next ten years. I had the pleasure of personally planting about 30 trees, mostly Pin Oaks (Quercus palustris), in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx last fall. If you are interested in getting involved, you can go to the milliontreesNYC website. Here, you can volunteer to plant, as I did, donate money, or simply give DPR’s Forestry division a heads-up about streets in need of trees.

An Introduction

2009-06-13T12:09:00.003-04:00

I’m what you’d call a city girl, but I was lucky enough to attend a progressive grade school when I was a kid that based our education in the classroom on experiences both in the urban environment of Center City Philadelphia and the wilds of a nature preserve in Upper Roxborough. My school’s tenet was and still is City, Country, Classroom.

Until recently, my life experience led me a-stray from this well-rounded educational foundation. Misery in a de facto suburban high school caused me to insist that my roots were set firmly in concrete, certainly not in lawn.

And while it is true that I will never again be persuaded to go camping and will never, ever pee in the woods, I realize now that I find joy and curiosity in the natural environment present and growing in the built environment of New York City, my home for the last eight years.

My hope for these posts is to focus on subjects such as the historic ecosystem, current civic endeavors to green and clean the urban environment, fun things to do and see in the city’s parks, and things you can do to help the environment on an individual level. I hope also to hear from you, as I am by no means an expert and am eager to learn more.