I said yesterday that the Mount Prospect and Ridgewood Reservoirs of the Brooklyn water supply system are long gone, but that’s a simplification. The Mount Prospect reservoir is completely gone, buried under a new park and the Brooklyn Public Library. The Ridgewood reservoir, seen above in a 1909 map, has had an interesting after-life. This …
The New York State lockdown for Covid-19 began on March 22; New York City was cleared for Phase 2 reopening this past Monday, June 22. Spring equinox this year was March 19 and the summer solstice was June 20. In other words, the city was shut down almost exactly the same length as astronomical spring, …
This is more or less the same view as my sunset picture, but with a little luck on timing. “E” is the Statue of Liberty, “D” is the American Merchant Mariners’ Memorial, and the two “C”s are planes taking off from Newark Airport. On the other hand, “A” is Jupiter, and “B” is Venus. The …
“Hidden Histories: 6 Little-Known Designs for Central Park” is a nice preview of Cynthia Brenwall’s book The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure. All of the items she highlights are worth reading about, but the plan for a floating music pavilion to save wear on the grass captured my imagination. I would …
The Hudson River Valley is a beautiful natural landscape. That doesn’t mean that people haven’t altered it, for worse and maybe for better. “In the Hudson’s Image” by Jeanne Haffner looks at some of the ways that people have changed the river and how we see it, including channelizing by the Army Corps of Engineers, …
