Field Trip: City Parks

photo: Eric Diesel

In the previous column I mentioned the High Line, one of the numerous city parks which John and I enjoy, appreciate and support in both of our hometowns. Wherever you live, green spaces are a vital part of the experience. For many, these are as closeby as their own lawn or garden, porch or patio. If the greenery is in containers, on a balcony or on a table, then that’s a special bond as we tend to these green members of the family. Many a traveler has made the pilgrimage to one of America’s great national parks, but while these showstoppers are the destination, it is the roadside green spaces of picnic tables and water spouts that support the journey. In many towns, citizens congregate at fair grounds and ball fields. In cities, locals and tourists are drawn to city parks.

Both New York City and Los Angeles offer spectacular city parks. In each locale, public green spaces reflect the local color of congregants human, canine, avian, herbaceous and sometimes aquatic. From our apartment in LA, it is a close but not easy uphill climb to the spectacular arroyo of Runyon Canyon. Typical for LA, the canyon is not very far from the glamour and grift of the Walk of Fame but though tourists could make it over here, few seem to. Anyone who braves the walk should be prepared with good shoes, a bottle of water and a cell phone, but if they pace themselves they will be rewarded both with a vista of pre-settlement California and the local community of Los Angeles today. As in any park, this community is not just human. We should always remember that flora are citizens. In the Canyon, be prepared to connect with the riotous tangle of sagebrush, the ebullient tendrils of bougainvillea, the prickly wisdom of cacti and succulents and, of course, the stately watchfulness of palms. The canyon is also home to indigenous reptiles including snakes (some poisonous), wild cats (reportedly) and the welcoming committees of ravens and crows of which I have written so fondly.

photo: Eric Diesel

Equally true to LA is the rugged co-existing with the citified, and a short walk in the opposite direction leads to Plummer Park. This green space centers the eastern pocket of West Hollywood, as the Russian émigré community that is the backbone of this neighborhood merges with coexisting communities from Latino to LGBT. It’s wonderfully zoned from the north entrance that houses a farmer’s market on weekends to a community center that fronts the stroll on Santa Monica Boulevard. In between are gaming courts (with lessons), movie nights, a clubhouse, and numerous sunbathing spots. One of the slyest elements to Plummer is that it has been slipped into existence in a populous area. It is heralded on Santa Monica by a neon Winchell’s Donut sign that is a part of 66 Lights, an outreach of the Museum of Neon Art that rescues historic Route 66 neon and displays it along the stretch of Santa Monica that is also a part of the mother road.

In New York City, Central Park gets the press and rightly so, but our two favorite parks are the Christopher Street Pier and the High Line. Manhattan is an island, and almost every part of it that touches the water has been or is a port. The Christopher Street pier was once a working set of four piers along the New York City waterfront. As Greenwich Village evolved from a European immigrant community to the east coast center of Bohemia, the pier became a place where gay men congregated. The heyday of the Christopher Street Pier as a cruising area was the Stonewall era, and in the decades that followed, the Pier steadily declined (quite an accomplishment, considering what bad condition it was already in), to the point that when I arrived in New York City in the late 1980s, the Pier was unsavory and dangerous. However, it was not without its beauty; a purely urban poetry of rotting planks and eroding concrete, of grey mists and inky waters, of graffiti and tattoos, of sublime loneliness and knife-edged down-and-outness.

photo: Eric Diesel

Now the Pier is part of the Hudson River Park, 550 acres of green space that stretch along the western coast of Manhattan island. Along this public space, one can do everything from have a picnic on a lawn to take trapeze lessons. Like many villagers, when I first heard of the plans to “renovate” the Pier as a public green space, I reacted with cynicism. To this day, I have a deep affection for hardscrabble New York, and I thought that renovating the Pier equated to gentrification. One can’t really argue that it didn’t, but as a public space, The Pier is a singular achievement. Along with paths for strolling and biking, each pier has been rehabilitated into a safe and beautiful space for meeting friends, catching a few rays, appreciating the vistas of the historic neighborhoods of Wall Street, TriBeCa, the West Village, and the Meatpacking District. It should also be noted that though it is not only this, the Pier is a now-safe congregational space for the LGBT community, especially young people.

Another triumph in the rescuing of urban spaces and their transformation into congregational green spaces is the High Line. This public park is built on an elevated freight line that worked as part of the New York City transit system as recently as 1980. Once the freight line shut down, nature was quick to reclaim this lengthy stretch of real estate that stretched one story up from the Meatpacking District to the north end of Chelsea, both of which neighborhoods were at that time mostly, although not exclusively, industrial areas. In 1999, concerned citizens formed Friends of the High Line, and through their efforts, this historic space has not only been preserved, it has been transformed into a spectacular public space that has very quickly assumed a pivotal role in the cultural life of New York City.

photo: Eric Diesel

Walking the High Line is a revelatory experience. It has been designed to reflect both the space’s history with paths that follow the original tracks and design elements that reference American industrialism, and its placement along the western edge of Manhattan island, with no opportunity overlooked to create a spectacular and sometimes voyeuristic view. Benches rise along the train track paths as if they are the cords that hold the wheels in suspension. Theatre-style seating areas look onto the traffic of the avenues below, framing a view of city hustle that is the most expressive of works of art. Numerous delightful surprises await along the paths, which take a walker through zones that anyone who regularly rides the subway will appreciate as a reference in itself.

But while the architecture of the High Line in service to its view is spectacular, the best vistas are provided by its herbaceous citizens. Over two hundred species are planted and maintained along the High Line, many of them reflecting the self-seeding species that appeared on the high line as it fell into disuse and many being native to New York. The green system is truly that: it is a model of sustainability. Most importantly, the plants are carefully organized to articulate their own tale of survival in what is, after all, an urban jungle, and as always with plants, they offer an ancient wisdom that one has to be attuned to, but that is revelatory upon being received.

Wherever you live or visit, green spaces are a rich and important part of the living. Each municipality has its own rules and regulations regarding funding and maintenance, but almost any city park will have a Friends program through which citizens can contribute time, funds, or other efforts to support these vital places and all of the activities and life that they are home to. Whether you’re there for a hike or a picnic, for a free concert or a Frisbee game, city parks, like nature itself, are a gift that deserves not just our appreciation but our conservancy. Choose your park or parks, and support them with what means you have. If you do, the plant life on the High Line will be quick to radiate their appreciation, and if you don’t, the ravens of Runyon Canyon will be quick to vocalize their disappointment.

For Further Information
Runyon Canyon http://runyoncanyon-losangeles.com/
Plummer Park http://www.weho.org/index.aspx?page=776
66 Lights http://www.weho.org/index.aspx?page=915
Hudson River Park http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/
High Line http://www.thehighline.org/
New York Resoration Project: http://www.nyrp.org