Fort Greene Park Tree Trail

I had big plans today to spend many hours visiting Central Park...but it rained. As much as i love New York when it rains, this wasn't one of those fun, poetic rainy days. This was hot, humid, almost unbearable type of weather. So i sat inside and read a little about my neighborhood here in Clinton Hill and nearby Fort Greene.

When the rain stopped, i decided to walk the whole 4 blocks and take a look at Fort Greene Park. It was still about 85% humidity and very ugly outside, which meant I had the park to myself. It's a small park in comparison to NY's large parks (about 30 acres) but it is as old as the City of Brooklyn itself.

I remember the first time i moved the neighborhood (across Atlantic Ave. in Prospect Heights) I knew nothing about the area and was biking around looking for a bike shop when suddenly I "discovered" Fort Greene Park, as if I was the first one to ever see it. Haha.

I was so enthralled with its giant hills that i promised myself I'd come back when it snowed to go sledding. I never did.

Sounds like I've got something already planned this winter!

Anyway, the park itself was developed around the Fort on the hill that was built to protect Brooklyn from British attacks during the Revolutionary War. There was never any need for the fort as no battle ever came near it, but the hill and the Fort has loomed over Wallabout Bay and the Harbor ever since.

After many years of prompting by the likes of Walt Whitman, who repeatedly called for a Brooklyn Park to act as a "Lung" of open air, the park was commissioned by the city to the famous creators of Central Park, Olmsted and Vaux, in 1864 and was named Washington Park (Olmsted later built a park in Albany by the same name).

The Fort, originally called Fort Putnam, and the park was renamed after General Nathanial Greene during the war of 1812. The defining features of the park are a small army salute ground with two ceremonial cannons, the very large staircase leading up to the summit and the large memorial to the Prison Ship Martyrs who were cruelly kept in a ship's prison and left to die by the British in the bay.

As I walked about the park today, i noticed something about the park that is fairly new. There is now a Fort Greene Park Tree Trail. Newly marked, there is a nice walk through the park you can take along a trail of 39 species of trees. Each one is marked with a small plaque describing the species and the local significance.

It was nice to see. I imagine it is a nice small half-day school trip or even a one-period trip for earth science class from the local Brooklyn Tech High School.

It wasn't the huge day through central park I had hoped for...but it was nice and very close.