Castle Clinton

Throughout my tour, I have been avoiding most of the obvious tourist magnets and bigger monuments (with a few exceptions of course) but I always found this one interesting.

Castle Clinton, later renamed Castle Garden is that old round building down near the battery that is now unfortunately used now only as a big ticket window for the Ellis island ferry. It was built in preparation of the war of 1812 as a NY city lower Hudson guard. At that time the Castle was surrounded by water and the area resembled nothing of the modern day park. Over the years, the southern tip of Manhattan was enlarged by landfill and eventually engulfed the building.

It was used starting in the 1820 as a cultural and performance center, opera house, promenade, used by PT Barnum and even as a beer garden. During this period the structure had added floors and was roofed over. It was used mostly in this hodgepodge manner until it was transformed into an immigrant process center. Over 8.5 million immigrants went through the castle before the center on Ellis island was created soon after the civil war.

Its most famous use was that of the Aquarium starting in 1896. As is the unfortunate fate of many of New York's landmarks, the aquarium was shut down and the structure almost entirely destroyed by a behemoth bridge plan proposed by Robert Moses. The aquarium was moved to Coney Island and the original castle saved and landmarked. Its not very exciting to see now, since its used as a f#@king ticket booth...but i do find its history fun and worthy of note.

BAM and my Bar!

On Sunday, I spent the night in a very fun interconnected stoty between Brooklyn's Premier music center, BAM and one of my all time favorite bars, Mooney's Pub.

I went to go see the movies with one of my great movie buddy's and we saw "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead". It was one of the most depressing movies I have seen. Beautifully acted and directed and actually had one of the most real moments of any movie i have ever seen. However, it was one of those movies where all the characters are on the brink of absolute collapse and nervous breakdown. I don't like movies where i wish everyone would just go ahead and kill themselves...but that's just me.

Anyway, back to the fun. In the movie, their local hangout was a bar named Mooney's. We looked at each other and kind of acknowledged the coincidence that we were about to go to a bar name Mooney's. After the movie and a very cold bike ride up flatbush avenue, we got to the bar and had this interchange with my buddy Scot who was bartending:

"We just saw the most depressing movie ever"

"Was it 'Before the Devil Knows Your Dead'?"

"Yeah"

"Was there a bar in it called Mooney's"

"Yeah...how'd you guess?"

Apparently the writer of the movie drank at this Mooney's for years and wrote the bar into his story. At the last minute, they changed the location to a bar in LA but kept the name. Scot then showed me a letter they just got from the writer thanking them for the use of the name and a framed prop Mooney's drink coaster that they used in the movie.

Then to make the coincidence even tighter, Scot showed me the Sunday Times article that came out that day that featured Mooney's. (The bar is being shut down later this year to raise the rent...more on that when it happens). Both Scot and the movie are mentioned in the article.

Funny. Who knew that the movie and the bar we had planned on going to Sunday night was going to be so closely connected. Gotta love it.

Cougar in the Bronx

So...in my last blog entry I told you that I almost stepped on a large cat that I was sure was a bobcat or something like it. What i was embarrassed to admit was that I first thought that is was a cougar. Ridiculous as it might sound, I was absolutely sure it was something like that. I rationalized things in my head for a while and all I came up with was Bobcat.

Well while talking to a buddy about my large cat encounter, he said:

"I bet it was a cougar, at least once a year a cougar gets hit by a car in the bronx."

I just checked some reports out online and there it was, first hand stories about cougars in the bronx. I don't know if there is actual proof...not everything you find on the internet is true. But take that with my first initial reaction and the picture above and I think I almost stepped on a COUGAR!

There are conflicting ideas about what the cars have hit. Some say they were cougars, some say they are only in the cougar family. Whatever it was, what I saw was big and it was a cat. The tail, as you can see, is striped like some cougars and as wide as the barrel of a baseball bat. Its body was bigger than your average Labrador dog. I wish i has seen its face but I wasn't about to wake it up to find out.

Anyone know anymore about large cats in the bronx?

Pelham Bay Park

Pelham Bay Park is the largest park in NYC. It is over 2,700 acres (3 times the size of central park) and broken up between the south meadow, Orchard Beach, Hunters Island, Twin Island and Rodman's Neck. The latter is a NYPD firing range and is off limits to the public (happy day).

Since the park is so large, I intend to go back a few times. Yesterday I walked through the south meadow section, checking out most of the waterfront. 600 acres of the park fluctuates between walkable trails and underwater marshland. This time of year it is low water so i was able to see some fun stuff along the way.

After getting off the last stop of the 6-train, i entered the park and immediately noticed that I was one of maybe 10 people in the whole park. There were just acres of trees and trails scattered with random picnic tables and barbecue pits and nobody enjoying the scene. Maybe I'm the only one that likes to walk around New York in 35-degree November weather. I wasn't really in the mood to sift through the picnic area so I delved into the wilderness section of the park ASAP(as you can see above, its "Forever Wild"...except for the fence and orange netting, occasional street lamps, the few paved paths and of course the sign itself).

All jokes aside, it was exceptionally nice wilderness land and is a great place to check out some great mostly untouched land. I had a near run-in with some wildlife myself. I was walking toward a trail opening when i suddenly realized that i was 5 feet from stepping on a rather large animal. It was sleeping so I backed away before taking a few pictures. I first thought is was a bobcat. Weird I guess seeing as i was in the Bronx...but feasible. They are in westchester and could have stayed here without being bothered. But I looked at the pictures later and it had a tail like a raccoon. My roommate says that raccoons can get as big as 50-60 pounds. I don't know, this animal was bigger than a dog...and had the body of a large cat like a bobcat. I never saw its face to see, but if it was a raccoon...damn that was one big raccoon.

Anyway back to my trip. I spent the next hour walking along the waterfront just south of the now capped but still dangerous Pelham Bay Landfill. This area along the Long Island Sound is not really meant for public walks, but you all know how much I love my urban exploring. There was a nice low-tide trail along the water lined with oyster shells, tide-smoothed stones and some random washed up garbage. The highlights were the ruins of an old building that I can't find anywhere on the web as to what it was, a 12 foot high rock jetti that was fun to climb out on, great views of the Throgs-Neck Bridge and City Island and an overall incredible waterfront scene filled with all the fall colors.

If you go to Pelham Bay Park, go now while the colors are great and the crowds are gone. Also along the way, when the 6-train gets above ground, keep your eyes open for the great rooftop graffiti that hasn't yet been driven out by newer buildings.

Pictures.

A Walk in the Woods

"You only need to sit long enough in some attractive spot in the woods, that all of its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you in turn."

H.D. Thoreau, Walden

I was back up in the Bronx yesterday yo visit the final bit of Hudson River waterfront that I have yet to see up close. I took a nice long walk in 2 connected but separate parks. First the Wallenburg Forest and then Riverdale Park.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish Diplomat that was thought to have been killed by the KGB in 1947 at the young age of 35. He was an important figure in helping save the lives of European Jews bound for concentration camps during WWII. He was famous for printing counterfeit Swedish passports for Hungarian Jews and purchasing houses that were adorned with the Blue and Yellow Swedish flag to house condemned Jews. These houses were considered neutral diplomatic property and beyond the reach of the Nazis. Wallenberg has been credited with saving tens of thousands of lives.

The forest is just across the street from Riverdale Park. Most of my trip was spent walking through this park (RP). I entered the park at its southern most point at 232nd street and walked north. I'm not sure whether its city conditioning or my recent adventures, but i spent the first 20 minutes wondering when i was going to get "somewhere". It was then that i realized i was just taking a walk in the woods. This wasn't a park like those in most of NYC, it was just a long stretch of undeveloped forest set between the Hudson River and the rest of civilized Bronx. If you wanted to, as I did, you could cut left and scoot down the woodsy hill toward the river and take a look. Its cut off by a fence that blocks you from the train tracks, but you can get a great view of the raw beauty of the open cliffs of the the Palisades. Outside of just one opening in the forest, you can walk all the up to Westchester without interruption.

The trees are great and you'll get a lot of company from the birds and squirrels that are scurrying everywhere. Enjoy your walk.

If It Ain't Baroque...

The history of baroque music follows the history of its benefactors and the involvement of the church. That's why I found myself on Wednesday night at church. St. Thomas Church on 5th avenue and 53rd st to be exact. I was invited there by a good friend of mine to see some music by Bach, Handle and Buxtehude. It was a good night.

I'll get to the music in a second, but first the church. St. Thomas is an amazing building. Built in 1913, it is an Anglican church designed in High Gothic Architecture adorned with a hell of a lot of French Flamboyant details (and I thought I'd never use any of the information I learned in my music and architecture iconography class in college).

The most breathtaking feature is the 80 foot reredos behind the altar with 60 fully realized figures carved from sandstone. There is a giant choir loft, a large stained glass rose windows, a magnificent arcade with open triforium and just to show off about my limited but focused knowledge of architecture, the entire nave is supported by quadripartite ribbed groin vaulting (Mrs. Karch would be so proud).

Being a musician however, I was taken in by the 4 large organs that have helped make the church a must visit for keyboardists everywhere. The Great Organ has been refurbished and rebuilt many times but as it stands now has 4 manuals and 156 ranks. This organ fits well with the architecture and can be viewed on most days during the church services...or as my friend pointed out, during lunch hour when you may be lucky enough to catch the organist at practice.

The second featured organ, the Trompette-en-Chamade, was built in 1996 and is found directly beneath the rose window. It stands out due to its newer 25 stops and 32 ranks but also because of the white oak and 24 karat gold trim that matches absolutely nothing in the building. It is however an exquisite instrument.

We were there to see a performance by the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. The ensemble is the finest in the United States and boast of a choir taught in one of the last fully operational choir schools in the country. The choir has had acclaim all over the world, has sung for the pope, and has recorded much of its repertoire. In the church choral tradition, the group is well known. Outside of the music world they made headlines as the group that sang the world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem.

Although sung often in music halls, opera houses and other venues, the music of Bach and his contemporaries is best heard in a church setting, since that is how if was written. The period instruments (played well by the Concert Royal) and the close harmonies of the choral writing is best brought to life by the openness and high acoustics of a church like St. Thomas.

I have to say the performance was good, but I was most excited to see the church itself.

Montauk

Once again, i traveled outside of NYC for my Farewell tour. I swear, it was worth it. Many people think of NY state and immediately think of cement, tall buildings and subways. NY is, in my opinion the most geographically diverse areas in the country. We have Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, the largest state park in the country, The Hudson River, the Finger Lakes (we actually have more lakes that Minnesota, the so called Land Of Lakes) we grow more varieties of Potatoes than Ireland and have a city that legally has its own monetary system (Ithaca).

But above all that, we have some of the most gorgeous beaches this side of Maui. This weekend i travelled to possibly my favorite place on earth (i reserve the right to change my mine on this). I went to Montauk.

Past New York City, past Jones Beach, past the north shore towns on the Long Island Sound, past all the farm lands, past the vineyards and even past the Hamptons is Montauk...The End. Montauk has more protected land than developed land, its a fishing village with million dollar homes. Its an East Coast surfer's haven with farms that grow the best tasting sweet corn i have ever had. Its a summer tourist spot with a year round community. It has been the rumored home of government headquarters for black-ops, alien cover-ups and hiking trails with unexploded land mines. It has a famous lighthouse that is surrounded by amazing waterfront cliffs.

I have been going out to Montauk since I was a kid. Seeing it in the cold air of November is always fun. There are less people, better sunsets, great food, sharks, sea turtles and if you time it right you can catch a seal or two sunning itself on the rocks. (not this trip, sorry to say).

Forget the Hamptons...go out to Montauk.

see the pictures