Masthead_Gloucester_Kearn.jpg
Posts in Nature & Environment
New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore
New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore

New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore

By Kara Murphy Schlichting

In 1865 New York City park commissioner Andrew Haswell Green came to the conclusion that the city had outgrown Manhattan Island. In a report for the Board of Commissioners of Central Park, Green argued that the city’s future should include its mainland environs of Westchester County north of the Harlem River. He articulated a river-spanning future for New York. Green reasoned that lower Westchester was “so intimately connected with and dependent upon the City of New York, that unity of plan for improvements on both sides” of the Harlem was “essential.”

Reprinted with permission from New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis from the Shore, by Kara Murphy Schlichting, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2019 by the University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.

Read More
Built Environment, Gilded Age, Manhattan, Progressive Era, Nature & Environment, Waterfront & Islands, Urban Planning, ExcerptsGuest UserKara Murphy Schlichting, Andrew Haswell Green, Board of Commissioners of Central Park, Westchester County, Harlem River, Urbanization, East River, London, Dyckman Meadows, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, John Newton, Flood Rock, Hell Gate, William Strong, Morris Dock, King's Bridge, Pelham BayComment
Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park
Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park

Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park

By Marie Warsh

On November 16, 1966, an unprecedented event took place on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Beginning at midnight, thousands of New Yorkers convened on the park’s largest lawn to watch the Leonid meteor showers, which were expected to be particularly brilliant. Although the crowd was let down — dense cloud cover prevented visibility — the gathering nonetheless offered a convivial atmosphere. Spectators brought chairs, blankets, and hot beverages, and the event became an after-dark picnic, with some marveling at the novel scene. One woman observed, “All these people in the park after midnight, and no one is getting mugged.”

Read More
Arts & Culture, Nature & Environment, Postwar New York, ManhattanGuest UserComment
Lindsay K. Campbell's City of Forests, City of Farms: Sustainability Planning for New York City’s Nature
Lindsay K. Campbell's City of Forests, City of Farms: Sustainability Planning for New York City’s Nature

Lindsay K. Campbell's City of Forests, City of Farms: Sustainability Planning for New York City’s Nature

Reviewed by Kubi Ackerman

In November of 2015, a tree planted in the Bronx was commemorated as the one millionth tree of the city’s MillionTreesNYC initiative. The accompanying ceremony celebrated the culmination of this ambitious urban forestry project spearheaded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A little more than two years later, the City Council passed what was described as the city’s first ever bill focused specifically on urban agriculture, characterized modestly as “a first step” aimed merely at collecting information on urban agriculture organizations and businesses. Given the mainstreaming of environmental issues in New York City, which are inclusive of both urban forestry and urban agriculture, why was the former enthusiastically embraced at the top levels of municipal governance while the latter is still now only very slowly receiving the attention of policymakers? This is the central question of Lindsay Campbell’s book, City of Forests, City of Farms: Sustainability Planning for New York’s Nature, which juxtaposes and contrasts these two distinct but interrelated conceptions of nature in the city that rose to prominence in the Bloomberg Era. In so doing, Campbell provides insight on the complex interplay between politics and biological and social ecologies, and raises critical questions as to who ultimately benefits from sustainability initiatives.

Read More
Contemporary Era, Nature & Environment, Politics, ReviewsGuest UserComment
Parable of the Bees: Leslie Day's Honeybee Hotel
Parable of the Bees: Leslie Day's Honeybee Hotel

Parable of the Bees: Leslie Day's Honeybee Hotel

Reviewed by ​Rebecca Dalzell

In 2012, the Waldorf-Astoria built six beehives in a rooftop garden. Twenty stories above Park Avenue, 300,000 bees pollinated flowering apple and cherry trees, and produced jugs of honey. Its flavor depended on the season: in the spring, it was light and minty; come fall, it darkened as bees foraged on aster and goldenrod. This miel de Manhattan made its way into cocktails, bread, and gelato served in the hotel restaurants.

Read More
Manhattan, Nature & Environment, ReviewsGuest UserComment
The Earliest Sculptures in Central Park
The Earliest Sculptures in Central Park

The Earliest Sculptures in Central Park

By Dianne Durante

In Olmsted and Vaux’s Greensward Plan, the only sculpture was one atop the fountain at the center of Bethesda Terrace. The commission for the sculpture was given in 1863 to Emma Stebbins (1815-1882), an American-born sculptor working in Rome who happened to be the sister of a member of the Board of Commissioners of Central Park.

This post is an excerpt from the author's new book, Central Park: The Early Years.

Read More
Built Environment, Urban Planning, Gilded Age, Manhattan, Nature & Environment, ExcerptsGuest UserComment
The Tree That Still Grows in Brooklyn, And Almost Everywhere Else
The Tree That Still Grows in Brooklyn, And Almost Everywhere Else

The Tree That Still Grows in Brooklyn, And Almost Everywhere Else

Catherine McNeur

The Tree of Heaven, or Ailanthus, gained fame in 1943 as a symbol of endurance in Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In this book about a plucky, determined girl from the tenements of Brooklyn, the tree seemed to embody her spirit. It thrived in cities while other plants withered. As Smith put it, “No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts.” Today, if you ask an urban forester about Ailanthus trees, you’ll find that it’s exactly that kind of resilience that they find most frustrating. Today the Tree of Heaven is considered an invasive species and a problem to be solved. This was not always the case.

Read More
Antebellum & Civil War, Nature & Environment, Race & EthnicityGuest User Comments