Urban Gadabout, L.A. edition: "What's Out There Weekend Los Angeles" is coming, October 26-27!

by Ken

Last October's "What's Out There Weekend New York" was my introduction to the Cultural Landscape Foundation, and it was a pretty good indication that these are serious people when it comes to exploring the ways in which public landscapes are imagined and executed. Oh, there were glitches that seemed mostly owing to the fact that the planning wasn't done locally -- not least the scheduling of this incredibly ambitious program for the same weekend as "Open House New York," which I described here recently, in connection with this year's edition of OHNY, October 12-13, as "probably NYC's most important touring weekend of the year").

But the schedule was an awesome assortment of riches. I spent Saturday exploring Brooklyn's Prospect Park from top to bottom: Grand Army Plaza with Municipal Art Society super-tour leader Matt Postal, then the park's great mile-long central Long Meadow and the Ravine followed by the exciting projects at the southern Lakeside end, both with the park's vice president for design and construction, Christian Zimmerman. (Plus I had scheduled myself then for an across-the-city trek to a tour of the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park, but I would have needed a more instantaneous exit from Prospect Park to have any hope of making it anywhere near on time.) Then Sunday, after a tour of Staten Island's north shore that was originally planned as an MAS coproduction but wound up as an exclusively MAS event, I got a splendid overview of Queens's Forest Hills Gardens with the development's leading realtor (also a longtime resident). There must have been 20 or 30 other tours listed which I would have loved to do.

TCLF describes itself as "the only not-for-profit (501c3) foundation in America dedicated to increasing the public's awareness and understanding of the importance and irreplaceable legacy of its cultural landscapes."

Through education, technical assistance, and outreach, we broaden awareness of and support for historic landscapes nationwide in hopes of saving this diverse and priceless heritage for future generations. While TCLF seeks donations to support its efforts, it is not a membership organization.

Founded in 1998 by Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, TCLF achieves its mission by:

� Collaborating with individuals and local, regional, and national groups to understand and protect our landscape heritage and to reach the broadest possible audience. For example, TCLF is one of the American Society of Landscape Architects� �partners in education�;

� Training professionals, students, teachers, and the general public to recognize, document and safeguard America's cultural landscapes;

� Serving as the nation�s largest and most valuable non-profit source of information about our nation�s historic landscapes and those pioneering individuals who have contributed (through design, planning and advocacy) to this legacy;

� Raising awareness of and support for individual landscapes-at-risk; and

� Recognizing and celebrating the efforts of owners, supporters and stewards of significant American places.

I should probably have taken note here of other "What's Out There Weekends" that have been scheduled, but I didn't want to let down readers and friends in the Los Angeles area by failing to sound the alert for this month's upcoming "What's Out There Weekend Los Angeles," offering an opportunity to "explore and discover two dozen historic landscapes in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Santa Monica through a series of FREE expert-led tours highlighting the region's remarkable landscape legacy."

Landscape Legacy in the City of Angels

Los Angeles' landscape legacy ranges from its Spanish Colonial roots to the present, and includes Asian, Hispanic, and African American heritage. The region is known for its distinct Modernist design legacy, which connects indoors and outdoors in innovative ways, and it also has a unique history of Postmodernist with public spaces that meld architecture, landscape architecture and art into one inseparable unit. Explore LA's design legacy through tours that include entertaining anecdotes and intriguing stories about city shaping, landscape architecture and design history. Many are places people pass daily, but do we know their background stories?

What�s Out There Weekend dovetails with the Web-based What�s Out There, the nation�s most comprehensive searchable database of historic designed landscapes. The database currently features more than 1,400 sites, 9,000 images and 700 designer profiles.  And, What's Out There is newly optimized for iPhones and similar handheld devices, and includes a new feature -- What's Nearby -- a GPS-enabled function that locates all landscapes in the database within a 25-mile radius of any given location.

It's a much less ambitious schedule than WOTW New York, and competition for precious spaces in those two dozen tours is likely to be keen. The list of tours is here:

http://tclf.org/landscapes/wot-weekend-LA.

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Urban Gadabout: Before can go into shutdown, must report: Open House New York listings finally available (and registration begins) tomorrow morning!

by Ken

This shutdown thing sounded like such a neat idea that I was thinking of having one myself. It's true that my normal performance mode is often indistinguishable to the naked eye from shutdown, but for the sake of principle I was prepared to go the extra mile. Until it hit me that in official shutdown mode you don't get paid, and that extra mile I wasn't so eager to go -- how could I afford to?

Besides, the whole matter could be resolved easily by means of a compromise that is both fair and obvious: giving me everything I want. Anyone who doesn't see this is obviously not interested in finding a solution and is an evil person who should probably be killed.

In any case, however, shutdown isn't possible just yet, as it's necessary to report tonight that tomorrow -- that's right, Tuesday, October 2 -- at long last it will be possible to see the complete listings for Open House New York Weekend, October 12-13. Tomorrow is also the start of registration, so people with advance information will already be clogging the Intertubes to grab their places in the "hot" events.

In case you're not familiar with OHNY, here's what I wrote last year. Earlier today I described it to an out-of-town friend as probably NYC's most important touring weekend of the year.

To celebrate the city's architecture and design, the 11th Annual openhousenewyork Weekend will once again unlock the city, allowing New Yorkers and tourists alike free access hundreds of sites talks, tours, performances and family activities in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. From private residences and historic landmarks, to hard hat tours and sustainable skyscrapers, OHNY gives you rare access into the extraordinary architecture that defines New York City, while introducing you to the people who make the city a vibrant and sustainable place to live, work, and play.

If you're not familiar with OHNY, the first thing you need to know is that the events are free. It's really impossible to give a fair idea of either the range or quantity of the offerings, which span all five boroughs and include scads of sites that aren't accessible to the public at any other time of the year, or at least are rarely accessible. The events are so numerous that the guide really deseves several weeks of close study.

Only we don't have several weeks, people! Registration starts tomorrow morning!

I assume that at some point in the morning the online version of the OHNY schedule will be reachable via the OHNY "overview" page.

The print version is once again available bound into the current issue of Time Out New York, and can also be picked up at various locations around the city, which are listed here.

Many events require preregistration, if only to control
the number of participants, but lots of others don't

It's true that a cluster of the offerings will attract high-level interest, and theyre usually not hard to recognize. If, for example, you see that Mayor Bloomberg is hosting a session on "Achievements of the Bloomberg Administration" in his living room, with coffee cake and tea served, assume that it will fill up in seconds of the start of registration (if not sooner). Remember too that these are some pretty sophisticated folks scouring the listings, and the ones that represent truly unusual access to a distinctive site are also going to be heavily subscribed.

At the same time, many events will be offered at multiple times, and in addition there are going to be lots of events that will attract much more limited response. I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that this will include many of the most interesting ones. They just don't have the raw pizzazz of the "hot ticket" events, but they may go a lot farther toward filling in your picture of how the city functions.

There's also OHNY Kids -- "tours and workshops for the whole family." Plus there's bike tours, and "opendialogue" events ("on-site talks and tours led by architects, designers, planners and scholars and a photo competition"). and who knows what all else. Usually I find there are so many offerings I'd love to do that it serves as fodder for my own explorations for the year leading up to the next OHNY.

OHNY has a blog that has been featuring previews
of events planned for this year's OHNY Weekend:

@rtifacts illuminated, General Grant National Memorial, Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, Urban Stargazing at Woodlawn Cemetery (how cool is that?), Little Red Lighthouse, Trinity Church Bell Tower, Jefferson Market Library Tower, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, TroutHouse, Bronx Library Center, Citi Bike Warehouse (that's in Sunset Park, Brooklyn), Urban Post-Disaster Housing Prototype, PS 41 -- The Greenwich Village School Greenhouse Roof, Kathryn Scott Design Studio Brownstone, Suchi Reddy Apartment, Gwathmey Siegel Architects Apartment, Desai Chia Architecture Loft, Brad Zizmor Residence.


The Citi-Bike Warehouse in Sunset Park

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Urban Gadabout: World Tourism Day is this Friday -- so go someplace! (I have some NYC thoughts)

by Ken

No, I don't know anything more about "World Tourism Day," and I'm not interested enough to research it. But I do know what it means to me, and one thing it doesn't mean is booking a $10K fancy-pants trip to some exotic destination.

For reasons that probably wouldn't interest anyone but me, regular travel-style tourism isn't terribly workable for me, but as "Urban Gadabout" readers know only too well, I've become a firm believer in the "tourist in your own city" approach, and if I did have occasion to travel, I would probably try to do it the way I've been doing my local gadding. I expect that in more and more places there are more and more opportunities for walking and other kinds of tours that explore an area's past and present, appreciating what's there now and understanding how it came to be there.


LAST CALL FOR "BRIGHTON LINE MEMOIRS"

As I mentioned in my recent post "Catching up with Jack Eichenbaum," Jack -- who's the Queens Borough Historian -- had to postpone this tour from its original July date. People are probably more familiar with Jack's more or less annual "World of the #7 Train," a day-long trek along the subway line that goes from Times Square to Flushing. Awhile back he brought back his "Day on the J train," to Brooklyn and Queens, and now for the first time in a decade or so he's doing Brooklyn's Brighton line.

Brighton Line Memoirs meandering off the Q train?
Saturday, September 28, 10am-5:30pm
This is a series of five walks and connecting rides along what was once the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island RR dating to 1878. Walks take place in Prospect Park, Brighton Beach, along Avenue U, in Ditmas Park and Central Flatbush. Lunch is in Brighton Beach where you can picnic on the Boardwalk. Tour fee is $39 and you need to preregister by check to Jack Eichenbaum, 36-20 Bowne St. #6C, Flushing, NY 11354 (include name, phone and email address) Get the full day�s program and other info by email jaconet@aol.com. The tour is limited to 25 people. Don�t get left out!

As I also reported in that post, although the last I heard Jack still had a fair amount of space, "The way it often works is that there's a flurry of registrations as the date closes in, and people wind up getting closed out. You don't want that to happen to you, do you?"


MUNICIPAL ART SOCIETY

I still don't know of any better place to start exploring the city than MAS's tours (what's posted now is the schedule through November), and while a bunch of tours for the coming weekend are already sold out, the last time I looked there was still space in:

Harlem Hike: 145th Street from Hotel Olga to Sugar Hill
Eric K. Washington
Saturday, 11am-1pm

Prowling the War of 1812 Seaport
Kathleen Hulser
Sunday, 11am-1pm

Note: I've done Eric Washington's 145th Street "hike" and loved it -- and also his "Harlem Grab Bag," of which there's another edition coming up Saturday, October 12.


ACROSS 57th STREET WITH JUSTIN FERATE,
PLUS "THE REAL GANGS OF NEW YORK"

I worried that I jumped the gun in providing a link for the fall 2013 Wolfe Walkers brochure, which I'd unearthed while doing my own Web rummaging, but Justin Ferate (who has been organizing the Wolfe Walkers program for some years now) finally attached the brochure to a list e-mail. (And if you're not on Justin's list, you're missing out on a wealth of information. Sign up now.) As it happens, there's hardly any time left till the first event on the agenda, "57th Street: Art! Music! Culture!," this Saturday the 28th at 1pm ("to approximately 4pm").

57th Street has long been a treasure trove of artistic, musical, and cultural delights. We discover the history, legends, and lore of this fascinating thoroughfare. Among the various sites will be Trump Tower, Tiffany�s, the Fuller Building, the Solow Building, Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, the Art Students� League, and a selection of art galleries. Rediscover old friends, discover remnants of the street�s residential past, and view high-end new buildings. Tour will include several special interior visits.

Meet: Inside the entrance of Trump Tower, located on the east side of Fifth Avenue, between East 56th and East 57th Streets. A coffee restaurant and restrooms are available inside the building.

Fee: $23 on-site (by check to Hermine Watterson)

I've spent a lot of time on various stretches of 57th Street, and I'll bet it would be special to be able to see it through Justin's eyes, not to mention those promised "special interior visits." During the ominous weekend last October when the Northeast was girding for Hurricane Sandy, and the Municipal Art Society prudently canceled its tours, I found myself suddenly free to hook up with Justin's Halloween Greenwich Village "ghost" walk. I don't have much interest in ghosts, but I realized I'd never done a walk in the Village with Justin, and his view was bound to be different from any I'd experienced. It was, it was.

As it happens, this walk is scheduled on the same day as Jack Eichenbaum's "Brighton Line Memoirs," so I can't do it, but I'll bet that people who do won't ever look at this grand old street the same way. It's too late to take advantage of the discount for advance registration, so just show up at the meeting place (see above) with that check for $23 made out to Hermine Watterson.

Tomorrow Justin's giving a lecture at the Merchant's
House Museum on "The Real Gangs of New York"

It's a "19th Century Lifeways Lecture," "marking the 150th anniversary of the New York Draft Riots, the bloodiest urban insurrection of 19th Century America," tomorrow night, September 26, at 6:30pm. Justin will "examine the social pressures and misguided public policies that led to the powder keg that exploded in the streets of New York in July of 1863."

The Merchant's House Museum at 29 East 4th Street is a unique destination in its own right, not just for the survived 1832 Federal-style house itself but for the remarkable circumstance that a house worth's of furnishings and possessions from the family that lived there for almost a century has also been preserved. The lecture is free to museum members, $15 to others. For more information and registration, go to the museum's Calendar of Events.


GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY

One of the sites planned for Saturday's "Far Side" tour

Green-Wood is a reminder of the days before we had major parks, when cemeteries on the outskirts of the city were places where harried urbanites went for a day's outing in nature, and Brooklyn's Green-Wood was in fact the prototype for New York City's first great parks, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park (Manhattan) and Prospect Park (up the Terminal Moraine a piece in Brooklyn). Green-Wood has an active tour and events schedule, and while Sunday's "Historic Trolley Tour" is sold out, on Saturday at 1pm there's an intriguing-looking trolley tour called "The Far Side of Green-Wood," which will visit "sites not included on many other Green-Wood tours."

*     *    *

That's just some off-the-top-my-head thoughts, and just for the coming weekend. Don't neglect to check these folks' ongoing schedules -- including that of one of my favorite tour sources, the New York Transit Museum.

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Urban Gadabout: Catching up with Justin Ferate's New York

The previously scheduled visit to Staten Island's in-development Freshkills Park had to be postponed because of Superstorm Sandy damage. The tour has been rescheduled for November 9.

by Ken

A couple of days ago I promised an update on the fall tour schedule of the Wolfe Walkers, now programmed by the peerless tour guide Justin Ferate. The brochure is available online now, with this introduction:

FALL PROGRAM: 2013

Dear Friends,

This Fall, we have an exciting selection of touring options. Our first tour of the season will view and explore a diversity of important and well-loved 57th Street landmark buildings and will also include brief tours of several art galleries. Our Autumn bus trip will take us up to Hartford, Connecticut. Here, we�ll take a private boat tour along the Connecticut River on the romantic old- time excursion boat, the Hartford Belle. (Reserved just for the Wolfe Walkers!) We�ll lunch at the highly acclaimed Italian restaurant Salute and end our visit to Hartford with a guided tour of the beloved Harriet Beecher Stowe House. To celebrate the Fall season, our intrepid bicyclist Jacqueline Goossens will be leading a special bicycle trip to Upper Manhattan and then will travel along the Hudson River toward Columbus Circle. We are also offering an often-requested walking tour of the �Mile Square City� of Hoboken, New Jersey. An unusual and special new tour will discover the multi-layered histories of Nutley, New Jersey � strolling the treasured waterfront greenbelt of Memorial Parkway (including a number of 18th and 19th century historic structures) with the Nutley Museum Director, John Simko. Speaking of greenbelts, we�ve also rescheduled the bus trip to Freshkills Park in Staten Island. Spaces are limited, so be certain to register right away! Finally, at our annual Holiday Brunch, Justin will present a lecture celebrating The Centennial of Grand Central Terminal. There are lots of options. We look forward to seeing you all!
The Wolfe Walker Committee

Here are abbreviated descriptions of the tours.

57th Street: Art! Music! Culture!
Walking Tour with Justin Ferate
Saturday, September 28, 2013, 1pm to approx. 4pm

57th Street has long been a treasure trove of artistic, musical, and cultural delights. Join noted Tour Leader Justin Ferate as we discover the history, legends, and lore of this fascinating thoroughfare. Among the various sites will be Trump Tower, Tiffany�s, the Fuller Building, the Solow Building, Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, the Art Students� League, and a selection of art galleries. Rediscover old friends, discover remnants of the street�s residential past, and view high-end new buildings. Tour will include several special interior visits.

$20 in advance, $23 on-site

Hartford Belle Boat Cruise & Harriet Beecher Stowe House
Bus & Walking Tour with Justin Ferate
Saturday, October 5, 2013, 7:45am to approx. 7pm

Delight in the brilliant colors of autumn as we travel by motor coach through the leafy landscapes of Connecticut en route to the capital, Hartford. We�ll begin our visit with a private guided boat cruise up the Connecticut River on the intimate riverboat Hartford Belle. beautiful intimate riverboat reminiscent of simpler times. She has a mahogany-trimmed enclosed cabin. Our ever-gregarious Captain Brad Fenn likes to keep the windows open on sunny days to capture the autumn breezes. There is ample seating or some may want to stand on the bow to get the best views along the majestic Connecticut River! After lunch at the Italian restaurant Salute, a stone�s throw from Hartford�s centrally located Bushnell Park, we will travel to the Harriet Beecher Stowe House � an historic house and National Historic Landmark in an artistic neighborhood known as Nook Farm -- which was the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, for her last 23 years. We will take a special guided tour of the home.

Limited to 40 participants. Advance reservation only, $135 (no on-site registrations)

Upper Manhattan/Hudson River Bicycle Ride
Biking Tour with Jacqueline Goossens
Saturday, October 12, 2013, 10am to about 3-3:30pm

Join the Wolfe Walkers and the enthusiastic leader Jacqueline Goossens for our free autumn bicycle tour. This tour is conceived for those who want to take a leisurely ride to experience the varied New York environments through which we�ll travel. Meeting at Columbus Circle, we will ride along Central Park West to 110th Street. Continuing north along Frederick Douglas Boulevard, we�ll travel west to the Hudson River bike path. We�ll stop at Fairway Market to purchase lunch, which we can eat in Riverside Park. After lunch, we�ll ride south along the Hudson River, Riverside Drive, and south toward the Hudson River Boat Basin at 79th Street. The tour will end at 57th Street � near Columbus Circle.

Limited to 8 people, free

Hoboken -- "Mile Square City" or "Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken!"
Walking Tour with Justin Ferate
Sunday, October 27, 2013, 9:30am to about 1pm

Just a short trip across the Hudson River is the very vibrant and desirable suburb of Hoboken, New Jersey. New waterfront developments and immense loft conversions add a new vitality to this former working class Victorian community. Join our popular Tour Leader Justin Ferate as we rediscover the �Mile Square City.�

Take PATH to the restored Hoboken train station originally designed by architect Kenneth Murchison. Examine the new riverside housing and stroll the streetscapes of gracious 19th Century architecture. Learn of Hoboken�s history: from baseball to Stephen Foster; from steam railways to the first American brewery; from Maxwell House Coffee and Lipton Tea to �ol� blue eyes,� Frank Sinatra.

$20 in advance, $23 on-site (plus PATH fare)

A Walk in the Park: Nutley, New Jersey
Walking Tour with John Simko (and Justin Ferate)
Saturday, November 2, 2013, 10am to about 12:30pm

A century ago a magazine editor living in what is now known as Nutley, New Jersey urged his friend Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) to pay him a visit. ''There isn't much that is prettier than this end of New Jersey,'' he wrote. ''It is all upland, tumbling into shallow valleys and bright sunny reaches along the Passaic River, and hillsides white as snow with daisies, and everywhere trees.''
Today, the Empire State Building is clearly visible from some of Nutley's highest points, but the pastoral serenity is preserved in the township's 100-acre park system that is sprinkled throughout this suburban community � a park system that is considered to be the �crown jewel� of all Essex County. We�ll walk about a mile, with many stops along the way. A list of possible luncheon destinations will be distributed on the tour. Celebrate Nutley history with a walking tour led by John Simko, the Nutley Museum Director.

$20 in advance, $23 on-site (plus bus fare)

Discover the Creation of Freshkills Park
Ferry & Bus Tour with Justin Ferate
Saturday, November 9, 2013, 9:15am to about 12:30pm (Manhattan to Manhattan)

Join Justin at Manhattan�s Staten Island Ferry Terminal to begin this discovery tour of the new Freshkills Park! In Staten Island, we�ll meet a special bus and a member of the New York City Parks Department who will take us on this very unusual adventure. At 2,200 acres, Freshkills Park will be almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park developed in New York City in over 100 years. James Corner of Field Operations, the same firm that created the stunning landscape designs for the High Line, produced the master plan to guide the long-term development of Freshkills Park.

All tour participants will be required to sign a Department of Sanitation liability waiver. $20 in advance (no on-site registrations)

Holiday Brunch & Slide Lecture by Justin Ferate
Brunch at Pete's Tavern, E. 18th St. at Irving Pl.
Slide Lecture: Groundbreaking for a New New York City!
The Centennial of Grand Central Terminal
Sunday, December 15, 2013, 12n to 3pm

Share an end-of-the-year meal with other Wolfe Walkers at our long-time holiday venue, Pete�s Tavern. See the table where O. Henry wrote his beloved Christmas classic, �The Gift of the Magi.�

In 1903 � a little over 100 years ago � the New York Central Railroad was legally obliged to either �Electrify or Leave Town!� In response, the train company made an impressive and nearly inconceivable decision. Blasting an immense trench down the center of stony island of Manhattan -- from 42nd Street to 97th Street -- the railroad placed their newly electrified trains underground. Above the railroad tracks, the railroad then created an elegant, luxurious new thoroughfare named PARK AVENUE -- transforming one of the ugliest places on the planet Earth into one of the most world�s desirable residential addresses, which still remains exceptionally chic 100 years later. The centerpiece of this great �makeover� was Grand Central Terminal, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year! Justin Ferate shares a photographic history of the creation of Grand Central Terminal, Park Avenue, and the invention of Midtown Manhattan!

Brunch features an array of selections from which to choose, and includes one drink. Limited to 38 people. $25 in advance, $30 on-site if space permits

Registration is by mail only, and since it's handled entirely by volunteer labor, you don't get an acknowledgment. If you're unsure about whether you're registered, you can always call Mickie Watterson to check. Warning: The big events like the bus trip and boat ride to Hartford always book up, and usually pretty quickly, so if I were you, I wouldn't delay. Also, I did the Holiday Brunch at Pete's Tavern for the first time last year and had a swell time; people tend to remember about it as the day approaches, so again, it's wise to book ahead. -- Ken

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Urban Gadabout: Summer gadding around the outer boroughs of NYC, with news from MAS, Jack Eichenbaum, and the NY Transit Museum

Lighthouse Park at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island -- we'll be there tomorrow evening for the Municipal Art Society's walking tour, Roosevelt Island: The Northern Route.

by Ken

I haven't been writing much about my late-spring and summer wanderings, but after my enforced decommissioning in late April and May, I've been getting my rhythm back, and having some especially good times outside Manhattan. In fact, including tomorrow night's Roosevelt Island: The Northern Route (7/26, 6pm -- an evening tour, note), with Roosevelt Island Historical Society president Judith Berdy (who a few weeks ago led us on a terrific walk through the "Southern Route," down to the new Four Freedoms Memorial at the island's southern tip), I'll have had something like nine consecutive excursions over seven weeks outside Manhattan, including neat destinations like City Island, the tiny island off the coast of the northeasternmost Bronx, and the Little Italy along the Bronx's Arthur Avenue, both Municipal Art Society tours.

I actually undertook a walk less than four weeks after total-knee-replacement surgery, because I'd been wanting to do Joe Svehlak's tour of the few remains of Manhattan's once-thriving Lower West Side, a neighborhood that was basically to make way first for the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and then the World Trade Center. I've done a lot of tours with Joe, both his own and other tour leaders' -- and who should I run into on the Lower West Side tour but another of my favorite tour leades, urban geographer Jack Eichenbaum?

There's exciting news from Jack, maybe the most exciting New York tour news of the summer, but we'll get to that. Meanwhile I'm delighted to see that Joe is repeating his tour of Brooklyn's Sunset Park: The Old Neighborhood (Saturday, 8/31, 10:30am), where he grew up and later became a first-time property owner. I'm a huge fan of Joe's neighborhood tours (I still kick myself for missing his walk through Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood but loved the follow-up tour of Ridgewood, straddling the Brooklyn-Queens border), which provide a great feel for the way geographical and historical factors have shaped development as well as a feel for the way area residents live their lives.

Joe pointed out, by the way, that in his time Sunset Park wasn't yet a neighborhood in its own right, but was "the Sunset Park area of Bay Ridge," which then covered the full four miles or so of Brooklyn's waterfront along New York's Upper Harbor, down to the Verrazano Narrows. And the day after Joe's Sunset Park tour, Melanie Macchio will be leading a walk in Bay Ridge: Brooklyn's Western Waterfront Neighborhood (Sunday, 9/1, 4pm) -- I can hardly wait for that one! (The Bay Ridge walk means I won't be able to do another of architectural historian Tony Robins's patented art deco-themed tours, Art Deco on Central Park West; Sunday, 9/1, 2pm.)

Even though I did it last summer, I'm tempted to redo Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards: Urban Debate, Arena Debut (Saturday, 8/3. 10am), now that the first-completed part of the massive Brooklyn development project, the Barclays Center arena, has been open for nearly a year and is in full swing. Of course, as Norman, who has been the blogger most assiduously tracking the fairly squalid (and often flatly illegal) history of the project, stressed last year, when the arena was just opening, we won't know how seriously it will impact the immediate and surrounding neigborhoods until the serious parts of the develoment, the money parts, the 16 planned towers, are built and functioning -- if they ever all are.

One of the more suspicious aspects of the development is the way the modest concessions to the community which probably made it possible to finally get the project going don't kick in until virtually all of the planned development is completed, which may never happen. There doesn't seem to be much question that there will be enough towers built to alter the lives of everyone living in the area now, but that by itself won't trigger the community concessions.

Last summer I loved Norman's Atlantic Yards walk and presentation, which really gave us an immersion in the welter of issues raised in and by the project. I was all the more impressed since my attention was serious compromised by clock-watching even as we were walking farther and farther in the wrong direction to help me make the rendezvous for Francis Morrone's walk through Red Hook, the low-lying area on the western Brooklyn shore that would soon be devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

As it happened, i didn't make the start of the walk, but did manage to catch up, as did my friend Laurence Frommer, who had also been on the Atlantic Yards walk and had separately made his frantic way from one tour to the other. Laurence is an MAS tour leader himself, and I've been on countless tours with him, both his own and other tour leaders'. Earlier this summer he did a series of Pride-themed LGBT walks. This weekend he continues his exploration of the city's new phenomenon of cultural districts with a walk through the South Bronx's Mott Haven Cultural Corridor (Sunday, 7/28, 2pm-5pm -- yes, it's three hours). Then next weekend he's doing a pair of tours, Off and Off-Off Broadway, Parts 1 and 2 (Saturday and Sunday, 8/3 and 4, 3:30pm each day).

Let's see, I still have a tour coming up with Harlem (and Uptown Trinity Church Cemetery) maven Eric K. Washington: namely, Manhattanville: Recalling a Neighborhood's Activist Heritage (Sunday, 8/11, 1pm). I've really wanted to do a tour of this West Harlem neighborhood with Eric, and last time had it sell out on me before I realized I hadn't registered! Eric is also doing a Harlem Week edition of his terrific Harlem Grab Bag walk (Saturday, 8/17, 11am).

I'm also signed up for Bedford Stuyvesant's Eastern District (Saturday, 8/24, 11am) with architecture bloggers Suzanne Spellen and Morgan Munsey, who I'm happy to see have become MAS mainstays specializing in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area (and related areas). The next day they're doing Stuyvesant Heights Expansion District (Sunday, 8/25, 11am).

Staten Island will be represented too, with a two-part investigation of the north shore led by lifelong Staten Islander Georgia Trivizas: Part 1, basically the St. George area (I thoroughly enjoyed an earlier version of this walk with Georgia), tomorrow (Saturday, 7/27, catching the 10:30 Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan); with Part 2, the northwestern shore around to Snug Harbor, to follow (Sunday, 8/18, also catching the 10:30 ferry).

AS FOR JACK EICHENBAUM . . .

As I've said, I've probably learned more about how the underlying geography has conditioned the development of New York City neighborhoods from Jack Eichenbaum, a geographer, than from anyone else. I've still got a summer tour with Jack coming up, and it should be fascinating: Willets Point (Saturday, 8/17, 4pm), "a sewerless hardscrabble area of auto junkyards and related businesses" lying between the Mets' baseball stadium (now-gone old Shea Stadium and now-functioning Citi Field) and now-booming Flushing, a sort of wasteland "that has twice beaten back attempts at redevelopment." Once again the developers have their beady eyes on an imagined wonderland. "We�ll walk to the area from central Flushing," Jack says, "to?understand its important setting, confront ecological issues and learn why?'Willets Point'  is a misnomer."

The September-November MAS schedule won't be announced till, probably, mid-August, but Jack has tipped his mailing list off that he has some tours coming up: Forest Hills to Corona (Saturday, 9/7, 4pm), Maps, Realities and the People's Palace (from the exterior of Grand Central Terminal to the interior of the New York Public Library, specifically the Map Division; Saturday, 9/14, 11am), Flushing's Koreatown (Saturday, 10/19, 11am), and Astoria (Saturday, 11/23, 11am).

But the really exciting development I referred to earlier is an addition to Jack's famous all-day expeditions built around a subway line. He has been doing The World of the #7 Train annually for a number of years now, and not that long ago revived his Day on the J. Now he's taking on Brooklyn's Brighton Line (Howie's and my old subway connection to "The City" in our Brooklyn years).

BRIGHTON LINE MEMOIRS -- meandering off the Q train

Saturday, September 28, 10am-5:30pm

This is a series of five walks and connecting rides along what was once the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island RR dating to 1878. Walks take place in Prospect Park, Brighton Beach, along Avenue U, in Ditmas Park and Central Flatbush. Lunch is in Brighton Beach where you can picnic on the Boardwalk. Tour fee is $39 and you need to preregister by check to Jack Eichenbaum, 36-20 Bowne St. #6C, Flushing, NY 11354 (include name, phone and email address). Get the full day�s program and other info by email jaconet@aol.com. The tour is limited to 25 people. Don�t get left out!

Those who didn't know about Brighton Line Memoirs -- meandering off the Q train or weren't able to register when Jack originally intended to offer it, on July 21, are benefiting from a blow of misfortune he suffered this summer: a knee injury that didn't ground him but made it medically inadvisable for him to be on his feet so long. So he has rescheduled this exciting outing for the end of September when, as he notes, it will also be cooler.

I had my check in the mail the day the tour was originally announced, but the delay also helps me. I'm hoping that by the new date my leg will be a good bit stronger. (I also would have had walking tours on back-to-back days, something I've found I don't do so well yet.)


OH YES, THE TRANSIT MUSEUM STILL HAS
ONE MORE NOSTALGIA RIDE THIS SUMMER

I've also had a busy summer with NYTM, including a vintage subway-and-bus trip to the Bronx's Orchard Beach (on a day that turned out to be singularly un-beach-friendly). The third of the summer's three popular Nostalgia Rides is still coming up.

THE BRONX EXPRESS: VOYAGE TO VAN CORTLANDT PARK

Sun, Aug. 25, 10 am to 5 pm � Tickets
Non-members Adults $50 / Children $25 Museum Members Adults $35 / Children $20

Venture uptown on our WWI-era IRT subway cars to spacious public grounds at Van Cortlandt Park, the third largest park in NYC. During a 3-hour layover, explore Van Cortlandt House Museum and a stroll along the John Kieran Nature Trail. Pack a picnic blanket and �staycation� with us!

Information on Municipal Art Society walking tours is ridiculously easy to find. Just go to mas.org and click on "Tours." Preregistration is required, but you can probably do it online right up to tour time. For New York Transit Museum tour information, go to the Programs and Excursions page of the website. For information about Jack Eichenbaum's activities, and to sign up for his e-mail list, visit his website, "The Geography of New York City with Jack Eichenbaum."

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Urban Gadabout: It's Jane's Walk weekend -- be sure to check to see what's happening in your area`

The NYC subways' Brighton Line had its origins in the Brooklyn & Brighton Beach Railroad, one of the railroads that connected to Brooklyn's ocean beaches. The big news in summer gadding is that Jack Eichenbaum is devoting another of his day-long subway-line odysseys to the Brighton Line.

by Ken

Okay, I've been kind of grumpy about the fact that I'll be on the shelf for one of my favorite weekends of the year: that of Jane's Walks, in honor of pioneer urbanologist Jane Jacobs, who did so much to reorient the way we think about urban life and to empower urban folk to feel that we can claim a voice in shaping the life of our cities in the direction of design and scale optimized for heightened human interaction.

Jane spent as much of her time as she could out in the field observing -- watching the way real people live actual lives, and see what sorts of design configurations produce the most diverse and enriching experiences. If you don't know her work, one word that should give you a clue is neighborhood. She was a great believer in the richness of neighborhood life, at a time when her frequent nemesis Robert "Pave It and Run a Parkway Through It" Moses was destroying every neighborhood he could get his eminent-domain-empowered mitts on.

In New York City we now have the best imaginable situation, since the Municipal Art Society took over the planning and execution of Jane's Walk offerings, which are free and mind-bogglingly rich, diverse, and generally tantalizing. With some dedicated work I can winnow the list -- numbering 100-plus this year -- down to about 30 walks over the two days which I would really, really like to do. I hadn't even planned to look at this year's list, knowing the weekend would fall less than three weeks after my knee surgery. I finally sneaked a peek, and with enough work I think I could get it down to 30 again.

As it happens, although not formally part of the Jane's Walk festivities, on Saturday there's an open house at the 225-plus-year-old Dyckman Farmhouse, now a museum, which I can reach easily via a bus that passes right in front of my building, so I'm thinking I'll give that a shot -- plus I can't help noticing that just sticking to my home bailiwick of Northern Manhattan, between Jane's Walk offerings and those of NYC Parks there are a number of other outings Saturday and Sunday.

Note that most of the MAS-organized Jane's Walks don't require preregistration. If I were zeroing in on tour possibilities, I might incline to those that seem likely to be less crowd-drawing to enjoy a more intimate walk. That said, though, the offerings are awesome. And it's all free!

MAY AT MAS

As it happens, my knee is coming along well enough that I've gone ahead and signed up for two Municipal Art Society tours I've had in my sights for the following week ever since the March-April-May schedule was announced. I can get to both by bus, so I don't have to deal with subway steps yet.

On Saturday the 11th, my old pal Joe Svehlak is doing "Downtown's Lost Neighborhood," 11am-1pm, exploring "the diverse immigrant history of Manhattan's Lower West Side in conjunction with the Arab American National Museum's exhibit on 'Little Syria.' " Now "Lower West Side" isn't a geographic term you hear a lot in connection with Manhattan. The Manhattan end of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel -- a Robert Moses project -- wiped out the heart of the onetime neighborhood, and the various immigrant groups that once clustered there, including Joe's Czech parents, dispersed. I once almost did a version of this walk with Joe, but it was pouring that day and I didn't even have an umbrella.

Then on Sunday the 12th I'm going to try to do Laurence Frommer's "Bloomingdale Blocks" (2-4pm) -- "the quiet tre line streets from West 96th Street to West 110th Street that boast some of New York's finest remaining turn-of-the-century row-houses, apartment buildings, institutional structures and public monuments. I figure that will be easier on my legs than Eric Washington's "Uptown Trinity Church Cemetery Spring Tour,"

On Saturday the 11th baseball aficionado-historian Peter Laskowich is leading a tour called "Brooklyn and Jackie Robinson," 1-3pm. And the following weekend, if I felt more secure about those subway stairs, I might venture to Brooklyn for Matt Postal's "New to New York: Downtown Brooklyn," Saturday the 18th, 11am-1pm, and for Suzanne Spellen and Morgan Munsey's "Brooklyn's Automobile Row" (Bedford Avenue between Fulton Street and Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights), Sunday the 19th, 11am-1pm. It's looking as if my first subway venture may be for the rescheduled version of Snyder Schools scholar Jean Arrington's "Brownsville's Cache of C.B.J. Snyder Schools," Saturday the 25th, 11am-1pm.


NEW YORK TRANSIT MUSEUM SUMMER TOURS

Meanwhile, New York Transit Museum members have been early-registering for the newly announced summer schedule since Tuesday, with registration for nonmembers scheduled to begin this Saturday the 4th. Among the tours I signed up for is one I've been awaiting eagerly for months: a visit to the (now finally reopened) totally rebuilt Smith-9th Streets elevated subway station perched on the viaduct over Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal along with the neighboring 4th Avenue-9th Street station. There are more Grand Central Terminal-themed tours, food tours, visits to the 240th Street Maintenance Facility, and more, including the summer's three "Nostalgia Rides," to Coney Island (June 29), the Bronx's Orchard Beach (another Robert Moses legacy, July 13), and the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park (August 25).


FINALLY, NEWS FROM JACK EICHENBAUM

First off, Jack is doing a Jane's Walk this Sunday the 5th, "Bowne Street, My Street," "a walk along the length of historic and multiethnic Bowne Street in Flushing where I have been living for 35 years." If I weren't mobility-impaired I would definitely do this. About a month ago Jack did a walk through the Bayside (Queens) neighborhood where he grew up that was notable both for personal and for regional history. Meet at the northwest corner of Main Street and 39th Avenue (St. George Episcopal Church), near the Main Street (Flushing) station of the no. 7 train.

Jack has a couple of walks scheduled in rapidly developing Long Island City in conjunction with the third Long Island City Arts Open (LICAO), May 15-19, and in May he'll be resuming the series of Wednesday evening walks (6-8pm) he's been doing in recent summers. Scheduled so far under the heading "Changing Cultures of Queens" are: On and Off Jamaica Avenue Avenue (May 22), Sunnyside to Jackson Heights (May 29), and Long Island City to Old Astoria (June 5).

The big news for those who have done or wish they had done Jack's daylong subway-line odysseys ("The World of the #7 Train" and "A Day on the J") is:

Brighton Line Memoirs: Meandering off the Q train
Sunday, July 21, 10am-5:30pm

This is a series of five walks and connecting rides along what was once the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island RR dating to 1878. Walks take place in Prospect Park, Brighton Beach, along Avenue U, in Ditmas Park and Central Flatbush. Lunch is in Brighton Beach where you can picnic on the Boardwalk. Tour fee is $39 and you need to preregister by check to Jack Eichenbaum, 36-20 Bowne St. #6C, Flushing, NY 11354 (include name, phone and email address). Get the full day�s program and other info by email jaconet@aol.com The tour is limited to 25 people. Don�t get left out!

You better believe I've already sent my check in! (And not just because the Brighton Line was my subway lifeline to "the City" growing up in Brooklyn.)

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Urban Gadabout: Say, NYC-area dumpling lovers, are you up for a Dumpling Crawl tomorrow (Saturday)?

There's a serious goal: to bring customers
back to NYC's Sandy-whacked Chinatown

It's dumplings, dumplings, dumplings tomorrow (March 2) in New York's Chinatown, thanks to Rally Downtown's four scheduled "Dumpling Crawls" -- at 12n, 2pm (two crawls), and 4pm. Of the two crawls at 2pm, one will be led by NYS Sen. Daniel Squadron, who hatched the idea for the "Dumpling Rally."

"[NYS Sen. Daniel] Squadron, who held his wedding's rehearsal dinner as well as his first-ever political meeting in Chinatown, passionately described the ideal dumpling as 'a rich and satisfying filling' that 'unleashes the full power' of its flavor from its dough wrapping at exactly the right moment.

"'Chinatown is full of small businesses run by independent entrepreneurs -- many of them immigrants -- who, despite all the challenges of succeeding in the city, work hard, stick with it and provide extraordinary food,' he wrote in an email to DNAinfo.com New York."

-- from "Dumpling Rally Looks to Bring Business Back to
Sandy-Damaged Chinatown," on DNAinfo.com New York

by Ken

Talk about an obvious mark! I only had to learn that a new conglomeration of downtown Manhattan businesspersons called Downtown Rally has scheduled four "Dumpling Crawls" for tomorrow (Saturday, March 2) than I was searching frantically for the "more info" and "buy tickets" buttons. I love dumplings more than just about anything on the planet.

As the invaluable NYC news source DNAinfo.com New York's Serena Solomon explains below, "Rally Downtown is a project to help businesses get back on their feet post-Sandy with events that bring shoppers through their doors once again." As I noted in the caption, the Dumpling Rally was conceived by State Sen. Daniel Squadron, as one way of bringing cash-carrying patrons back into this portion of his district which was devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

In case you can't bear to read through Serena's piece to get to it, here's the link for the page on the Rally Downtown website devoted to the Dumpling Crawls.

Dumpling Rally Looks to Bring Business Back to Sandy-Damaged Chinatown

March 1, 2013 7:14am | By Serena Solomon, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

CHINATOWN -- To successfully eat a soup dumpling don't bother with chopsticks, according to Christine Seid, the second-generation owner of the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

"You have to really carefully put it onto a soup spoon and eat it in one bite so you don't break it and the soup comes out," she said, adding that waiting a few minutes for the broth to cool down is ideal to avoid burning your mouth.

This is the type of knowledge Seid and others will be passing on to amateur dumpling eaters during this Saturday's Dumpling Rally that is providing tours to some of Chinatown's best dumpling houses.

The rally, an idea from State Sen. Daniel Squadron who is a self-professed authority on Chinatown food, is aiming to bring business back to Chinatown as stores still fight to recover from Hurricane Sandy.

"That is one of our goals, to showcase the gems of New York," said event organizer Tom Gray, executive director of the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce and co-founder of Rally Downtown that is organizing the tours. "People will go to places they have never been before. The event will drive traffic, raise awareness and get people to come back to these dumplings houses."

Rally Downtown is a project to help businesses get back on their feet post-Sandy with events that bring shoppers through their doors once again.

The Dumpling Rally is offering four tours this Saturday -- one at noon and 4 p.m. and two at 2 p.m. Squadron will host one of the 2 p.m. crawls.

Squadron, who held his wedding's rehearsal dinner as well as his first-ever political meeting in Chinatown, passionately described the ideal dumpling as "a rich and satisfying filling" that "unleashes the full power" of its flavor from its dough wrapping at exactly the right moment.

"Chinatown is full of small businesses run by independent entrepreneurs -- many of them immigrants -- who, despite all the challenges of succeeding in the city, work hard, stick with it and provide extraordinary food," he wrote in an email to DNAinfo.com New York.

Tickets for the dumpling crawl are $25 and include dumplings at houses such as Prosperity on Eldridge Street and Lam Zhou on East Broadway. The tour ends at the Chinatown Ice Cream factory for dessert.

"It will be a little bit cheaper, you get the social aspect, a set of chopsticks. The dumplings are included and you get ice cream at the end," said Gray. The tour also gives out a map so those who attend can return to the dumpling houses.

While the organization is yet to apply for nonprofit status, Gray said any funds left over will go to planning more business-generating events for Sandy affected areas.

Ten percent of the ticket price will also go to the Chinese American Planning Council, a local nonprofit.

"It took a lot longer for business to pick up for a long time after Sandy," said Gray. "At the very least everyone went without power."

To purchase tickets for the Dumpling Rally go to the event's website.

My first temptation was to try to sign up for one of the 2pm crawls led by Senator Squadron, who has been impressing me as one of the more watch-worthy of the city's rising pols. And I could probably get to one of the 2pm crawls from my 11am Municipal Art Society walking tour with Matt Postal, revisiting one of the Midtown Manhattan walking tours originally proposed by longtime New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable's ground-breaking 1961 book Four Walking Tours of Modern Architecture in New York City. (Tomorrow's walk is sold out, but there may still be space in the second walk from the book which Matt is re-creating, on March 16.) But I'm thinking the senator will be wanting to talk dumplings, or maybe economic development, rather than politics, and am I really that confident of his self-proclaimed dumpling expertise? In the end I decided to play it safe and sign up for the 4pm crawl, with Julie Menin.

As it happens, I'm familiar with two of the stops, Excellent Dumpling House on Lafayette Street, just below Canal (where in fact I came very close to popping in this afternoon after a physical-therapy session, but it was just too crowded), and Prosperity Dumpling on Eldridge Street (which I first visited on a NY Transit Museum eating tour led by Saveur magazine's Todd Coleman). But I'm only too happy to go back to both! Maybe I'll even get some tips about ordering at Excellent Dumpling House. I have eaten there while on jury duty, but the menu doesn't seem terribly dumpling-oriented, merely listing a few varieties as appetizers.

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Urban Gadabout: Stalking owls in Inwood Hill Park

No, as far as I know this isn't the great horned owl we (supposedly) made voice contact with this evening in way-Northern Manhattan's Inwood Hill Park. But I can't say for sure it isn't. Or it could be a relative.

FINAL TALLY FOR "OWL PROWL"

Total number of owls made visual contact with: 0
Total number of owls made voice contact with: 1 (alleged)
Total amount of fun had during Owl Prowl: tons

by Ken

Now you're going to tell me you could resist an offer like this?

Owl Prowl with Mike Feller

Saturday, December 8, 2012
4:00 p.m.�6:00 p.m.

Whoooo goes there?

Bring the whole family and find out as you roam the winter woods in search of owls with Mike Feller, Chief Naturalist for Parks's Natural Resources Group. It's the beginning of their mating season so you may observe some interesting behaviors. Mike will demonstrate how to attract owls using calls.

From time to time I've noted announcements from the NYC Parks Dept. about nature-themed walks in Northern Manhattan parks featuring naturalist Mike Feller. I've done a bunch of the (similarly sponsored) walks in Northern Manhattan with the staggeringly erudite Sid Horenstein, educator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History (and I wrote about my adventure with him in Highbridge Park), but I'd never done one of Mike's walks.

Today, finally, I got myself there for the promised Owl Prowl. It surprised me all the more because I'd already done a Municipal Art Society walking tour with Matt Postal -- the first of two walks devoted to "Millionaires' Mile" (which Matt allowed at the outset should probably be renamed "Billionaires' Mile"), this one on but mostly off Fifth Avenue from 60th Street (starting directly opposite the still-imposing McKim Mead & White Metropolitan Club) up to the Frick Collection at 70th Street.

Asked at the outset about our odds for spotting owls, Mike thought a bit before telling us that his record so far on these walks was six for six. Well, now it's six for seven. But along the way we learned plenty about owls, and in particular the great horned owls who have taken over the owl franchise in Inwood Hill Park (at the northern edge of Manhattan, one of our few parks that includes a fair amount of natural rather than manufactured terrain.) Great horned owls, Mike explained, don't like sharing habitat with other species of owls, and tend to terminate them with extreme prejudice.

I learned a great deal about what great horned owls eat, which is mostly live animals -- mice and rats definitely, but on up to skunks and squirrels and rabbits. The smaller animals are swallowed whole, and eventually the indigestible parts are ejected orally in the form of a pellet. Larger animals are torn up for swallowing, perhaps in quarters for, say, skunks. (A tour participant who lives in the area volunteers that in the years before the arrival of the great horned owls in Inwood Hill Park, the park was overrun with skunks, and then the skunks more or less vanished. The connection was "purely anecdotal," she acknowledged, adding that she sure didn't miss the skunks -- the smell was pretty bad.)

It may have been too warm still for owl spotting -- Mike registered surprise at the amount of insect activity still observable in the park at this late date. When he applied his imitation owl-hooting technique, he seemed to get a response from afar, but nothing he could do would persuade the respondent to move from his spot -- a "mellow male owl," he guessed. He ventured that we were having roughly the same effect on him that telemarketers have on us when they call during dinner.

Actually, I wasn't entirely grieving that our mellow male chose to stand, or sit, his ground. (My personal theory is that when Mike started doing his owl calls, the great horneds in the park were texting one another noting that it's probably just that crazy Mike making like an owl. And our mellow male just went back to the book he was reading.)

Whatever. It was a great walk in the park, with all manner of fascinating lore coming from Mike. There was a great turnout for the walk, including half a dozen kids of various ages -- a huge asset to the walk, with their delicious curiosity and enthusiasm. And the nice thing about our having hiked all the way up into the high sierra of Inwood Hill Park on the heading-toward-owl-country leg of the walk was that the return was almost entirely downhill.


LOOKING AHEAD

Part 2 of Matt Postal's MAS "Millionaires' Mile" series, ranging from 70th Street up to about 78th, is scheduled for Sunday, December 23, 11am-1pm. This is a problem for me, because at 1pm that day Eric K. Washington is starting an "Uptown Trinity Church Cemetery at Christmas" walk, which "precedes the city�s oldest ongoing holiday tradition, the annual recitation at the Church of the Intercession of �A Visit from St. Nicholas� (by Clement Clarke Moore, who is buried here)."

I just did a quick search, and the next walk the Parks Dept. has listed for Mike is a "Dusk Walk with Mike Feller" in Fort Tryon Park on Sunday, January 12, 4pm-6pm.

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Urban Gadabout: Have you checked out the Dec.-Jan.-Feb. Municipal Art Society walking-tour schedule? (Plus: Winter tour update)

MAS tours with Francis Morrone, Joe Svehlak, ???, and Matt Postal

by Ken

I should have mentioned sooner for the benefit of New Yorkers that the new Municipal Art Society walking-tour schedule -- once again covering three months, December through February -- is available online. As I've mentioned here before, in the two years I've been doing MAS tours, following my ridiculously late discovery that there are such things -- they really have changed my life.

I just did a quick count on my online calendar and see that I registered for something like 20 Municipal Art Society walking tours for the three-month period from September to November. I actually do quite that many, because I "better-dealed" one or two in favor of later-announced tours of other kinds which I couldn't resist, and I had four tours canceled in the two weekends just before and then after the arrival of Superstorm Sandy.

There's so much other tour activity going on in the metropolitan area, including activity involving a number of my favorite MAS tour leaders, activity I'm still just beginning to discover, that it's easy to take the MAS schedule for granted. Which I surely don't do! This time I'll be a little more cautious in registering for tours before other schedules have been announced (I'll try to keep my options open longer, focusing on registering on tours I know will be sold out if I wait too much longer), but by the end of February I expect to wind up doing about as many MAS tours as I've done in these last three months. More, actually, accounting for the tours lost to the storm in this cycle.

I think everyone has settled into the MAS registration system -- no longer so new -- by which all tours require preregistration. It simplifies the life of most everyone concerned, most obviously at the start of each tour, where it's no longer necessary to devote all that time to collecting money for tours that once allowed walk-up registration or doing check-ins for tours that were done entirely by preregistration. The one exception I can think of, and I have met people who fall into this category, is for folks who prefer not to have to plan well ahead.

The fact is that if you do your registration online you can register anytime up to the start of the tour -- provided, of course, that there's still space for the tour you want to do; if the tour is sold out, that's indicated online. (For tour-takers without online access, registrations can still be done by phone, but only during weekday hours when the MAS office is open.)

Even with the price increase that accompanied the new system, MAS tours are an amazing bargain -- a mere $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers. A couple of weeks ago I got an online notice informing me that my renewal was due, and I can assure you, I did my renewal within minutes by return e-mail! Even at the lowest membership level, $50 for individuals ($40 for seniors), you get one free tour each year -- since I had online access to the "free tour" code, I had it applied it to one of the new-season tours even before my new membership card arrived in the mail.

Maybe it was surviving those two weekends without MAS tours that has made me so conscious of paying them their due. Certainly it felt special doing my first post-storm walk, which was of the Madison Square area with Sylvia Laudien-Meo -- on Veterans Day, at the very spot where the Veterans Day parade begins, which added an element of hubbub. I've enjoyed all the tours I've done with the amazingly charming Sylvia, who's an art person, which I'm emphatically not, meaning that I often get a different kind of view of the tour areas, as was the case with a Lower East Side tour she led, which wound up bringing me for the first time ever inside the New Museum on the Bowery. (Sylvia has a tour of Chelsea art galleries scheduled for Jan. 19, and two more of her "family tours," presumably suitable for whole families but not limited to them: Grand Central Terminal on Dec. 8 and Rockefeller Center on Feb. 24.)

(And anyone who hasn't done a Rockefeller Center tour really ought to. I've done architectural historian Tony Robins's and thoroughly enjoyed it. During the holiday season he's doing it twice: on Christmas Day and on Dec. 30.)

WEEKENDS WITH MATT POSTAL AND FRANCIS MORRONE

Then these last two weekends, the schedule has been kind to me, with four tours led by three of my favorite tour leaders. Last week I had the second in a series of three led by architectural historian Matt Postal devoted to the area known to the City Planning Dept. as Midtown East, for which major zoning changes are being proposed which could bring drastic changes (this was actually scheduled as the last of the three tours, but the middle one was a storm casualty and has been rescheduled for Dec. 15); and then Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens with architectural historian Francis Morrone, the middle leg of a three-part series covering the adjacent neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Cobble Hill.

I've written about both Matt and Francis a lot here. Maybe the simplest thing to say is that depth and range of their curiosity and knowledge, I'd sign up, schedule permitting, for pretty much anything they're doing. If the subject of the walk is interesting enough to them to do, I now take for granted that it will: (a) connect pieces of my world that hadn't previously been connected, (b) teach me all sorts of things I had no idea there were to know, and (c) provide two hours' worth of wonderful entertainment. (Both Matt and Francis have all sorts of tours listed in the new schedule. Be warned that Francis's in particular are likely to fill up well before the tour dates.)

MORE FRANCIS M, AND JACK EICHENBAUM

This weekend again I had a pair of tours. For the day after Thanksgiving there was a walk through "Public Housing's Fertile Crescent," along the East River side of Lower Manhattan, an area I'd never actually walked through, with urban geographer (and the borough historian of Queens) Jack Eichenbaum. I've also written here frequently about Jack. No one has done more to help me see -- and often it is literally a matter of seeing -- how the development of regions and neighborhoods is shaped by geography, including transportation access and population patterns over time.

In the new schedule Jack is doing two of his standby walks, ways of walking north-south in Midtown Manhattan while "Keeping Off Midtown Streets" -- an East Side version (from Grand Central to Bloomingdale's, Dec. 29) and a West Side one (from the Time Warner Center to Times Square, Jan. 27). Also, it's invaluable to register for Jack's e-mail list for announcements of his MAS and non-MAS activities, which you can do on the "Public Tour Schedule" page of his website, "The Geography of New York City with Jack Eichenbaum."

Then today Francis Morrone concluded the "BoCoCa" cycle with Cobble Hill, and it was Francis at his best. I'm only sorry that I had to miss the Boerum Hill installment of this cycle owing to a schedule conflict, which was true as well for the "Heart of Flatbush" installment of a three-part series built around Flatbush's historic districts, which fell on the same day as Jack Eichenbaum's one-of-a-kind "Day on the J Train" tour, which I certainly wasn't going to miss! (Be sure to watch for Jack's "World of the #7 Train.")

I've actually done a terrific Boerum Hill walk with Joe Svehlak, another of my "old reliables," who sort of combines the geographical and architectural approaches in his masterful tours of less-walked-through neighborhoods, especially in Brooklyn. I'm still waiting for a reschedule of his Bushwick tour, which I had to miss because I had to finish a "Sunday Classics" piece; I've loved Joe's tours of Ridgewood (straddling Brooklyn and Queens), Sunset Park (where he grew up), Cypress Hills, and Downtown Brooklyn. I also see Joe all the time on other people's tours, a tribute to the range of his curiosity; he was supposed to be with us, we learned from Jack Eichenbaum, on Jack's "Day on the J Train." I know Joe does a lot of Grand Central tours, so his "Grand Central During the Holidays" on Dec. 22 should be fun. He's also doing a Lower Manhattan tour called "Downtown Connections" on Jan. 20.

NORTHERN MANHATTAN, ATLANTIC AVENUE, AND MISC.

There are also a number of tours scheduled with the highly regarded historian of Harlem and Northern Manhattan Eric K. Washington: "Uptown Trinity Church Cemetery at Christmas," Dec. 23; "Manhattanville: Revisiting a Neighborhood in Flux," Feb. 3 (Eric has literally "written the book" on Manhattanville); and "Harlem Grab Bag," Feb. 23.

I might also mention "Explore and Shop: Wintertime in the Atlantic Avenue Bazaars" with MaryAnn DiNapoli on Jan. 5. I've done MaryAnn's "Churches of Cobble Hill" (which covers not just still-functioning churches but no-longer-existing as well as repurposed ones). It's always fascinating to tour areas with neighborhood residents, and MaryAnn grew up here. Which means she knows the Middle Eastern shops of Atlantic Avenue from longtime personal experience. In fact, the tour I took with her, having been scheduled on a weekday, was compact enough that she was actually able to take us inside several of the shops where she has shopped, well, pretty much forever.

I don't think I mentioned that the MAS schedule has a Green-Wood Cemetery tour with the cemetery's historian, Jeff Richman, on Dec. 15. And I don't know what all else I haven't mentioned. Oh yes, I'm hoping that this time I'll be able to do Linda Fisher's tour of "Manhattan's Civic Center," on Dec. 30. This is one of the tours I registered for the last time it was scheduled but "better-dealed" in favor of a tour I couldn't resist, a bus tour to the Usonia Houses communal-housing development in northern Westchester which was planned in good part by Frank Lloyd Wright, during which tour leader Justin Ferate, another of my all-time favorites, led us through two of the houses, one of them one that was actually designed by Wright.

AND SPEAKING OF JUSTIN FERATE . . .

He seems to be doing most of his tours these days as coordinator of the Wolfe Walkers tours, via which in just the past year I've been able to do amazing bus tours to the Mark Twain House in West Hartford as well as the Usonia Houses, and also visit such diverse locations as the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge, the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Uptown Manhattan (combined with the Audubon Terrace complex), and Chinatown.

An unfortunate casualty of the storm aftermath was a tour of Staten Island's under-construction conversion of Staten Island's Freshkills landfill into what will be NYC's largest park. But in turn one of the MAS pre-storm cancellations allowed me to do an extra Wolfe Walkers tour I hadn't expected: a Halloween-themed walk through Greenwich Village. I've done a number of Village tours by now, but I had a feeling that Justin's Village wouldn't be the same as anyone else's, and it wasn't! Still to come in the current Wolfe Walkers cycle is a tour of the Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park on Dec. 2, one of the tours I signed up for as soon as I saw the announcement.

By the way, as a source of information about fascinating tour goings-on in the NYC area, there's no resource quite like Justin's e-mail list. Justin sends out vast quantities of pass-alongs of events he thinks may be of interest, and I can say that I ALWAYS look at his pass-alongs. I've already done a whole bunch of events I wouldn't have known about otherwise. For that matter, Justin's website, "Tours of the City with Justin Ferate," is itself an invaluable resource. Here's the link to sign up for Justin's mailing list.

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Urban Gadabout: For NY-ers, it's Open House New York Weekend AND What's Out There Weekend, plus catching up with Justin Ferate

My basic principle regarding Justin Ferate's tours is that if Justin thinks someplace is worth going, as long as my schedule permits, I'm going with him. (See below for an update.

by Ken

For NYC gadders, this may be the "the" weekend of the year, with the unfortunately simultaenous immersion of the tenth annual Open House New York Weekend, one of the most eagerly awaited events of the gadding calendar, and a NYC-based What's Out There Weekend presented by the DC-based Cultural Landscape Foundation. The only thing more remarkable than the quality of the offerings is the fact that they're free!


OPENHOUSENEWYORK WEEKEND

Yes, OHNY Weekend includes bike tours too!

OHNY functions year-round, but to urbanly aware New Yorkers when you say "Open House New York" thoughts turn automatically to "the" weekend, now upon us. Here's the official description:

To celebrate the city�s architecture and design, the 10th Annual openhousenewyork Weekend will once again unlock the city, allowing New Yorkers and tourists alike free access hundreds of sites talks, tours, performances and family activities in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. From private residences and historic landmarks, to hard hat tours and sustainable skyscrapers, OHNY gives you rare access into the extraordinary architecture that defines New York City, while introducing you to the people who make the city a vibrant and sustainable place to live, work, and play.

You have to look at the actual listings to appreciate their staggering range -- in both subject matter and geography. (Start with a map view here.) There are over 200 events, and last year combing through the listings I came up with something like 40 tours I would have happily done.

It gets a little crazy because the actual listings aren't released till two to three weeks before the weekend, and there are always a couple of dozen events you know everyone will be trying to register for, providing frustrated would-be registrants with anecdotes to last them through to next year's festivities. Still, that leaves an awful lot of events still looking for takers, and my guess is that even now you can find lots of really interesting tours you can still do. (Of course some of the most interesting ones are offbeat enough to attract smaller crowds.)

This year my life was simplified by the much earlier announcement of the schedule for What's Out There Weekend NYC. I was so delighted by the offerings that I booked myself solid. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether I can actually survive the whole program.

However, I still plan to look carefully through the OHNY Weekend listings, which always contain suggestions of places that may be visitable -- usually be advance reservation -- at other times of the year.


WHAT'S OUT THERE WEEKEND NYC

The D.C.-based Cultural Landscape Foundation is new to me. Here's how it describes its mission:

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) provides people with the ability to see, understand, evaluate and appreciate landscape architecture and its practitioners, in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and architects. Through its web site, lectures, outreach and publishing, TCLF broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide.

I found out all of that after I saw the listings for its What's Out There Weekend in New York (which I wrote about at the end of August), even though I did dimly recall that the dates were the same as OHNY Weekend.

Explore and discover NYC�s
landscape marvels with free tours
in all five boroughs, featuring some of the nation�s most innovative landscapes spanning two centuries of design. Experience the great civic spaces of Brooklyn�s Grand Army Plaza and Prospect Park, Bob Zion�s original �vest pocket park� at Manhattan�s Paley Park; Wave Hill�s majestic views of the Hudson River from the Bronx, and the unique urban design of Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. Many are places people pass daily, but do we know their background stories? What�s Out There Weekend promises to shed new light on familiar places.

What�s Out There Weekend dovetails with TCLF�s Web-based What�s Out There, the nation�s most comprehensive, free, online database of designed landscapes. The database offers a broad and interconnected way to discover the breadth of America�s landscape heritage, while What�s Out There Weekend gives people the opportunity to experience the landscapes they might see every day in a new way.

Recommendations are required, but here may still be a bunch of events you can register for. You'll find listings here (and a schedule pdf here), and then you can register here.

I'm thinking I stumbled onto TCLF and WOTW when the fall Municipal Art Society tour listings were announced, because originally two of the fall MAS tours were scheduled to be "in partnership with the Cultural Landscape Foundation": one on Saturday morning of Grand Army Plaza, at the main entrance to Brooklyn's Prospect Park, led by Matt Postal; and one on Sunday morning of "St. George: Staten Island's Developing Waterfront," led by "life-long Staten Islander Georgia Trivizas . . . inspired by the overlooked tour guides she's met through her travels -- native taxi and bus drivers"). Early on, however, the Staten Island walk was converted to a regular MAS tour, and I went ahead and registered for it.

Meanwhile I registered for five WOTW walks -- four on Saturday, starting with Matt's Grand Army Plaza one, followed by two in succession in Prospect Park (the Long Meadow and Ravine at 11am, and Lakeside at 1pm), then hauling off to the opposite end of the city, Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park; and one on Sunday, a tour of Forest Hills Gardens in Queens, which I should have more than enough time to get to upon my return from Staten Island. (It wasn't planned, but I realized when the dust settled that over the two days I'll be doing tours in four of the five NYC boroughs -- all of them except Manhattan!)


CATCHING UP WITH JUSTIN FERATE

I've written about some of the amazing tours I've done with the tirelessly engaging and informative Justin Ferate, going back to my first: a daylong trek to Tottenville, at the southern tip of Staten Island. Since then there have been destinations like Jamaica National Wildlife Refuge in Jamaica Bay, northern Manhattan's Morris-Jumel Mansion and Audubon Terrace complex, and the Mark Twain House in West Hartford, Connecticut -- and, most recently, an amazing bus tour to the Usonia Homes in the vicinity of Pleasantville, New York (in more or less central Westchester County), a planned community developed beginning in the late 1940s which took on a whole other dimension when the founders succeeded in enlisting Frank Lloyd Wright to oversee the layout of and design principles of the future development (in addition to designing three homes himself, one of which we got to see).

I may have been remiss in not mentioning the Usonia tour as soon as it was announced. Then again, it sold out pretty quickly.

I know it's kind of late notice, but tomorrow (Saturday) at 1pm Justin is leading a tour for Wolfe Walkers:

Landmarks of Early African-American New York

Few are aware of the role of African Americans in the history of Lower Manhattan. Even fewer are aware that in 1612, a freeman of African and Portuguese descent, Joao �Jan� Rodrigues, became the first non-native settler on the island of Manhattan. In 1626, the later Dutch settlers brought Africans to New Amsterdam as slaves. By 1711, roughly 1/6 of New York�s residents were black � most enslaved and some free. During the tour, we�ll visit such noted sites as New York�s slave market, the site of the slave revolt of 1712, the notorious �Five Points� district, Abolitionist-related sites, the New York African Free School, the site of African Society for Mutual Relief and the site of Freedom�s Journal, the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the nation.

In addition, from the 1690s until the 1790s, both free and enslaved Africans were interred in a burial ground in Lower Manhattan, beyond the boundaries of New Amsterdam. Built over by development, the cemetery was officially �rediscovered� in 1991. Our tour will include a visit to the new African Burial Ground Memorial � dedicated to those who are buried in this hallowed ground.

During the tour, we�ll encounter such people as Joseph Fran�ois Mangin, designer of New York�s City Hall and the Venerable Pierre Toussaint � a candidate for Roman Catholic sainthood. We�ll address and visit noted religious sites associated with the black community: John Street Methodist Church, St. Peter�s Roman Catholic Church, Mother AME Zion, St. Philip�s Episcopal Church, and the Abyssinian Baptist Church. We�ll also discover overlooked heroes and heroines. Learn of Elizabeth Jennings who, in 1854, successfully sued to eliminate racial discrimination for New York�s public transit. Discover Dr. James McCune Smith, the first licensed African American doctor in the country. Learn of the New York connections for Frederick Douglass, the most famous African American of the 19th century � often called the �father of the Civil Rights movement.�

Date: Saturday, October 6, 2012 Time: 1:00 PM to approximately 4:00 PM Meet: SE Corner of Broadway at Chambers Street at north end of City Hall Park Trains: 2 or 3 Train to Park Place || A or C to Chambers Street

R Train to City Hall || 4, 5, or 6 Train to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall Leader: Justin Ferate, Urban Historian

Fee: $ 20 in advance (Includes all Admissions) $ 23 on-site (By check to Hermine Watterson) (Includes all Admissions)

Justin has other Wolfe Walkers tours (which he coordinates) coming up:

* Museum of Chinese in America, Chinatown Walk + Dim Sum Luncheon
Saturday, October 13, 10:30am to approximately 2:30pm, limited to 25 participants
$40 in advance ($45 onsite, if available)

* for Halloween: The Ghosts of Greenwich Village
Saturday, October 27, 1pm to approximately 4pm
$20 in advance, $23 onsite

* Discover the Creation of Freshkills Park! (ferry and bus tour)
Saturday, November 10, 9:15am to approximately 12:30pm, limited to 23 participants
$20 in advance (no onsite registrations)

* The Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park
Sunday, December 2, 9:45am to approximately 12:30pm

Registration is by mail, not online. You can download a PDF of the fall brochure or of just the registration form.

Justin's website, Tours of the City with Justin Ferate, is an inexhaustible resource in its own right, and you definitely want to sign up for his mailing list, which brings a rich stream of event announcements and pass-alongs that Justin deems of possible interest. I always look carefully at his e-mails, and am always happy when I can squeeze an event into my schedule -- this is almost all stuff that I wouldn't have found out about otherwise, like the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy's daring venture into my own neighborhood, Washington Heights, for a new tour called "Frankfurt on the Hudson," which drew a huge amount of interest. (I saw Justin there, and he explained that for some time he had thought about undertaking a similar tour but just hadn't gotten to it.) Just this evening there was an e-mail from Justin about the upcoming New York Archivists Week, October 7-13. I still have to go through those listings!


DON'T FORGET JACK EICHENBAUM'S "DAY ON THE J"

It's coming up in two weeks. Remember, he hasn't offered it in eight years. Do you want to take a chance on having to wait till the next time?

A Day on the J
Sunday, October 21, 10am-5:30pm

This series of six walks and connecting rides is astride the colonial route between Brooklyn and Queens. We focus on what the J train has done to and for surrounding neighborhoods since it began service (in part) in 1888. Walks take place in Highland Park, Richmond Hill, downtown Jamaica, Bushwick, South Williamsburg, and the Lower East Side. Tour fee is $39 and you need to preregister by check to Jack Eichenbaum, 36-20 Bowne St. #6C, Flushing, NY 11354 (include name, phone and email address) The full day�s program, registration coupon and other info is available by email: jaconet@aol.com. The tour is limited to 25 people. Don�t get left out!

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