A Park Most Wondrous

The East River park has been slowly, slowly, getting a facelift, to the tune of millions of dollars, all well-deserved. Of all the parks in the city, it is my favorite, not just because of its proximity to my house (Tompkins Square Park, another favorite, is closer), but because it's so. . . normal. There are no testosterone-fueled packs of extreme cyclists ready to mow everyone down like in Central Park. The landscape doesn't feel inaccessible, like Bryant Park (when it wasn't being overrun by fashion week or some such). Sure it has been worn down in places, but that's been worked on to wonderful effect. The promenade is being rebuilt and we have access to the river again. Here's something I wrote about the park some years back.

It is a good park, the East River Park, measured not in acres, but in the sounds that it produces. First there are the obvious sounds. The big noise of Latin men playing the games of their childhood; Dominicans and Puerto Ricans and Cubans, baseball; Mexicans, and Guatemalans, and Ecuadorians, soccer. All the while a man with a microphone booms out game commentary in Spanish. Families ease themselves on the grass around the ball fields, barbecues sending up puffs of dark gray smoke that float over the infield.

There is the sound of the ices man dragging a metal scraper over a huge block of ice. For the hundredth time that summer he shouts out the flavors, and will shout them for one hundred more: Chocolate! Vainilla! Café, coco, anañas, pistachio, fresa, frambuesa! Límon, cereza melocoton y cremolata! provides a constant refrain for the less permanent sounds of the picnickers and ballplayers.

There is the nearly soundless huffing of dogs running off the leash, looking warily over their shoulders, respectful of their positions, and trying not to blow their great good fortune by scaring the humans in the park.

There are the sounds of tugboats toiling in the river, for now, a black and red one pulls a barge stacked with wood, and another, blue and yellow, trails behind. But there will be others, and other boats. Sailboats soughing through the water, and ocean liner types blasting their horns, baying at the island, and playing counterpoint to the car horns and rush of rubber tires across asphalt on the FDR drive. These are the sounds that girdle the park

In the body of the park are the sound of the birds. There are three sounds: that of the birds close and high in the ears, the persistent caw of the birds several hundred feet in, and the, low, slow strident call of the birds deep inside and far away. The sound of the birds defines the height and width, the depth and breadth. The sound of the birds give knowledge of the park’s hugeness.
There is a place in the park that speaks louder than any other because of its complete absence of sound. There, tall, handsome trees stand west to east from the highway to the river, two parallel rows, reaching out their upper branches to embrace across a small avenue of pavement. Here no sound can come and remain. It can not bounce or echo or ring without being swallowed and silenced. This is where sounds come to die. I stand sometimes at the end of the lane of trees; thisis my favorite place, the place I have privately named the via Dolorosa, the sorrowful street.

I stand sometimes before the short stretch to the lane of trees. With my hands to my sides and my head tilted up I take deep breaths, pulling in mown grass and wet leaves and the faint scent of car exhaust from the FDR drive. Across the highway I can see the fading red brick of the projects baking in the hot sun. I take some more breaths, then enter the avenue of trees, enjoying the momentary blindness and chill of it. It is dark and still except for one small, shivering point of sun that had bored through the canopy of leaves.
The lane of trees is one thing. But there's a the bridge, the wonderful Williamsburg Bridge, under which I could stand for hours, and a secret spot past the tennis courts that's just as beautiful as it can be. It's so peaceful and undisturbed, I almost don't want to tell you about it.
If you want the real details of the park, square acreage and whatnot, the Coastal Marine Resource Center Web site has some great information.