Jane’s Walks (5/6/18)

Day two of Jane’s Walks started bright and early in the Hamilton Heights section of Manhattan—the meeting point was 3570 Broadway, between 146th and 147th Streets. The Audubon Bird Murals Project Walk was based on just that, the Audubon Mural Project http://gitlerand.com/http/climateaudubonorg/article/audubon-mural-project/ (sorry, you'll have to copy and paste). The project came about in order to draw attention to 314 species of North American birds whose habitats are threatened due to climate change. So far, 82 have been painted. The goal is to create all 314, and to that end, future murals will try to incorporate more than one species per painting.

The very knowledgeable tour guide got started just after 9:00am. She also gave us a nifty handout of birds we might see that day (some/many of the murals are on roll-down security screens, so there was no guarantee that we would see them). Some, however, are always on view, since they’re painted on inset panels (four in a row at 601 W. 149th Street) or on building walls including 3668 Broadway, between 151st and 152nd Streets—look up, it’s huge; 3612 Broadway (149th/150th, at the right end of CTown); 149th Street, east of Amsterdam—on two walls; 1883–7 Amsterdam (153rd/154th, across the front of three buildings; 575 W. 155th Street (at Broadway), birds inside of a large bird; and in the windows of the service station at 3768 Broadway (155th/156th). This was one of the best walks I’ve taken to date.

But wait, there’s more! A bus and three trains later found me at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the site of the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair and the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair. We learned that, technically, the ’64/’65 extravaganza was not a World’s Fair, since it was not officially sanctioned by the Bureau of International Expositions. Hey, we’re New Yorkers. It was a World’s Fair! But how did the park come about in the first place? For that we need to revisit our old foe Robert Moses.

He had a plan—or hoped to, at least—to develop the equivalent of Central Park in Queens, since that was the next area of urban flight/sprawl for those leaving Manhattan. The only problem was that the site was essentially marshlands that had been filled in with residential ash shipped in via trolleys and trains. Par for the course for a Robert Moses project, houses had to be demolished, residents displaced, and land grabbed by whatever means possible. Eventually a park was built, though it was never named for him, which was what he had in mind all along.

Both fairs, while successful in terms of accomplishments and excitement, ended up as financial losses. The 1939 fair introduced television to the mass public while the 1964 fair introduced (prepare for an ear worm) “It’s a Small World.” Disney built the ride in southern California, dismantled it to send to NYC, dismantled it again after the fair, and returned it to southern California. In addition, a lot of what were pools and water features for both fairs are still there, though not as actual pools. There are a few remnants of the ’39/’40 fair (very tall poles with eagles atop them) and a lot more from the ’64/’65 fair, notably the Unisphere, which I had never seen in person before, and the New York Pavilion, which is in the process of being renovated. The tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and interesting, to the point where I took very few notes since I was so busy listening. One of the most interesting facts I learned was that there was a time capsule created for the first fair that is to be opened in 6939, 5,000 years after the fair. A second capsule was created for the second fair, but it does not have to wait 5,000 years. It can be opened in 6939 along with the first one. The tour ran a little longer than expected, and I was farther away from the subway than I expected; as a result, I did not make it back into Manhattan for the third walk on my agenda. That was OK by me since the first two walks had been so terrific.

All in all, a very successful Jane’s Walks weekend for me. Looking forward to
May 2019.

WalkMeister