I did six of seven walks this year. These are walks led by regular people (some of whom are also actual tour guides) honoring Jane Jacobs, an urbanist and activist who helped derail the car-centered approach to urban planning. Do yourself a favor and search for Jacobs and Robert Moses. Anyway, on to the walks.
Friday began with the Longest Short Walk in Brooklyn, which was exactly one block long, but the excellent guide easily filled the entire hour. We began at the Brooklyn Museum and ended at the central branch of the Brooklyn Library. We covered the museum, Mount Prospect, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Rock Garden. The guide encouraged us to talk about favorite other Jane’s Walks we’d been on, and it was fun hearing about other walks and what was good about them. I would highly recommend this one.
Hike the Hudson! I didn’t get a chance to. I was at the corner of Fulton Street and West Street at the appointed time and didn’t see a soul. No leader, no other walkers, nothing. I located a library so that I could check my email, but there were no email updates. Thinking I had messed up, I tried the meeting place one hour later. Nothing. Maybe I’ll try again next year.
The City Speaks was a walk that covered language that’s particular to New York and New Yorkers. The guide (once we found him) was very entertaining. Why (once we found him) you ask? The information we were given listed the meeting place as 117 E. Houston Street. There is no 117 E. Houston Street. Yes, the meeting place was actually in a park on E. Houston Street. As an icebreaker, the guide had us introduce ourselves to another one of the walkers. Oddly, the guy I was chatting with was going to be leading a walk in Astoria, Queens on Saturday. Anyway, back to our tour guide. He was very knowledgeable, had us interact with each other throughout the entire walk, and even had three costume changes! As a finale, he did hip-hop dancing right on the sidewalk. This guide is an actual tour guide, who gives this tour to paying customers, but once a year does a freebie for Jane’s Walks. Once again, I would highly recommend this one.
Saturday’s first walk was Community Gardens on the lower east side. I’ve attended this one before, so I skipped the leader’s spiel about the history of squatters and reclaiming unused space in the middle 1970s. It seems his activist harangue went on a lot longer than I remembered; as a result, we only saw one garden and part of Tompkins Square Park. This one I would not recommend, although we did learn a lot about the one garden we visited.
Next up was Sunnyside, Queens. Unbeknownst to me, the Sunnyside neighborhood features prominently in Spider-Man comic books and movies. Fun facts – Sunnyside Gardens is one of only two private parks in NYC with the other one being Gramercy Park. Sunnyside was also home to a Sunshine Baking Co. factory, and Cheez-Its were invented there. The tour guide had also seen a really bad painting job on the street. He told us that the moment he saw it, he recognized it from a scene in a Spider-Man movie. It really was a rotten paint job. I’ll post a photo on Facebook. This guide knew his stuff very well and kept us actively engaged. Highly recommended.
Sunday’s first walk was a Water Tower Tour. I learned an awful lot about water towers. Additionally, some of the walkers really got into the spirit of things. One woman had a water tower tote bag and another was wearing water tower earrings. How cool was that? Water towers are constructed of interlocking wooden slats held together by steel bands. No screws, nails or glue. And there are over 17,000 of them in NYC. Sometimes they are enclosed in materials matching the architecture of the buildings they are on top of. With a life span of about thirty years, you might wonder what happens when they need to be replaced. More and more, the wood is being recycled. In fact, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park has recently been refaced with recycled water tower wood. I haven’t seen it yet, but that’s on my list of things to do. The tour guide is also a professional who volunteers her time for a Jane’s Walk. I really lucked out this year and I’d also recommend this walk, as well.
My last walk of the weekend was on E. 59th Street. This one was also a slightly activist one about reclaiming public/private space being held onto by the Department of Transportation, but I knew about the activism ahead of time. There was literally space that has gone unused by the DOT for twenty years. When quizzed by our two tour guides, the DOT reply was, “Well, we may need it someday.” Sheesh. Just in the block between Second and First Avenues, there were at least two more unused areas fenced off by the DOT. And just east of First Avenue, there is a pocket park that is often rented out for functions, e.g., weddings, receptions, private gatherings. When not in use for an event, the police sometimes shoo private New Yorkers out of the park. Mind you, it’s a public space, and the public has every right to be there. I wish those 59th Street residents good luck with reclaiming those unused spaces. You can learn a lot on a Jane’s Walk, and I did. I’m already looking forward to next year!
