Walking Is Transportation

WELCOME TO WIT.

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Dan Icolari
on the Bayonne Bridge,
Port Richmond/Elm Park, S.I.
in the background, 2009.
(Photo by Steve Nutt)

 

Greetings. My name is Dan Icolari, and I'm a writer living in St. George, on the north shore of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City.

To find out more about me and WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION (WIT), please hit the 'About' button, top left. To subscribe to WIT's feed, please hit the 'Subscribe' button, also top left.

WRITING THE AURAL WATERWAY

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New Brighton painter Bill Murphy's heroic Along Arthur Kill (watercolor on paper, 54 x 62, 2007-08). Information: aburninglight.com

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NOTE: My sincere thanks to those who've encouraged me in my decision to return to writing this blog.  The following was written recently as a contribution to a friend's project on the sounds of place.

THE WRITER AND THE WATER

I'm a writer. No, not that kind of writer--the kind who writes novels or short stories or syndicated columns or the sort of longer pieces published in The New York Review of Books. Rather, I'm the sort once described by a kind-hearted copy supervisor as A Journeyman Writer. Or as the late John Leonard might have put it, A Pen for Hire. Or, to say it plain, A Hack. Which means, as I prefer to think of it, You Got It, I Write It. Whether it's an ad, a speech, a brochure, a direct-mail fundraising letter, a marketing strategy document, a book review, a jacket blurb, or a research report detailing patient reactions to a new anti-high blood pressure medication.

But there's another kind of writer I am.  The kind whose response to many, even most situations, is to write about them. As if the only way to consider them was as words captured on paper or screen [push the 'Save' button]. Not in the personal style of a diary, but in the form of a poem, a short essay, or a letter (yes, I still write them in the age of the e-mail). I write--like so many others who do what I do, no matter the particular form--to find out what I think, what I feel. So when the opportunity arose to write a blog, set down my thoughts, and reach an audience at little cost, I grabbed it. In the several years since it began, I have made WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION a kind of online receptacle for my enthusiasms of the moment.

Atlantic Salt facility, Kill van Kull, New Brighton, S.I., 2009

KILLSIDE

One of those enthusiasms was the ability to write about the waterfront--specifically, the Kill van Kull, the narrow waterway dividing Bayonne, New Jersey and Staten Island's north shore--only two short blocks from the office I'm working in right now. I imagined myself hanging out at the water's edge, tracing the shoreline, coming to understand the importance of the maritime industry to Staten Island's fortunes--getting my feet wet. But it never happened.

Yes, I walked on, wrote about and photographed the Bayonne Bridge and the as yet unprettified romance of the maritime industrial landscape on either side of the Kill. I reviewed a book on a local maritime business--the last of its kind on Staten Island. I began to feel I had taken a few additional baby steps toward understanding this place.

THE VIEW IN THE MIND IS A SOUND

But since that time, I've realized that my view of the nearby waterfront is not a view, not an image or a picture at all. It's a sound. The sound of dredging. The steady subterranean growl of a tanker. The whistle that sounds exactly like the one that announces the approach of a speeding train. The occasional staccato blast so passionate, it's the shofar on Yom Kippur.

And one night early in the summer, I find myself in the dining room, standing perfectly still and listening to an extended conversation of foghorns--I imagine them as sea animals in some noisy mating ritual--up and down the Kill.

The Kill van Kull is what Staten Island sounds like.

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AFTER THE FALL

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HAS IT BEEN ONLY TWO MONTHS?

It seems much longer since I stopped writing regularly for this blog. During that time, I've been wrestling pretty actively--and yes, still--with the roles of electronic and print media in my life. I've found my online subscriptions a waste (I don't read them) and so will be switching back to print. A much bigger development is my sudden enthusiasm for fiction--novels and short stories both.

What else? My decision to join MoMA, despite my disgust at its $20 general admission fee policy; and, more generally, my determination to follow museum and gallery shows more actively this year. My enthusiasm for politics (particularly electoral politics) has waned, leaving more space, mainly for reading, but also for writing.

Though it will appear less often than in the recent past, WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION is back. Thanks for sticking around.

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ON MY SIDE ON THE SIDEWALK

It's been a week since I fell. And five years since my last fall, when I couldn't find the hand brake on a borrowed bike I was riding and had to crash the bike in order to stop it.

That one was more serious.

For several moments after I fell--who can say how many?--I lay where the bike had crashed, not quite believing what had happened and trying to figure out what came next.

I was in shock, moaning, even slightly hysterical. (And part of me, I'll admit, was watching all this as a scene from Grade B black-and-white movie with a musical score by Bronislaw Kaper.)

Once I reached home two blocks away, Ellen gave me a sedative to calm me down and let me rest. I was bleeding in several places and didn't clean the wounds until later, apparently after an infection had already begun to develop. I couldn't move my right arm in an upward direction for months. My shoulder didn't feel like itself for nearly a year afterwards.

WHAT A SCHMUCK.

What I took away from that experience was the importance of disinfecting wounds immediately--and the realization that I had been a complete and total schmuck. I had endangered my life with my thoughtlessness. What cyclist gets on a bike and pedals downhill without knowing where the hand brakes are? 

But this time was different. I was walking down street in West Brighton on a bright, sunny day, on my way home by my accustomed route through Snug Harbor. I had a lightweight backpack slung over my shoulder. I was even wearing my Mephisto walking shoes.

Should I have been looking more closely at the sidewalk beneath my feet? Possibly. If I had been, I might have noticed the corner of a cement block, sticking up at an angle above grade.  But seeing more and more men of my age and older developing forward-thrust necks and rounded backs, I try to remember to keep my head high, my shoulders down and my butt tucked. Now I will have to become more aware of the need to look down and ahead at regular intervals as well.

I will have to, as we used to say, raise my consciousness. But what shall I be more conscious of?  The physical diminishment and limitations of my soon-to-be 67-year-old body? And what will I learn? To be more careful and cautious, to take fewer risks? Will I conclude that this is the other side of a life's experience--that you gain wisdom and skill, but that time is winding down?

NEXT !

Impressionism, a digital image by Silver Lake photographer Marilyn Kiss

HALT THE DIGITS . . . FOR NOW

Though it's named for a Roman emperor, I find very little that's august--very little that's awe-inspiring, as the dictionary defines the word--about the eighth month of the calendar year.

Everybody's in Provincetown or Edgartown or some other town (everybody, that is, but me and all the other determined stay-at-homes). The start-up of the new season, in the arts and much else, doesn't begin till next month. The weeds growing between the sidewalk panels of slate or concrete are green and vigorous, not yet the husks of fall and winter.

In this intermediary time-space, I'd like to announce that WALKING IS TRANSPORTATION is undergoing one of its episodic changes of focus/identity. Because, I suppose, I am. Yes, again.

AN EMPTY VESSEL,
BUT PROBABLY NOT FOR LONG

In its most recent incarnation, WIT has been very much about Staten Island's north shore. For a while, I was producing a story, even two, a day. As a very wise artist and blogger friend told me last winter, one person working alone can't maintain that frequency for long.

Before that--which is to say, at its founding--WIT was concerned principally with transportation, urbanism and the environment. But  that focus proved too narrow. Months went by without a single entry. Until I decided one day that WIT could be anything I wanted, which is what it became. What I wanted, that is: a community newspaper without the paper.

And now it's changing again.

At the moment, WIT is an empty vessel. But I'm pretty sure it'll fill up with content soon enough, becoming more personal, more impressionistic, reflecting the changes in how I spend my time.

For example:

After doing most of my reading from a screen, I have begun, once again, to have a book, a physical book, "going" at all times. I'm planning to spend less time at this worktable and more time looking at art, updating my awareness of contemporary jazz, and learning more about dance.

Where all this leads, I can't say. What will not change is that, like most writers, I process my experience sitting at a keyboard. Whatever I experience will find its way here.

I hope you'll stick around to read (and view images of) the results.--Dan Icolari

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FROM AUCKLAND TO ST. GEORGE VIA WILLIAMSBURG

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Meet the Neighbors

NOT POSH

When Auckland, New Zealand native Victoria Munro and her husband Rodrigo Sanchez checked out St. George for the first time, "I assumed it was a posh neighborhood," she told me recently, as we talked in the sunny kitchen of her large pre-Civil War clapboard house not far from the ferry.


St. George sculptor Victoria Munro and her daughter Violeta out for a stroll on St. Marks Place.

"The closeness to Manhattan, the grand old houses, the large properties, the views--all of it seemed to suggest 'posh,' " she said, adding that she and her husband were surprised to discover, after they'd been here a while, that not all Staten Islanders share their perceptions of St. George as beautiful and desirable.

But no matter. The couple is far too busy, getting settled in the house and neighborhood, caring for their no-longer-quite-an-infant daughter Violeta, and pursuing their career interests--she as a sculptor; he as an attorney--to worry about how some people view their home community.

With all the demands on her time and energy, the transplanted New Zealander has nonetheless managed to make her mark locally with "Going Bush," a recent exhibition at St. George's SHOW Gallery of her own sculptures, combined with a small show she curated of the work of an international group of artists with whom she's exhibited before, in her homeland and in Europe. That show was entitled, "We Go Far . . . And Way Back."

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VICTORIA MUNRO GOES BUSH

The photo below shows four of Victoria Munro's porcelain sculptures, each representative in its way of the show's theme, "Going Bush," which is explained below in text from the SHOW Gallery's website.

In the New Zealand-English-to-U.S.-English dictionary, ‘going bush’ is translated as “to drop out of society or become reclusive." The expression is widely used not only when referring to a reclusive period but also to a notion that Kiwis and Aussies hold onto, that they, at any time, may be able to drop everything and be successfully self-sufficient in the wilds of their native countries.

Having grown up in New Zealand, this notion is firmly rooted in Victoria Munro’s perception of her own abilities to ‘go bush.' With no real inclination for, or experience in, the art of basic women vs. nature survival, this is a mere romantic ideal. Nonetheless, she holds onto this ideal, joining the long list of New Zealand artists to memorialize the intrinsic connection to their native bush.

More information: E-mail/vpmunro@hotmail.com; blog/http://victoriamunro.wordpress.com

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THEY BOUGHT THE FIRST HOUSE THEY SAW

Victoria first arrived in the states as a one-semester exchange student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where she found winters impossible (by contrast, she finds New York winters 'difficult'). That one semester included a three-week stay in New York, where, despite the weather, Victoria says that "after three weeks living here, I found it hard to imagine living anywhere else."

And eventually she did wind up in New York--in an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which soon was transformed, in places, into a high-priced tourist trap, from what had been a vital artists' community sharing space with a long-established working-class community. But Victoria says she and Rodrigo weren't really house-hunting when they arrived on Staten Island for the first time; they were on their way to a barbecue, invited by friends who'd moved to West Brighton shortly before.

"What we saw amazed us," Victoria recalls, referring to their friends' new home. "No, it wasn't a fancy house; it sat on a small plot of land, but it was a comfortable amount of space for under $300,000. You'd pay that for a studio in Williamsburg."

When Victoria and Rodrigo returned from Staten Island--just to see what was available, mind you--they checked out Craigslist, where they found the house they ended up buying--and never looked at another. The couple were married in the garden of their new house and, even before it was officially theirs, Rodrigo proposed in the garden, where his proposal was accepted. The couple's offer on the house was accepted, too.

Though much of her life is now situated on Staten Island's north shore, Victoria Munro still maintains her connection to the sector of north Brooklyn where art is made and shown. Her sculptures will appear next in a group show at Williamsburg's Minus Space.

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WELCOME (BACK), PIER 76

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Rumorama

Coming soon, a rumor come true--the new Pier 76, 76 Bay Street, St. George, offering "Darts, live music, sporting events, specialty pizza, fresh seafood," according to the signage on the awning above the entrance.

AN OLD NAME GETS AN UPDATE

When we arrived in St. George in 1977, there were a  handful of small, independently owned restaurants on the North Shore that didn't survive beyond the early 1980s.

These were middlebrow eateries that served straightforward meals with no pretensions, frills or highprices. Among others, there was the Brighton Lounge on Brighton Avenue and the Lido on lower Victory Boulevard, both Italian restaurants; the Kopper Cettle (cute, huh?) on Cary Avenue near Clove Road; and Pier 76, then a seafood restaurant on Bay Street near Slosson Terrace.

Interestingly, Pier 76 was one of the first to close its doors in the early 1980s and now appears to be the first to return. I've been following the rumors surrounding the ongoing renovation of the space, which now appears close to completion.

A DESTINATION DEVELOPING?

When I took this picture--on a hot Sunday afternoon in late July--I had just passed Steiny's, a small, recently refurbished bar on nearby Hyatt Street, where there were smokers congregated outside and people strolling up and down nearby streets. You could hardly have described the street as crowded, but it wasn't the usual Sunday ghost-town, either.

With the Every Thing Goes Book Cafe, Cargo, Pier 76, Karl's Klipper, Steiny's, Beso and Ruddy & Dean open, It's at least possible that a small weekend scene may be able to develop, fueled by tourists off the boat, shoppers at the various Every Thing Goes stores, and local diners and imbibers.

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CHARTER SCHOOL MOVING TOWARD SEPTEMBER, 2010 OPENING

[FULL DISCLOSURE: My wife, Ellen Icolari, is co-lead applicant for the establishment of the Barack Obama Community Charter School on Staten Island's north shore.]

WANT TO LEARN MORE?
ATTEND THE PUBLIC PRESENTATION
AT THE PETRIDES COMPLEX,
MONDAY, AUGUST 3 at 7:30 P.M.

The submission on July 15 of an application for a pre-authorization planning grant from the New York City Charter Center was a key event for those working to establish the Barack Obama Community Charter School on Staten Island's north shore. The charter school's target opening date is September, 2010.

Photo at right, Board of Trustees meeting: From left, Lorna Harris, Arts Administration and Fundraising Consultant; Tina Sher, co-lead applicant; Marianne Castillo, Site Selection/Construction Management Specialist; Ellen Bate, Attorney; and Ellen Icolari, co-lead applicant (back to camera).

THE NEXT STEP

After establishing a board of trustees . . . engaging advisory consultants . . . identifying prospective locations . . . and selecting a founding principal . . . the group's next step is to present to the public a comprehensive description of the prospective charter school.

That description will include the school's underlying educational and social philosophy, the mix of educational approaches and services chosen to improve educational outcomes for our children, and the plan that will guide the school's establishment and ongoing growth.

That presentation will take place at a meeting of the Community Education Council (CEC) of District 31, to be held on Monday, August 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Petrides Educational Complex, 715 Ocean Terrace. (For more information, please call the CEC office at 718-420-5746.)

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REAL ESTATE, LOCAL BUSINESS, AND THE RECESSION

(Photo by Leonid Tarassishin)

WHAT MY APPRAISER SAID

When my wife Ellen and I had our house appraised recently, I complained to the appraiser that the current appraisal figure was $20,000 lower than the one done three years earlier (before we made some very visible major improvements).

Once I had a chance to think about it, the appraiser's response seemed right. He told me this 'minor downward adjustment,' as he called it, was actually good news.

Such a small [!] decline in the valuation, he explained, showed that our property had held its value during a time of catastrophic losses in so-called better neighborhoods on Staten Island and elsewhere.

He added that, in general, houses in our area were holding their value (a) because of their close-to-Manhattan location; and (b) because, even at the height of the real estate bubble, their selling prices usually were lower than elsewhere on the island and closer to their underlying value.

RESURGENT STILL

The meaning of our appraisal runs exactly counter to the findings of a poorly researched May 15 New York Times story about a slowdown in St. George's resurgence by City Room reporter Christine Haughney.

Haughney noticed (or was told about) Brooklyn developer Leib Puretz's unsold condos. She interviewed Karl Reina, the Karl's Klipper restaurant's owner, and heard about its dwindling income. On the basis of those two examples, Haughney concluded that St. George's resurgence has, as she put it, stalled.

Nonsense. Leib Puretz's condos are unsold because they're overpriced. They were overpriced and unsold during the housing bubble; they're overpriced and unsold now. Karl's Klipper's income is falling because those who can afford to eat out in this economy prefer the more interesting experiences offered by local restaurants like Enoteca Maria, Beso, Bayou and Adobe Blues.

Ms. Haughney wasn't told about my new neighbors across the street--the ones who waited until the price of their new house fell to a level they could afford, then made their bid. She probably didn't hear about the new couple down the block, either. Both teachers, they bought a bank foreclosure after the former Section 8 tenants vandalized the property and the absentee owner jumped ship.

Last weekend, they were out there, planting a sidewalk perennial garden. What's more resurgent than that?

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HOW A PLACE BECOMES YOUR HOME • WIT's FIRST CLASSIFIED

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

I wrote the following in early 2008, at long last acknowledging that I have become a Staten Islander; that I got used to it, then got to like it. Not just the amazing house I'm fortunate to live in. Not just the New York City historic district that surrounds it. Not even the neighbors who have become friends. I mean that Staten Island has become home.

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CAREFUL--YOU MIGHT LIKE IT

NOT HOT: Postcard view (dated 1910) looking south on Westervelt Avenue from Richmond Terrace, St. George, Staten Island. Because this hasn't been a hot neighborhood for slightly more than a century, every building shown in this image is still intact and in a moderately good state of preservation. A portion of our house is shown in the upper left section of the image (notice the double-windowed gable and the spire to its right).

LIVING WHERE THEY WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD

Despite the sneering disdain of metro journalists who pay two grand a month for a closet in a renovated tenement on Avenue C and Houston Street, it's possible to live where they wouldn't be caught dead and actually like it. On Staten Island, I mean. Specifically, in one of the older neighborhoods on the north shore, near the ferry.

After a while, the plucked-from-the-Midwest streetscapes of Staten Island's north shore stop looking quite as foreign as they did. It starts to seem normal to be able to see the sky without craning your neck. Or to be the only person walking down the street, utterly alone with your thoughts, and not feeling in the least unsafe. You even get used to the quiet.

WHAT YOU GAIN AND WHAT YOU LOSE

Don't get me wrong now. Staten Island is hardly Valhalla. We live in a place everybody's heard of but very few actually know--a place routinely overlooked, underserved and dismissed. But there are times when going unnoticed, unacknowledged and underrepresented pays off.

Leaving Manhattan for places like New Brighton, St. George, Tompkinsville and Stapleton gets you twice the space for half the price, give or take a hundred or two. And maybe a view, a garden or a fireplace as well. There's always a seat on the FREE Staten Island Ferry. Always a chair at the barber's. Always a table at a decent restaurant; no reservations required. At public parks, even on the weekend, it can often seem like everybody's left town. Though the north shore's hilly streets are challenging for cyclists, they're one of the best non-park environments I've found so far as a walker.

My neighbor Martha, who moved to St. George from Battery Park City with her husband and two children, is hyper-alert for signs of gentrification hereabouts. She winces whenever she sees positive media coverage of our area, which she's certain can mean only one thing: She and her family, having found a pleasant place to live they can afford, will be forced out by high rents once again.

Given the national economic downturn and the shaky state of real estate everywhere, including Manhattan, I don't think Martha has a lot to worry about for the forseeable.

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WIT's FIRST CLASSIFIED

FREE FOR THE TAKING is this 8- to 10-year-old washer owned by long-time friends, situated for easy street-level pick up in Livingston, near Snug Harbor. My friends are giving it away not because it doesn't work--IT DOES WORK!--but because (a) they wanted a front-loading machine, and (2) they wanted a more energy-efficient model. For more information, please call the owners at 718-816-8752.

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NOT HOT: Postcard view (dated 1910) looking south on Westervelt Avenue from Richmond Terrace, St. George, Staten Island. Because this hasn't been a hot neighborhood for slightly more than a century, every building shown in this image is still intact and in a moderately good state of preservation. A portion of our house is shown in the upper left section of the image (notice the double-windowed gable and the spire to its right).

LIVING WHERE THEY WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD

Despite the sneering disdain of metro journalists who pay two grand a month for a closet in a renovated tenement on Avenue C and Houston Street, it's possible to live where they wouldn't be caught dead and actually like it. On Staten Island, I mean. Specifically, in one of the older neighborhoods on the north shore, near the ferry.

After a while, the plucked-from-the-Midwest streetscapes of Staten Island's north shore stop looking quite as foreign as they did. It starts to seem normal to be able to see the sky without craning your neck. Or to be the only person walking down the street, utterly alone with your thoughts, and not feeling in the least unsafe. You even get used to the quiet.

WHAT YOU GAIN AND WHAT YOU LOSE

Don't get me wrong now. Staten Island is hardly Valhalla. We live in a place everybody's heard of but very few actually know--a place routinely overlooked, underserved and dismissed. But there are times when going unnoticed, unacknowledged and underrepresented pays off.

Leaving Manhattan for places like New Brighton, St. George, Tompkinsville and Stapleton gets you twice the space for half the price, give or take a hundred or two. And maybe a view, a garden or a fireplace as well. There's always a seat on the FREE Staten Island Ferry. Always a chair at the barber's. Always a table at a decent restaurant; no reservations required. At public parks, even on the weekend, it can often seem like everybody's left town. Though the north shore's hilly streets are challenging for cyclists, they're one of the best non-park environments I've found so far as a walker.

My neighbor Martha, who moved to St. George from Battery Park City with her husband and two children, is hyper-alert for signs of gentrification hereabouts. She winces whenever she sees positive media coverage of our area, which she's certain can mean only one thing: She and her family, having found a pleasant place to live they can afford, will be forced out by high rents once again.

Given the national economic downturn and the shaky state of real estate everywhere, including Manhattan, I don't think Martha has a lot to worry about for the forseeable.

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WIT's FIRST CLASSIFIED

FREE FOR THE TAKING is this 8- to 10-year-old washer owned by long-time friends, situated for easy street-level pick up in Livingston, near Snug Harbor. My friends are giving it away not because it doesn't work--IT DOES WORK!--but because (a) they wanted a front-loading machine, and (2) they wanted a more energy-efficient model. For more information, please call the owners at 718-816-8752.

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WEEKEND ONLINE GALLERY: RAGNAR NAESS

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DECORATIVE . . . FUNCTIONAL . . . SCULPTURAL

The following Online Gallery selection shows not only the range of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn clay artist Ragnar Naess's work. It also makes evident his determination to be fully present in each piece he executes, whether it's purely decorative, straightforwardly functional, or unabashedly personal and whimsical. [Website, ragnarclay.com; e-mail, ragnae@earthlink.net.]

Magnolia

 

Four-legged bowl

Infatuation

 

 

Infatuation (two details)

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RANT-O-RAMA 4

 Don't get me started

THE MOST NEGLECTED
GREENSPACE
IN ST. GEORGE

To call the North Shore Esplanade a greenspace is to dishonor that term.

At its northwestern end, between Nicholas Street and St. Peters Place, the North Shore Esplanade is little more than a long sitting area punctuated by london plane trees where hardly anyone ever sits.

Why would anyone bother--except those who have nowhere else to sleep?

The elegantly named esplanade's magnificent harbor views are obscured by stands of volunteer maple, polonia, and ailanthus, which are themselves being choked by the unchecked growth of porcelain-berry vines.

Though the strip is swept and its garbage cans emptied regularly, it is a derelict, deteriorating piece of waterfront real estate whose configuration assures that it will remain what it has been since my wife and I moved here in 1977: an otherwise unused route to and from the ferry--or to and from a parking space. And it's not hard to understand why.

NEAR ST. PETERS PLACE

There's nothing to do, nothing to see, and seemingly no official interest in moving beyond the dreary status quo. Why bother shoring up collapsed seating no one will ever sit on anyway, right? Just block it off with sawhorses and yellow tape for an 'indefinite' period.

 

NEAR NICHOLAS STREET

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that this section of collapsed sidewalk has been in this condition for a decade at least. The sidewalk widens at Nicholas Street, so pedestrians and joggers just go around it. And since the esplanade lacks a vocal constituency, the city's Parks and Recreation Department has little reason to devote funds to fix it.

(Photo above by Rachel Icolari)

BETWEEN NICHOLAS STREET
AND STUYVESANT PLACE

The deteriorated state of the esplanade's beautiful iron railings is another example of Parks and Recreation's minimal investment in upkeep. The department obviously is more concerned with avoiding lawsuits (those hideous highway buffers shown below) than with maintaining the original ironwork. Like Snug Harbor's, these iron railings can last indefinitely, given the proper maintenance (and replacement, where appropriate, with ironwork of the same design and density).

 

(Photo above and photo above, right, by Rachel Icolari)

DON'T 'REFURBISH' IT--
RECONFIGURE IT FOR ACTIVE USE

On the esplanade, at about the halfway point between Nicholas Street and St. Peters Place, stands a concrete flagpole dedicated to local soldiers whose lives were lost in World War II, which is probably when the esplanade was designed and installed.

In terms of park design and use, it was the era of 'Keep Off the Grass' signs and genteel after-dinner strolls. That era is not coming back. So it's not just a matter of painting the benches once again and installing better lighting.

The model made for after-dinner strolling was retired long ago--as evidenced in the 1970s design of the nearby Lia Park, which includes sitting areas but also has sprinklers, swings, and provisions for active play. As anyone who lives near it can tell you, Lia Park a pretty popular place.

FRIENDS OF THE NORTH SHORE ESPLANADE?

I don't presume to know what mix of seating, play, performance, athletic facilities and other types of offerings might draw users to what amounts to an abandoned park. But especially now, with Cromwell Center shut down yet again, the community's lack of recreational space has become more severe. And it will only continue, as our area draws more young families to its affordable apartments, houses, condos and co-ops, if we don't demand additional park and recreational resources to accommodate them.

We need to begin the process of reclaiming this bit of St. George parkland now. Friends of the North Shore Esplanade, anyone?

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