Posts tagged #NYC Parks

NYC Parks and Planning

Walking through all these Parks

Ever since we moved here we have been frequent visitor to Morningside Park. We never actually spend time in the park though, it’s just a place we pass through while walking from the east side to the west side of Manhattan. It takes 30 minutes on a good day to do the trek from our apartment to Columbia University. And we get to pass through Marcus Garvey Park and the Mount Morris Park Historic District on the way too. There are no tall buildings like the ones you see downtown here. Well, there are a couple of tall houses but no real abundance of them. I usually go through the northern part of Morningside Park, but in the southern end there is even a beautiful waterfall! Maybe I’ll try to go by there this week.

Morningside Park Late April:

As I have mentioned earlier, I love stats, charts, documentation etc, and NYC has created this awesome 3D map of all the buildings in Manhattan, and you can color them by height. If you take a look at East Harlem you can see that the majority of buildings are 10-25 m and in central Harlem they get a bit taller but still below 50m (depending on the speed of your internet and power of your computer the 3D map might take a while to load). Of course there are a few taller ones, but its pretty eyeopening to see on a map like this.

Marcus Garvey Park mid to late April:

If you are interested in the demographics of the greater NYC area you can take a look at this map pdf from NYC department of city planning, which also has all the different neighborhoods listed. What you might notice too, is how the topography changes as you move throughout the city. Walking from the east side to the westside through Morningside park you will walk up three sets of long stairs. If you look at the pdf map I just mentioned, you can clearly see that the west side lays at a higher elevation compared to the east side. You can also se the specific demographics for all the different larger neighborhoods by going to NYC planning. NYC planning also have some more detailed demographic facts about all the different neighborhoods if you are into that. In some way NYC is a large model city, there are ton of studies about anything in the city and Manhattan. Air pollution, water quality, green roofs, sustainability and the list goes on.

Mount Morris Park Historic District:

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about all the great maps and info you can get from NYC Parks and Central Park Conservancy. If you are interested in seeing what tree species you pass during your walk you can take a look at NYC Parks list of all trees in NYC, its quite incredible if you think about it. They have mapped every single tree in the city, of course there might be some lag if a tree dies or so. There you can also report if a tree needs attention by NYC Parks. You will be able to also click on a tree and see what species it is. It has a count for all the trees in the different neighborhoods and also how much CO2 the city is offsetting by having all of those trees! The map is also color coded if you zoom out, based on the number of trees, where darker green corresponds to a high number of trees, and lighter green to low. Does anyone know of similar maps in other cities?

Morningside Park Late April:

Posted on May 9, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Life in New York, Science and tagged Science New York City New York Life Morningside Park Park NYC NYC Parks Life in NYC.

In The Rearview Mirror 2018 pt. 4

Flashback Friday

October

    A mild October arrived, and I used to take walks through Central Park every now and then. October is also halloween and it was so fun to see everyones halloween decorations. I was walking across Manhattan on Halloween and actually got delayed because of all the little kids doing their trick or treat. The sidewalk was packed, on both sides of the street. I have never seen anything like it, but I loved it. In October we also got a new kitty cat, Garvey, named after Marcus Garvey. He is a true East Harlem kitty, born on the streets and then eventually ended up with us. October also brought us up north for a wedding in Montreal. We are so close to Montreal and we took the car up there. On the way back we went on our first hike i New York and boy did it kick our ass. Once we got back we had more time to explore Riverside Park and other parts of the city.

November

    Temperatures were still pretty mild, but as soon as that sun dropped it turned icy cold. I still can’t understand that we actually do really live in New York City. It just sounds so bizarre and weird. When the beautiful fall colors finally arrived I went on a fall photo tour in Central Park with a friend. We had fika twice, because what Swede does not do fika? We got a light dusting of snow and the only Christmas feeling I got in November was when I volontered at the Swedish Church and their Christmas Market. I baked saffron buns and also ginger snaps from scratch with another Swedish friend I’ve met here.

December

    When you least expected it December had already arrived. I had bought a proper advent candle holder at the Swedish Church and finally celebrated all advents in proper style, with candle lit and fika. W and I went down to the most southern part of Manhattan and explored the Seaport District. We also went to Chinatown and as always when we come back from there we had an awesome dinner. Then my dad came for Christmas. We explored even more, we went to the Interpid Sea, Air and Space Museum, walked around East Harlem, upper East side and Central Park a lot. We walked around a bit in Brooklyn, Long Island City, Roosevelt Island, the Battery, Chinatown and Hells Kitchen. It’s quite amazing how large only Manhattan is. We even ventured out late at night to Times Square. This was unfortunately the very first Christmas I celebrated in the US without any snow on the ground.

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror, Life in New York and tagged rearviewmirror rearviewmirror2018 Central Park Interpid Museum Christmas Fall Adirondacks Montreal NYC NYC Parks Manhattan 2019 Advent Riverside Park.

Walking the Line - The High Line

Adventure Tuesday

Cityscapes

A couple of weekends ago we slowly got ourselves ready for the day and thought about what we should do. I believe it’s easy to get blinded by all the different things a city like New York has to offer. Now, we aren’t the best people maybe to explore and find new areas in a city landscape, but we are working on it. So that morning a few weekends ago I said that I wanted to walk the High Line, because I have heard so much about it, from friends but also elsewhere. There are tons of articles online about “moving to New York”, “10 best things to do in New York” along with “how to cope with a too hot apartment in the wintertime”. The last one might be put into a blogpost later on, together with a ton of other things that can happen in an apartment in New York City. Anyway, walking the High Line seemed like an excellent idea and was a regular “attraction” on many “to do” lists. On top of that, we hadn’t been to any Trader Joes since we moved here, and there are couple of those on the more southern part of Manhattan, well, think mid- to southern part of Manhattan, and one very close to the end of the High Line (well the more northern end of the High Line).

A little bit of History

We actually didn’t walk all of the High Line. The southern end is around Washington St and Gansevoort St. We took the train south from where we live and got off around Lexington and 14th street and walked along 14th street through Chelsea Market before getting on the High Line. Chelsea Market that once was a National Biscuit Company was apparently greatly benefited by the construction of the High Line, which in many areas cut right through the buildings. All I knew about the High Line is that it used to be an old freight rail line that now has been converted to a nice park. It’s only 1.45 miles long, so extremely short. The neighborhoods surrounding that short stretch of rail line got together to save the rail line from demolition a few years back. It all started way back in the mid 1800’s when the railroad run by New York City Central Railroad was becoming a hazard to pedestrians, and by 1910 more than 500 people had been killed by the railroad. It wasn’t until 1924 when the idea of a elevated rail line came to the drawing table, but the very first train to go on these rails didn’t have its virgin trip in 1933. If you are interested in more of the history, but also pictures from the High Line when it was still in use by the freight line you can go to the webpage for the High Line.

Gardens and architecture

What really caught our attention was not the park itself with all the grasses and other plants (and sometimes even trees), but the architecture surrounding the actual High Line. I am not sure what we had hoped to find on the High Line, plantwise, but we were not that impressed. The design of the High Line itself is still very nice. The benches and boardwalks and the fencing are of a “flowy” design but it turns out that some of the design is a real hazard. We saw an elderly woman accidentally stumble on some of the design features on the ground as she was trying to take a perfect picture. Once I noticed that, it really struck me how inconvenient that part of the design really was, especially in an area like this where everyone wants to snap a picture. We of course do not do that great with crowded places but still managed to have a pretty good time. There seem to be a wide range of popularity of the actual High Line. Where we entered was fairly busy, and walking north suddenly became very crowded. But as with everything it always comes and goes in waves. The amount of people sometimes trickled down, and then suddenly increased again throughout the whole walk. The least people I think we encountered at the very end of the High Line. That part is not yet fully developed so maybe that was the reason for that.

Skyscrapers

Something that is pretty cool to watch are all these skyscrapers south of Central Park. The all are very eye catching, especially since they are most of the time reflective, and show you this lovely blue color on a sunny day, like the one we had.

Have you ever been to New York and walked the High Line? What did you think?

Posted on November 27, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Life in New York and tagged High Line New York City NYC NYC Parks Big City Life city life walking Park Skyscrapers utlandssvensk 2018 Life in NYC.