Paddling the Bronx River

Yesterday I had the remarkable treat of going canoeing on the Bronx River with colleagues from Montefiore Hospital who are celebrating the recovery of the borough. The Bronx was badly damaged in the 1970s by the civic policy of planned shrinkage, which had the horrific unintended consequence of spreading the AIDS epidemic, and unleashing drug epidemics that in turn created overwhelming violence with all its accompanying illnesses. Montefiore has been one of the hospitals at Ground Zero of this succession of catastrophes, leading the treatment and research endeavors for all these problems. Like other organizations it has soldiered along doing what it could for recovery. The Bronx River Alliance is another example of an organization committed to the recovery of the Bronx, and doing the slow, considered work that I've come to call "careful recovery." Since the 1970s the Alliance has been cleaning the river and bringing people to the river so that it might function as a "Main Street" of recreation and community life. They have removed 70 cars and 12,000 tires, and fought for better caretaking by upstream communities which still dump on the river. They hope to make the river swimmable, and they are nearing that goal -- what a wonderful gift that will be to the Bronx! What makes this "careful recovery" are the following characteristics: they haven't gone for a quick fix, indeed, they know there isn't one; they are aware of and seek to understand all the complexities of life along the river, its ecosystem; they teach others to love the river as they do; and they reach out to all the communities that might help. Careful recovery helps all the injured parts of the ecosystem -- animal, vegetable and mineral.

The river I visited yesterday was sparkling in the sun, and its clear bottom was free of debris. People were gathered at its edges, longing to get in, which some had done though the probably to their peril -- it's not that clean just yet. The river plays peek-a-boo with the city. At one point we got stuck on a sand bar just under a bridge. A man on the bridge helped us get our canoe going the right way, just as he would have helped us get our car off a patch of ice. Another time we heard a man singing, though we couldn't see him. My granddaughter Lily shouted, "You sound great!" "I think it's important to compliment people," she said to Greg and me, her fellow paddlers. What was the man thinking to hear a voice come out of nowhere? There are so few paddlers on the river, he might not have thought to look for the voice there.

When we arrived at the Bronx Zoo, we entered a small lake created by dams built hundreds of years ago to power small factories. There insects hovered over the water and water birds collected, including an egret, a duck, and a seagull. Dart Westphal, who had organized our trip, said that a beaver had been spotted on the river, the first since the dams were built in the 1700s. When he heard about the beaver he went out and bought a beaver tie and gave beaver toys to all his friends: that is how careful recovery works, I thought to myself, celebrating small victories on the road to Recreation Main Street.

The services of Main Street

Cities are complex systems, and each arises as part of a larger system of cities. Cities are internally organized and connected to and concerned with the rural areas that give them sustenance. They are decorated with monumental buildings that embody the ideals and structure of the local culture. They are centers of human living, energized with exchange. The Main Streets of our era play a crucial role in organizing cities along all of these dimensions. A way to begin to look at Main Streets is to consider the way in which the street serves these many functions. Is it connecting the parts of the city? Does it connect to other cities and to the countryside? Does it display the city's monuments? Does it help to energize interpersonal exchange? Is it serving the whole population of the city, or only part? Does it carry out its duties with panache? These questions, drawn from research on the history of cities, offer us an excellent metric for thinking about the cities to be visited in this project.

Urban festivals make cities fun

In the spectacular film about the diaspora after Hurricane Katrina "Axe in the Attic" there is a woman who was displaced to Florida. She remembered that everyone there went to the mall on the weekends. "I said, 'Don't you people have a fest? Don't you have a jazz fest, a river fest, any kind of fest?'"

What is a city without a fest? I think festivals are a modern version of the market fair, which would create centers of exchange, energy and imagination in times when cities were smaller and travel much harder. A few years ago I spent a delightful few days in a city near Avignon which was the site of one of the largest medieval markets in Europe, and I was very interested to learn how such markets worked. I think that today's festivals follow in the footsteps of those long ago events. A city without a fest is a city without a way of quickening its heartbeat and stimulating its methods of exchange.

So far this summer, I've been to Moosefest in Bennington, Vermont, with my medical school classmate, Dr. Martha Stittelman, and Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally in Binghamton, NY with my college classmate, Dr. Francine Rainone. Moosefest is an art installation on and around Main Street in Bennington. The moose are large and fabulous, big enough to stop traffic and interesting enough to provoke conversation. Martha asked the useful question, "How does art stimulate the urban economy?" Happily for me, we could see it at work as we walked around: people were walking on Main Street to see the moose (plural: moose), and that meant that all kinds of other things were happening, beginning with two young girls who were playing violin to raise money for the local animal shelter. People gathered around to hear them play, smiled at each other, gave money, left feeling better about the world and their place in it and voila! we have a better economy because of art. Martha, who rarely goes to Main Street, was proud to show it to me, and I enjoyed seeing it. My favorite moose: Camping Moose.

Binghamton's Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally was celebrating its 25th year. "Spiedie" are Italian skewered meat, a version of shish kebab, started no one knows when or how. This is only in Binghamton, so it is very local treat. Spiedie Fest is a community festival held in a local park, which becomes Main Street for the weekend. As such, it sets a fine example of what all Main Streets should be: it has rides, crafts, a vintage car show, music, and, of course, spiedies. I loved SpiedieFest because it was simple and real -- the crafts were actual things people had made, not tube socks. A special highlight was that the New York State Comptroller's Office had a tent there and Francine and I both found that we were owed money! Free money, good crafts, tasty food! If every Main Street had those things, people would be pouring in the way they were pouring in to Spiedie Fest! Food for thought...

Main Street, the East End and the Wooly Adelgid

In February I visited Asheville, North Carolina. The week before I'd been in Raleigh and spring was swelling in the bushes. I was sure that I'd have the joys of early spring during my trip. I was there as part of a celebration of Asheville history as captured in the photographs of Andrea Clark, which were on exhibit at the public library. I was enthralled by her remarkable photos of a lost place, destroyed for road widening. While there, the newspapers reported on two topics that also caught my eye: the plans for Downtown Asheville and the wooly adelgid, which is attacking the hemlock forests which dominate the mountainsides. Thinking about Clark's photographs, downtown planning and ecological disaster helped me to grasp a point that my urbanism teacher, Michel Cantal-Dupart, has made many times. Cities are complex ecological systems, and demand that we consider questions from the perspective of history, our hopes for the future and the current ecological realities. I was delighted that my thoughts on this topic were recently published in Asheville's Urban News.

I had gone to Asheville expecting early spring, but forgetting that spring is notoriously unstable, hot one day and cold the next. And even, as in this case, snowing. A snowstorm hit, and absent plows and sanders, the snow shut the city and its airport down. I was delighted to find that Bistro 1896, which was a couple of blocks from my hotel, was open for lunch and dinner through the storm and its aftermath. The restaurant had a delicious menu, light, flavorful, and fun. It is a place that captures the charm and friendliness of the region. I highly recommend it, should you happen to find yourself in Asheville.

Overdevelopment and underdevelopment

Monday night, July 20th, I attended a birthday party for contractor Mark Miller and developer Patrick Morrissy. It was held at an old industrial building that Morrissy's organization, HANDS, Inc., is redeveloping into a restaurant, apartment, and artist studios. The party was held in the unfinished artist studios, with their roof still open to the sky and trees. The sound and hearty core of the building is still visible. Coquelle's Bakery used to occupy the site, and Jeannie Morrissy shared memories of what a lively place it was, and what delicious brownies they made there. Miller and Morrissy are giving new life to the building and to the corner of Scotland Road and Central Avenue, which looks down on its luck. That perception will change this week when Anthony Wood, the proprietor of Daily Soup, opens for business. He has a keen sense of fun and a bright, spacious restaurant which shades from casual in the front to more formal in the rear. Last night he delighted the partygoers with frozen yogurt mixed with outrageous toppings. The young Morrissys, Claire and Tim, promised to try all the combinations of three and write about their findings in their food blog. Food is fun in Orange, and the air is full of possibility. This photo of me withmy daughter Molly and mother Maggie was taken by Herb Way, who graduated with me from Orange High School back in 1967.

Today -- the 21st -- I had lunch on Palisades Avenue with Bob Stern, who lived in Englewood for many years before moving to Montauk. When asked what he was up to, he confessed, rather sheepishly, that he was the president of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and was fighting developers who want to do irresponsible building. As this is exactly what he was doing in Englewood, he wanted to be the first to admit "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"!

Bob believes in democracy and makes it work by doing his part to hold people accountable to the larger society. He recounted lots of stories of confronting people who's irresponsible building poses a threat to the area's charm and sustainability. In listening to his stories of fighting of developers and their money, I was reminded of how hard Morrissy and his colleagues work to bring investors' dollars to Orange. In a reasonable world, the dollars that are poised to destroy Montauk would be redirected to Orange. Overdevelopment will wreck one beautiful and precious natural treasure, while underdevelopment is ruining a charming and creative little city. But the struggles of the two places are not yet linked, however much they need to be. Overdevelopment and underdevelopment are two sides of one coin: making a fast buck in real estate. Can we ease the greed and create places for people?

Paterson's Main Street

Karen Washington is a garden designer who has helped me transform my yard. This summer I have been enjoying the pleasures of the new design. I have been sitting in the yard to write while listening to the birds and watching the castor bean grow (it's a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk plant and grows right in front of your eyes). I wanted to thank her for this wonderful transformation in my space so I proposed dinner in Paterson. I found two Turkish restaurants online and I printed out the directions, in one case from Google and in the other from Yahoo. We started off following the directions, and just couldn't find the connections we were supposed to make. That's when it became apparent I hadn't printed out either the names or the phone numbers. I remembered one name -- sort of -- and we called for directions. We couldn't find those connections either, but at this point we decided to follow the signs which got us to Paterson. In Paterson we stopped a young woman coming out of a laundromat and asked how to get to Main Street. "Main Street?" she said, with what I thought was worry in her voice. "You go here and turn before the school, and go all the way down the hill and by the Falls and then to the bottom of the Falls by Burger King and then you make a left, and go to Main Street." At the part where she advised turning "before the school" my heart sank. But Karen got a big smile. "OK!" she said, thanking the woman. We headed off and sure enough, Karen knew exactly how to decipher "before the school," "by the Falls" and "left at Burger King." In no time at all we were on Main Street, heading towards we weren't exactly sure what. Suddenly, I saw a sign for "Alaturk" Turkish restaurant. I had seen this reviewed on the internet. We parked across the street, as advised in the window, and went in. I was a little intimidated, but a smiling young woman came forward and made us feel very welcome. We explained we didn't really know much about Turkish food. She immediately took an interest in introducing us to her cuisine and a feast of yummy dishes started to arrive from the kitchen, all fresh, delicately spiced and wonderfully fun to eat. The most spectacular was Turkish pizza, with a very thin crust and about two feet long, covered with chopped meat. She placed this on the latest edition of the Turkish news. We loved it. She explained that her family had just taken over the restaurant two weeks before. Her husband was the chef and he came out to say hello and we were delighted to tell him how much we enjoyed the food. They have great hopes for the restaurant which has a lovely space for a garden. When I explained that Karen was a garden designer, they asked for her card and took her back to see their yard. She immediately had visions of trees and arbors. I started thinking about grapes and how my own yard, transformed by her alchemy, is now such a wonderful place to pass the hours. When it was time to go, we asked for directions, got on the highway immediately and were home in less time than it takes to tell. I promised Karen that next time she goes on an outing with me, I'll take a map, the name of the restaurant, and the telephone number. She laughed.

Broadway, New York's Main Street

I am reading Jason Goodwin's detective series, set in Istanbul. This has inspired me to go to Turkey. As part of my travel preparation, my friend and co-worker, Lourdes Hernandez-Cordero and I set out for lunch at Turkuaz, a Turkish restaurant on Broadway at 100th Street. The food was wonderful: very fresh, delicately seasoned, and reminiscent of the meals prepared by Yashim, the star of Goodwin's novels. We went to the ladies' room prior to leaving and there was a painting of women at the hamam. Lourdes and I love to go to the hamam at the Great Mosque in Paris, and we were lamenting the lack of public baths here in New York. There are some, but they tend to be expensive and not the neighborhood affairs that one can find in other countries. The painting also made us think of bra shopping, and we reflected that there must be a great bra store on Broadway, one of those great places where the saleswomen can tell your size by glancing at you as you walk in. We could have just strolled down Broadway -- and in the beautiful weather it was tempting -- but we decided to see what we could learn by phone. She called her friend, who knew of a store on Madison and 90th Street, but we didn't want to leave Broadway. I called my daughter, Molly Rose Kaufman, who immediately went on line and located a place at 77th. A quick cab ride and there we were at Bra Smyth, which was a revelation for me. A short time later, better fitted, dazzled by the wonders of Broadway, and happy with our fieldwork, we headed back uptown to tend to matters at the office.