New York's outer environments - Brooklyn and the Bronx.
This week's photo album, although still in New York, will focus away from Manhattan and focus more on Brooklyn and its connecting bridge over the East River. Then, from Brooklyn, I travel in the opposite direction from the hostel to the Bronx to spend a day at the New York Botanical Gardens.
I marvelled at the superb engineering required in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, this one, spanning the East River, also carried a footpath and a cycleway alongside the main road (but not the railway, as the Sydney Bay Bridge does). Instead, the cycle/footway is suspended above the road, providing traffic-free views of Lower Manhattan from one end and, at the other end, the Watchtower Society's headquarters in Brooklyn. In 1998, the Manhattan skyline was dominated by the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The main "Watchtower" logo, which was lit up at night, looked across the river at the twin towers, as if wishing they weren't there. If only we were to learn about 9/11, 2001. Since then, the Watchtower headquarters moved to Warwick, New York, in 2016. At present (2025), the buildings at 124 Columbia Heights are taken over by a school.
| A view of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River. |
The town of Brooklyn itself provided a pleasant environment. In 1998, the Fulton Street Mall was dominated by a dental surgery, the second floor of a two-storey building. The first floor, i.e, the ground floor, accommodated a pizzeria. It would have been more ironic had the ground floor been rented out to a chocolateer! Since then, the whole plaza has been rebuilt, and the dentist has been replaced by a new building which houses a Primark store. Indeed, as with Lower Manhattan, any present-day visitor would experience a different environment from the one I was familiar with.
From walking across the East River from the Brooklyn Bridge, I headed south towards Columbus Park, a wide concrete space on which stood the statue of Henry Ward Beecher, a known abolitionist against slavery. Further on, the handsome white building, dominated by Roman-style columns, a pediment, and topped by a clock tower, looked over the wide, tree-lined quadrangle. This building was the Brooklyn Town Hall.
These features set Brooklyn apart from Manhattan. Although its streets were buzzing with pedestrians, especially at Fulton Street, along with its flow of traffic, this town was somewhat more sedate than Manhattan, and walking its streets and taking in the environment was a worthwhile experience, especially with a view of Lower Manhattan as seen across the East River from Piers 2 and 3.
On another day, I took the Subway train to the Bronx to visit the New York Botanical Gardens, an island of pure nature in the midst of the city. The Botanical Gardens is smaller in area than Central Park, and from the air, it's irregular in shape, due to the surrounding street layout. I used Line 1, which terminated at Van Cortlandt Park Station in the Bronx. This was due to being unfamiliar with the area, as this was my first visit there. Had I taken Line 2, I would have arrived at Bronx Park Station, allowing a shorter walk to get to the Garden's entrance.
But that didn't matter. By alighting at Van Cortlandt Station, a terminus of the line, I had a chance to check out the Bronx itself. Although this area, mainly residential, was probably named after the 17th-century Swedish colonialist Jonas Bronck, at present, the borough takes its name from the Bronx River, which flows through both the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo, to join the East River as it flows towards the Atlantic Ocean via Upper and Lower Bays.
After visiting the San Diego Zoo just a year previously in 1997, I knew that no other zoo would match it. As this Southern Californian venue had lush palm trees, cactus, and a semi-tropical feel, here in New York, no way would this venue come close! But I was interested in the adjoining Botanical Gardens. It's forested area, banking both sides of the river, remaining unlogged throughout the centuries, gives a clear impression of how Manhattan Island looked before anyone arrived to settle there. The original Manhattan Island was covered in thick forest, mainly deciduous trees, and was probably home to bears, wolves, and other wildlife before succumbing to the demands of human beings.
But during the whole of the 1998 New York and Boston trip, I missed the palm trees, the mangroves, and other tropical and subtropical vegetation. The rivers and bays were unfit to swim in, let alone snorkel, as I did over the Great Barrier Reef. Yet, the area lies at a 40-degree north latitude, an imaginary line that also crosses Southern Italy, where palm trees flourish in abundance. Even in the southwest coast of England, especially in Cornwall, there are palm trees that are happy to thrive on a 50-degree north latitude, ten degrees nearer the Arctic than New York.
Thus, the Botanical Gardens of New York lacked the palm trees and other subtropical vegetation, such as the Pear Cactus, abundant in southern Italy, Sicily and more so in Malta, but nowhere to be seen where I was visiting. Yet the latitude wasn't very different in my opinion, with Sicily around 36 degrees north.
However, the Gardens had a beauty of their own, especially the virgin forest bordering the Bronx River. This, to me, exceeds the natural beauty of Central Park, as this rectangular strip of greenery is entirely man-made. True enough, there was enough horticultural handywork to satisfy any enthusiast, but for me, the virgin forest, which once flourished across Manhattan Island, intrigued me the most.
The Bronx is mainly a residential borough. However, back in the nineties, the area had a dodgy reputation. Before taking off to New York, my friends warned me that if I visited the Bronx, I should take special care. They were right. After I had finished visiting the Botanical Gardens, I passed a terraced house while on my way to the subway station at Van Cortlandt Park. A couple of young black men were assembled at the gate, although neither of them approached me, but threw sneers as I walked by. I felt my skin crawl as I paced fast, looking straight ahead. To them, I was one of those white, wealthy tourists who came from afar to visit the parks. And indeed, while they may be struggling to afford the essentials, to them, I was loaded and throwing money around.
How far their thoughts were from reality! If I were wealthy, I would have rented a room at a luxury hotel on 5th Avenue, not sleep in a dormitory at a hostel with a dubious kitchen with no crockery or cutlery. Then again, there is something special, something very appealing about a working-class fellow backpacking the world and living on basics.
Click here for the link to the Index to the main Biography, covering Weeks 108-112.
Photos of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Town.
Photos of the Bronx area.
| To think that this covered Manhattan Island. |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next Week, I will arrive in Boston, Massachusetts.