Hart Island

Hart Island is not its own census tract - instead being included in Bronx Tract 516 along with City Island. This is probably why I never felt the kind of sense of purpose in getting there that I've felt with some islands with no land access - like the Brother Islands or some Jamaica Bay Islands - that make up the entirety of their census tracts. If I had felt that, I'm sure I would have done what others have done - take a boat or canoe out very early Sunday morning, when the island is inactive. For those who don't know, Hart Island is the city's Potters Field, and the largest taxpayer-funded cemetery in the world. Inmates from Riker's Island do the work, and as a result the island is fairly well patrolled when it's active.

Instead I went a different way, on a bimonthly memorial trip with Picture the Homeless, an advocacy group. The visit was brief, and very moving. A memorial pagoda has been constructed a short ways away from where the ferry docks on the island, and the trip consisted of a short walk there, a remembrance of the people buried on the island among the group, and a slightly longer walk back. Altogether there was an amazing sense of peace to the island, a sense I would have been bereft of if I had chosen to go a more clandestine route.

There is no reason why there cannot be more public access to the island. In the 1990s extensive tours of the island were offered. I chatted a bit with two corrections officers in charge of the island about why the visits were now so infrequent and  restricted, with no pictures or journalists allowed.

Now, these are the guys who run the jails. As such I suspected "security" - probably having to do with the fact that prisoners work on the island burying the dead - to simply be the knee-jerk response. But instead I got something different - that the island was for the families of the deceased, that they didn't want to offend anyone by allowing just anyone access to the place. "That's not what this place is about" was one response I got when I asked why people couldn't visit.

I accepted that they personally believed this, although on an institutional level it made no sense. Discounting the fact that families have to go through an extremely onerous process to even visit, no other city has this issue - we are the only municipality without open access to our public cemetery. After all, cemeteries are by and large public spaces. I have never in my life heard anyone complain that a stranger was walking through a cemetery where their loved one happened to be buried. And it shouldn't matter anyway - what the officers didn't understand was that this shouldn't be their decision to make. Often time civil servants feel a sense of ownership of the public works they're sent to steward, forgetting the "public" part of the "public works."

Luckily, there's been a little bit of interest in more open access, with the City Council looking at switching the jurisdiction to the Parks Department from the Department of Corrections, and otherwise trying to make the island more accessible. It would be a wonderful public benefit to combine the best of the two ways people visit now: the freedom of going without supervision, along with the calm of going legitimately. In their testimony before City Council the Corrections Department was reduced to citing "lack of bathrooms and water fountains" as a reason visitation isn't allowed. That this island isn't available for visitation yet is simply a testimony to the culture of providing public accessibility here in New York - that it's simply not worth the hassle. In a normal paradigm, public ownership, demand, and the lack of any rational reason to deny access would lead to an open area. But in New York we're always struggling against the "just easier to keep it closed" mentality.

Neighborhoods: Hart Island
Tracts Walked: Bx516

Riverdale

There are many neighborhoods in New York where I'm reminded of my Grandparents - huge swaths of Southern Brooklyn, half of Queens Boulevard, a few scattered blocks of the east Bronx even. There should be. My grandparents are part of one of largest, and most culturally influential groups ever to hit New York - part of the great wave of immigrants and their children from the shtetels of Eastern Europe. Even today, almost 100 years after it ended, that culture has remained. The people who make it up may not be so numerous anymore, but it still has a while before it fades completely from the neighborhoods it once dominated

There are fewer neighborhoods where I'm reminded of my parents - middle-class liberal boomer Jews. You'd think that would be a big demographic in New York, one which has left a sizable imprint on the city as a whole. And it has - but it's an imprint that's not really rooted in specific geography, one where the residents have transmitted a character that's stuck to the streets. Most neighborhoods where you would think it might be encountered have either remained with that feeling of my grandparents' world, or been transformed into a kind of generic yuppiness. One of the few places (small parts of Flatbush being the only others that comes to mind right away) I've found it has been in Riverdale.

I never thought I'd like Riverdale - because the combination of its name, middle-class residents and relative suburbaness, it was always put out there in the public consciousness as kind of a souless and uninteresting contrast to the rest of the Bronx - a simplistic and inaccurate narrative for both sides of the divide, but one which I fell for.

It turns out I do like Riverdale, very much. Part of it is because it reminds me of a world I know and love, part of it is because it's one of those neighborhoods that feels like it retained its same basic character for the last 30 years as the city has changed dramatically around it -one of the few neighborhoods in New York where you don't feel like you're just seeing a snapshot of a state of flux. But most of it is because walking around it is interesting. It's one of the only neighborhoods where you can turn a corner and not really know what's next: a cliff, a high rise, a mansion, the Hudson River. Greater Riverdale - essentially the Bronx west of Broadway - looks small on a map but feels vast when you walk it. The topography is a big component of this - the area houses both the highest and lowest points in the Bronx. The lack of any real street grid is another part. But it's the variety of use that really does it. There are streets that would be at home in Scarsdale, and others that would fit right into Washington Heights. There are parks of the woodland variety and ballfield variety, two colleges in its borders, sleek highways and horribly maintained winding asphalt. The Bronx itself is like this - it's the borough that's most patchwork, where you're most likely to find a wood-frame house, 1970s concrete tower, pre-war art deco building, and recent Fedder-crap condo all inhabiting the same block.

But throughout all this physical diversity, a certain character to the neighborhood remains. A character where I'd be not the least but surprised to turn the corner and see my mother or father walking the dog or shlepping home a bag of groceries.

Neighborhods: Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil
Tracts Walked: Bx285, Bx287, Bx289, Bx293, Bx295, Bx297, Bx301, Bx307, Bx317, Bx319, Bx323, Bx329, Bx333, Bx339, Bx341, Bx343, Bx345, Bx351

Tremont Ave

The Bronx generally doesn't get a lot of love among the lots of the folks that like to walk around town, which is a shame - the borough more than holds its own in terms of history, architecture, and just general interesting stuff to see.

Four others and I walked the 7-mile length of Tremont Ave this Saturday, the longest street in the Bronx. It's actually slightly debatable as to whether or not it's actually the longest street. Bruckner Blvd (which runs underneath the length of the Bruckner Expressway) is a bit longer, although it's split into two parts, with a half-mile gap over Westchester Creek that's only transversed by the Expressway. In addition, if you separate West Tremont from East Tremont (which are one contiguous street, similar to say, East 14th and West 14th in Manhattan), East Tremont (by far the longer) also loses its "Longest Street" status to Boston Road.

Regardless of the technicalities it's still a great walk, and offers a wonderful overview of the borough. I highly recommend it as a starting point for anyone who wants to get to know the Bronx. Starting at Roberto Clemente Park by the water, is goes for one block before turning into one the West Bronx's ubiquitous staircases. After it spits you back out up on Sedgewick Avenue, it winds through the hills of University Heights, before being deposited into a bustling commercial thoroughfare through the heart of the Hispanic Bronx. It gradually becomes more industrial and much less bustling, skirts the northern edge of Parkchester, and heads down into Throggs neck where it becomes a nice remnant of an older New York, one that was mostly populated by the children of the immigrant groups of the previous great wave, whose local business lined streets like Tremont Avenue. The last few blocks are residential, and it ends at the local wedding hall, Marina del Ray.

Tremont Avenue actually only passes through 3 Census Tracts - BX53.02 where it starts, BX198 near Westchester Square, and BX132 in Throggs Neck, forming the border of tracts the rest of the way. The others listed below are the tracts we went through to get from the #4 train to the beginning of the street, and from the end of the street to the #6 train (as are the last three neighborhoods listed).

Neighborhoods: South Bronx, East Bronx, Morris Heights, University Heights, Mt. Hope, Tremont, East Tremont, West Farms, Parkchester, Castle Hill, Westchester Village, Schuylerville, Throggs Neck, Country Club, Spencer Estates, Pelham Bay.

Tracts Walked: BX217.01, BX215.02, BX215.01, BX205, BX53.02, BX198, BX132, BX118, BX130, BX158, BX162, BX160, BX274, BX276

The Most Desolate Place in New York

Out of the 2217 Census Tracts that make up the five boroughs of New York City, 24 have a population of zero. Ten are parks (8 part of the NYC Parks department, one part of National Parks System, and one affiliated with the Smithsonian) that have access to the public and regular visitation. Five are active cemeteries that can also be counted on to have regular visitors. Four are working environments – the Oak Point rail yards in the Bronx, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and two tracts that make up the Kings County Hospital Complex. One is LaGuardia Airport.

That leaves four Census Tracts one could reasonably call “desolate” – no permanent residents, no regular workers, and next to no visitors. One is really a ghost tract – Queens Tract 1622, which consists entirely of the Atlantic Ocean south of the Rockaways. It doesn’t even show up on the NYC Planning Department’s Census Fact Finder, but the Federal Census Bureau still lists it. Perhaps it was created to enumerate the population of Hog Island way back before it was destroyed about a hundred years ago, but I don’t even know if Census Tracts existed then. Regardless, since I can’t walk it I’m not counting it.

Two others consist of the series of marsh islands in Jamaica Bay. One of these tracts - Queens Tract 1072.02 - is easily accessed by the road between Broad Channel and the Joe Addabbo Bridge to Howard Beach, and houses the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge offices. The other - Brooklyn Tract 702.03 - is tougher, but there’s a small slice of the tract that’s on the same island. It takes a bit of trampsing through marshland, but you can get there on foot.

That leaves one Census Tract with no population, no workers, no land connection, and which is officially off-limits to visitors to boot. This is Bronx Census Tract 5: North and South Brother Islands, located at the western edge of Long Island Sound between Riker’s Island and the coast of the Bronx. I think it's fair to call this the most desolate tract in New York City.

A couple of summers ago I took a boat with Marie Lorenz out to North Brother. It was a very enjoyable few hours of exploration and relaxation, but the main purpose for me was simply to knock off what is probably the toughest Census Tract to get to in New York City.

Still, it's not exactly the South Pole - between scientists, students, reporters, and your occasional curious urbanist, the islands probably see at least a few dozen visitors a year.

Neighborhoods: South Bronx, North Brother Island. Tracts Walked: BX5

4-corners ride wrapup

Well, we had to overcome fatigue, rain, busted tires, and a death-defying ride down Todt Hill Road (a twisting, 2-lane, no shoulder descent down from the highest point in the 5 Boroughs) in the dark with all three of the drawbacks mentioned above. And it took almost it took almost 16 hours, and we didn't get back home until about 3:30 in the morning. But the entire 4-corners ride was successfully completed by three of us. I personally rode a stretch on each "Broadway" in every borough, plus one in Jersey. The route didn't have the Broadway in Brooklyn, but I did it on the ride form my house to the starting point.

As follows is the numerical wrap-up - I of course had to enumerate the amount of Census Tracts that were ridden. I don't count this for the walking project purpose of course, but it's fun to know. Because we rode on a lot of borders, and I didn't use my strict "borders don't count" that I do while walking, the numbers are somewhat approximate.

Next spring - 12 County ride. Watch for it.

Pictures are here, and you can see the complete route here.

By the numbers:

Mileage
Total course - 96.64 miles over 9 Counties and 189 Census Tracts (152 tracts in NYC).

Starting point - the geographic center of New York City - Stockholm street between Wycoff and St. Nicholas in Bushwick.

14.63 miles total to corner #1: Hillside Avenue and Cherry Street, Queens.
31.08 miles (45.71 miles total) to corner #2: Northwest corner of Mt. St. Vincent College, Bronx.
49.89 miles (95.6 miles total) to corner #3: Tottenville Beach off the end of Surf Avenue, Staten Island.
1.04 miles (96.64 miles total) to corner #4: Tottenville Beach off the end of Amboy Street, Staten Island.

.9 miles in Brooklyn (Kings County). 5 Tracts

31.65 miles in Queens (Queens County). 80 Tracts

.82 miles in New Hyde Park (Nassau County). 1 Tract

1.64 miles on Randall’s Island (New York County). 1 Tract

14.85 miles in the Bronx (Bronx County). 34 Tracts

.07 miles in Yonkers (Westchester County). 1 Tract

2.85 miles in Manhattan (New York County). 11 Tracts. 4.49 miles and 12 tracts total in New York County with Randall’s Island.

5.32 miles in Ft. Lee and Edgewater (Bergen County). 2 Tracts

19.52 miles in North Bergen, Guttenberg, West New York, Weehauken, Hoboken, Jersey City, and Bayonne (Hudson County ). 33 Tracts. 24.84 miles and 35 tracts total in Jersey.

19.02 miles in Staten Island (Richmond County). 21 Tracts

People
Started the course: 15 people
Total participants: 16 people (we picked up one at the start of the Bronx)

Made it to at least one corner - 16
Made it to at least two corners - 11
Made it to at least three corners - 4
Made it to all four corners - 3

One County Wonders - 16
Two County Titans - 16
Three County Thugs - 16
Four County Fighters - 15
Five County Flamethrowers - 11
Six County Slayers- 9
Seven County Superstars- 6
Eight County Aces- 6
Nine County Nerds- 5

South South Bronx

While on about 140th street a car passed us blasting Boogie Down Production "South Bronx." My companion does not recognize the song, making me feel old. I met KRS-One once - quite honestly he was a little freaky. He had this HUGE smile and kind of reminded me of an evil clown.

The walk itself was nice. A friend lives in the very-mildly gentrifying corner of the Bronx right over the Third Avenue Bridge. We headed along Bruckner and 132nd to Randall's island. It's a little-known fact, but there is one place where you cross between Bronx and New York counties without using a bridge or swimming (not counting Marble Hill). It's not quite a direct land connection, but there's a sort of makeshift pedestrian bridge made out of concrete between the two - I'll let you find it yourselves. A crew is there doing drilling. Something might have gotten lost in the translation, but I think one of the crew members indicated they were taking soil samples and planned on making a (real) pedestrian bridge. As an added bonus, there's a REVS sculpture there. It's always fun finding the interesting stuff other people (very often REVS) have left behind in out-of-the-way, and sometimes very out-of-the-way, places around town.

They're currently doing a number on Randall's Island. The new Queens bike ramp seems to be done, which is cool, and they're currently demolishing some part of the Triboro Bridge Plaza. A lot of stuff is fenced off due to construction and renovation going on - a new stadium, new ballfields, all sorts of stuff hopefully will be ready for this summer.

We head back to the Bronx a more orthodox way and wander up to St. Mary's Park. I consider doing the walk through the old freight rail tunnel underneath the park, but it's at least six inches deep in muck. We head through the park instead (one of the first places outdoor hip-hop concerts took place back in the 1970s), and up to where there's no more muck in the tunnel. We plan to head back later with more folks, admire PK and Kid's handiwork on the old Bronx Night Court I once almost killed myself in (I never did figure a way onto the roof like those two did - I'm kind of jealous). This has always been one of my favorite parts of the Bronx, and one of the last to be redeveloped. It's only been in the last 5 years or so that the small rowhouses and condos have popped up where the vacant lots have been (and there's still a few there). One cool thing is that the New York Botanical Garden has preserved a lot of the casitas in the area, which are still around. There's also still a few other less interesting abandoned courthouses and government buildings in the district - one's been demolished to make way for a new Boriqua College building.

After some more wandering around the general area we head over to the Concourse, and then check out the new Yankee Stadium being built - I've been out of town a while, I had no idea it was even underway yet. From there it's over to one of my favorite parts of the city, the Harlem River Waterfront (on both sides of the Bronx River). But those stories I'll save for another time.

Neighborhoods: Randall's Island, Ward's Island, Grand Concourse, Yankee Stadium, Mott Haven, Morrisania, Melrose, South Bronx. Tracts Walked: BX 81, BX15, BX 17, BX 33, BX37, BX71, BX 137, BX173, BX 187, M240

Little Korea in the Bronx?

For whatever reason, I love this area up in Bedford Park off the northern part of the Concourse. It's recently started to be home to the first significant Asian community in the Bronx, centered around a couple blocks of 204th street.   Koreans neighborhoods are kind of like some of the African-American neighborhoods in town - it seems like for every three people, there's a storefront church.   But the Koreans are just one of many communities in the area - it seems to be one of those neighborhoods like Ditmas Park or Kensington: a little corner of genuine integration in an otherwise largely segregated city.   Maybe it's this, maybe it's that I love the Bronx and especially the Concourse, maybe it's the day, but there is just an incredibly friendly, positive vibe coming off this area.   Last time I was there an incredibly old-school lunch counter (complete with soda fountains) was still hanging on, staffed by two ladies that has to be in their 80s.   That helped a lot also.

Neighborhood: Bedford Park.   Tracts Walked: Bx411, Bx413

Falling Down in the Boogie Down

I can't believe it. I'm going to die, and in the stupidest way possible.

It goes without saying that there are certain hazards when going nutty places. The two big ones are getting arrested and dying. I'm of the mind that if you haven't gotten a little taste of both, you aren't challenging yourself enough. I always thought my taste of death would at least be somewhat glamorous – dodging a subway at the last minute, slipping while climbing up a suspension cable, that sort of thing. Instead, I've idiotically taken a blind step backward and fallen through a hole in the floor.

The Bronx has always been my favorite borough, and is certainly the most unappreciated. It's where my roots are, my family first settling on Kelly Street during the 1920s – an area that later contributed two of the most important cultural innovations in the history of New York: Hip-Hop and Salsa. It has a distinct topography and a demographic pattern that's fascinating. And it's the borough where you're most likely to still find any kind of interesting abandonment, such as a gorgeous old courthouse in a still-dilapidated area of the South Bronx.

I made sure to pass by this courthouse every once in a while, always seeing if there happened to be a way in this time. Once again, timing and patience pay off: a sloppy job securing the back door leads to entrance. Without a flashlight, I decided to back off, call a couple of other people, and head back in with them the next day. The place is next to a police station, so we're a little tense as we check the surroundings, negotiate the door, and head on in. I start to relax. This is going to be fun.

We civilized folks have internalized a great many habits and axioms that we aren't even aware of when it comes to the built environment. One of these axioms is that in a building, a railing surrounds the hole in the ground that is used for a staircase going down – therefore we unconsciously walk around without worrying about falling into said holes in the ground all around us – in fact we probably don't even think of the floor as having “holes.”

This axiom about railings turns out not to be true in abandoned Bronx courthouses. I only fall for a fraction of a second, but I'll remember that fraction of a second for the rest of my life. And I'll remember the lesson learned: never get comfortable in a place not meant for everyday use. Never take a thoughtless step.

I end up falling about 6 or 7 feet. Blind luck dictates I don't land on a step corner or bash my head open. Instead, I land the best way possible – like a pro wrestler. Flat on my back, on a relatively even surface. There's one quick flash of blinding pain, and then I feel like I've just gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. I try wiggling my toes to make sure I'm not paralyzed. Everything seems to work. I temporarily consider abandoning my upbringing as a staunch atheist.

I scramble out of the hole and manage to croak that I'm OK. “Just let me lie down a minute.” I say. I don't want to be the party pooper after all. Who wants to go do fun stuff with someone that's going to pack up and go home at the first little brush with quadriplegia? Still, I lag pretty far behind. It hurts like hell to breath. It hurt to breath for the next three days.

We head on through the courthouse, finding old jail cells and beautiful detailing. We unsuccessfully hunt for a way up to the roof for a while, and then decide to call it a day. I still feel like I've been beaten like a gang initiate. As we walk to the subway I decide the best course of action is to head to the nearest hospital and make sure I haven't cracked a couple ribs.

Despite having health insurance, I make the idiotic decision to go to Harlem General, mostly because I know it's only a 10 minute ride on the train we're taking. Six hours later, I'm still in the waiting room, and it still hurts to breathe.

The other folks in there are mostly the uninsured waiting for non-emergency related care. One young lady who needs a bunion removed is astounded when I tell her my story. “I'm sorry, but you're stupid” she says. I don't take much offense at this – I certainly was stupid. But according to the lady, it's not, as it turns out, for the reason I thought.

“How did you not call an ambulance? You know you're not getting any money now, right? You've got to call the ambulance if you want to try to catch a settlement.” I hadn't even thought about that until she brings it up, but I have no regrets. There's a deal all responsible urbanists have with themselves: you grant yourself the privilege to go where you want, but you take complete responsibility for yourself when you do.

A few years later I go back to the courthouse as part of an official event. The jail cells have been ripped out, and I still can't find a way onto the roof. The hole where I fell is covered with a board - the place has been prepped for at least temporary human occupation. Still, I make sure not to take any backward steps this time.

Neighborhood: Morrisania
Tracts Walked: BX141