I Love NYC In the Spring

This is it, folks...smw, slt is leaving NYC after a year on these shores. Tomorrow I'll start moving again, exploring a few parts of the US before I leave in late July to take up my next post with MSF. There'll be more information later about where I'm going, and probably another blog entry from my travels in the US before I leave for briefing in Amsterdam, but I want to take a moment to honor the city which I knew so well from the 70s through the 90s, but haven't spent more than a week in since 1997. Having spent the 12 years since then largely in mediterranean climates (LA and SF) or in the tropics, I'd truly forgotten the robust bursting expressions of life and color that characterize the temperate spring. So herewith an ode to NYC in spring, now that summer has come and I'm leaving NYC. Enjoy. Stay tuned for more regular updates and photos since I'll be traveling again.

...Yes, Brooklyn is part of New York City and dear to my heart as my home for a decade. Above and below - Brooklyn Botanic Garden during cherry blossom season, and Grand Army Plaza in the heart of Brooklyn by Prospect Park & the Brooklyn Public Library.

Some of my readers haven't been to NYC and I've mostly aimed my NYC blog posts at folks outside the US who might consider visiting some time. I've always told European friends, in particular, that American cities are nothing special compared to European cities, and I stand by that; it's our vast natural landscapes of endless variety and (underfunded) national parks that make the US a top-notch tourist destination, in my view. That said, the US has several cities that are chock full of great architecture, museums, parks, restaurants and people - even if none can hold a candle to 'old-world' cities like Athens, Istanbul, Varanasi or Beijing when it comes to history. The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens were one of my favorite weekend haunts when I lived in NYC. You see why, I'm sure.

Since April I've taken a weekly conversation class at the Alliance Francaise - French Institute in NYC - another of those great NYC resources that everyone should check out, with really excellent classes and good membership benefits and programs. Every Saturday morning I've taken the A train to Columbus Circle, beautifully renovated and now a lovely magnet for strollers and walkers at the southwestern corner of Central Park, and walked through the park to my class over on Madison Avenue, past (Manhattan's) Grand Army plaza at the southeast corner of Central Park, home to NYC's famous Plaza Hotel and, on the day I took the photos below, many beautiful April tulips. (American history lesson for the curious: the Grand Army was the Grand Army of the Republic, aka the Union or northern army which deafeated the Confederate Army in the American Civil War, which for those of you who don't know was an indescribably deadly and prolonged war from which the country took many decades to recover, and in some ways still has not. NYC's population and economic might were important assets for the Union side, the city supported the war effort, and thus NYC has two famous Grand Army Plazas in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, which until 1896 was a separate city. The history of the names is more complicated, but go to Wikipedia if you want more.)

Hyde Park in the Hudson Valley

The Hudson Valley is a great visual joy north of New York City, and one of its historical highlights is Hyde Park, home of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt. Hop on Metro North from Grand Central or 125/Harlem for a gorgeous ride that takes you into the Bronx and along the riverbanks with views of Manhattan and New Jersey as the train tracks hug the shoreline nearly all the way up to Poughkeepsie, nearly two hours north of the city. Any train ride on the Hudson River line is a pleasure; on a spring day with sparkling blue skies and fresh green leaves bursting on all the trees up this hills and mountains that slowly rise as you move north, it's a treat. I can't recommend it enough.
Once you reach Poughkeepsie, there are usually shuttles that can take you the few miles farther north to the Franklin Delano & Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites. I was tempted to wax political - after all, FDR was one of the masters of 20th Century American politics - but will limit myself to reminding everyone that the country had 50 years without a banking collapse, for the very first time in its history, after new regulations were put in place and enforced under FDR and subsequent administrations. (They'd been happening every 10 to 20 years from the 1780s until then.) It wasn't until 1989 that we had another banking collapse, after eight years of Republican presidents who philosophically disapproved of government regulating business.

So in Hyde Park you have something for everyone: political history and the presidential library of FDR; the Eleanor Roosevelt historical site, which highlights her leadership in the drafting of the universal declaration of human rights (if you've never read this document, please do - it's very visionary and though often ignored and disrespected, it represents admirably high aspirations), education, civil rights & integration, rights of women and children, and so on. There's colonial history, colonial architecture, the chairs and tschotschkes the Roosevelt family collected, and simply lovely views over the Hudson Valley. A very enjoyable day trip from the city on a clear day - keep it in mind next time you have a free day in NYC!

Above and below are photos of Top Cottage, FDR's truly private retreat up a high hill inland from the main Roosevelt family house. Roosevelt was an amateur architect, and designed some local post offices as well as this house, a visit to which is a real treat that gives a sense of how Roosevelt gave himself quiet space as he directed the rejuvenation of the American economy and the war effort. Since they've either made replica furniture that very closely matches what was once there, or brought back actual pieces that were there at the time Franklin & Eleanor hosted, for example, the King & Queen of the UK, it was a real treat for Mom & me to pose for a photo in the same spot as some pretty famous folks.

...the view from the porch of Top Cottage. You can sit there and hear...nothing but the sigh of wind in these trees. For a man directing the war effort in Europe & the Pacific, such a retreat must have been priceless.

Above, the Roosevelt barn & garage in classic Dutch colonial style. Below: 2009 is the 500th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage up the Hudson, which made him the first European to explore and map the region. This ship is a close replica of Henry Hudson's ship Half Moon, which is doing a tour of historic towns in the Hudson region from Albany south, in honor of the 500th anniversary of European arrival on these shores. As you can see, I fell in love with how the rigging of the ship looked against the rigging of the (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) Mid-Hudson bridge, which connects Poughkeepsie (east side) to Highland (west side).