The old Tibbetts Brook Park gazebo

Sitting in the middle of Tibbetts Brook park by a quiet, still lake is this mysterious structure. It was probably built around the late 1920s when the park was first opened to the public. But Tibbetts Brook has an amazing history. It was once owned by a wealthy land owner named Elias Doughty who sold it to George Tibbetts in 1668. Later the land was confiscated from Tibbetts after it was discovered he had sided with Britain in the revolutionary war.
Later it was the site of The Battle of Kingsbridge or The Battle of Tibbets Brook in 1778 where Ethan Allen joined forces with the Stockbridge indians under the Indian chief Sachem Daniel Ninham. Allied, they led the battle against the Queen's Rangers led by John Graves Simcoe. The battle lasted only a day and in the end, Britain won leaving dead 4 British soldiers and 40 indians.
There is very little information about this Gazebo. But it had to have been constructed around 1927 the same time the park was officially opened to the public.
The structure is a Romanesque design with 9 elegant arches. I can just see the frolicking flappers à la Gatsby running through each arch giggling insanely on the eve of The Great Depression.

Poor Poe house

Sitting in an urban park in the summer heat of the Bronx is Edgar Allen Poe Cottage. It was the last home of the early American literary legend.
It was built in 1812 by architect John Wheeler. There was a time, not long ago when it was fully restored and you could take a tour inside for a fee. Lately though it seems like it's become another victim of urban blight.
Somebody should let the Parks Dept. Know because they still list it as operating on their website.
Although the original location was on the other side of Kingsbridge, the cottage was moved in its present location closer to Fordham Road. To think that there was once a time when New York wasn't just a collection of square brick buildings. EAP spent most of his life in Baltimore and his last days in the Bronx. My favorite POEm is The Cask of Amontillado..well it's more like a short story but I just couldn't resist.

Cathedral of the Forest

Tall deciduos trees lean slightly forward in opposite directions creating the illusion of a gothic arch.

Flashback 1983.

A once popular ghost, the rubiks cube seems to have made a huge comeback. Originally called the 'magic cube', it was invented by a Hungarian sculptor and architect named Erno Rubik in 1974. It was then licensed and sold under the Ideal Toy company in 1980. Since then and its comeback, over 350,000,000 have been sold today making it the best selling game of all time!
I have so many frustrating memories of spending hours as a kid in the 80s trying to solve the puzzle. I know I succeeded a few times but what is really remarkeable to me about the rubiks cube is its iconic 1980s character. Just one look at a rubiks cube and i'm having flashbacks of Michael Jackson moonwalking. It was everywhere and it was cheap and everyone had one.
The rubiks cube faded from prominence during the late 1980s then in 2006, while teaching junior high in Taiwan, the kids were passing them around between class.

Here the young man furiously tries to unlock the algorythm while the girl next to him interacts with much later technology.

Andrew Haswell Green: New York's forgotten hero

Atop a seldom visited hill in Central Park sits the monument to perhaps the most instrumental founding father of New York, Andrew Haswell Green. Close by, a jogger stretches, oblivious to the presence of the man responsible for the park he enjoys today.

Green was responsible for not only the planning and development of Central Park but also The Natural History Museum, The Met, The Ny Public Library, The Bronx Zoo and the consolidation of the five boroughs which make up the New York City we know today. He was a New Englander who started out from humble middle-class beginnings. He had had several small time jobs during the economic crash of the 1840s (caused by the same reasons as the most recent financial meltdown). And he had even spent time in Trinidad where he worked  as a manager on a sugar plantation before returning to the states where he would eventually go to law school and become a successful attorney. He would travel to Europe and be inspired for his vision for new york. He would meet me Samuel J Tilden, a lawyer and politician who later became governor of New York and even a Democratic Presidential candidate who got so close to winning the presidency that the election of that year would remain one of the most controversial in US history. He had won the popular vote but would lose the electoral vote to Rutherford B Hayes. Green shared his home with Tilden until Tilden’s death in 1886. Seeing that he reportedly never showed any interest in women and like Tilden, was a confirmed bachelor till his death, he was probably gay.

Andrew Haswell Green c. 1840s

When Green had first traveled by boat with his sister from Worcester Massachusettes, New York was a brutish collection of slums and shanties. Central Park, one of Greens greatest achievement was a shantytown in a swamp like area.

 His life ended outside his Park Avenue brownstone when a deranged black man, Cornelius Williams, mistook him for another man who had been seeing his love interest, Hannah Elias, a prominent high-class call girl. She was a mulatto who had come from poverty to become one of the wealthiest and most sought- after women in New York. Her clients included prominent political magnates at the time. He was 83 years old.

The city we know today was his vision. He was a total micro-manager who saw through the execution of everything from the planning of the streets to the budget to the annexation of lands into new York. His work became a model for urban planning throughout the US and Europe. Yet all that remains of his memory is this lonely, austere bench built in 1928 by architect  John V. Van Pelt who had attended l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  

The bench is typical of the Second Empire Baroque style architecture that was trendy in the days of General U.S Grant. Van Pelt was no doubt influenced by his education at the Beaux Arts in Paris when he designed this bench. You can see from the hand rests, an opulent baroque flair while the rest of the bench seems to indicate the bureaucratic, utilitarian nature of the man who shaped New York at the time.