November Is Peak Leaf Season in Manhattan

11/06/2022

November Is Peak Leaf Season in Manhattan

One of the things I've always loved about Manhattan are the many secret places that, if you can find them, will take you to another part of the world. Last week on a long run, I found one of these spots in Inwood Hill Park, which is at the northern tip of the island. I've spent a fair amount of time over the years running and walking through this park, but I had never followed this trail, which curves under the Henry Hudson Bridge and follows the Harlem River (as seen in the above picture).

But on that first run I didn't have a camera, and in my memories, this scene seemed too beautiful to be believed. It sometimes happens on long runs that you see things that turn out to be not quite real. Shark fins in the Hudson, pterodactyls spiraling off the GWB, the old woman with orange hair who limps up and down the West Side in the predawn. It really just depends on how many miles you're into the run and how dehydrated you are.

This past Saturday, I decided to take my phone with me so that I would know for sure.

I followed the same route as before. At the end of Dyckman, I turned north and ran past the baseball fields to the pedestrian overpass that's next to the ruins of what appears to have once been a small skating rink. On the other side of the overpass, I did not go through a scary looking tunnel (a mistake I made years ago that dropped me into a homeless encampment under the highway) and instead followed the path to the left, which just as I remembered from the previous week curved around the tip of the island and delivered me into this oasis of light and autumn leaves.

I'm not quite sure these photographs -- which remind me a little bit of a paint-by-numbers painting you'd find in your friend's basement when you were a kid -- do it justice.

It was also too hot (via global warming) and humid.

But I loved being here for a few minutes.

Now when I think about 'escape' this is the picture that comes to mind.

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I'm reposting this new DeathCutlure@Sea video as a test of Typepad (the host of this blog) and Feedio (my feed service), which both seem to be a bit erratic these days :( and because the first part of the video features live footage of Inwood Hill Park driving south from the Henry Hudson on the West Side of Manhattan :)

Posted at 10:13 PM in Expression, Science Projects | Permalink

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Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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Expression//Reaction//ScienceProjects

11/06/2022