No, it's not the last vestiges of the old German neighborhood of Yorkville (which can be found here and here); it's something far older. "Old Europe" is the name given to a civilization that existed roughly 7000 years ago in the lower Danube Valley in present-day Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine, and artifacts from these ancient settlements are currently on display at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, located on East 84th St. in Manhattan.

The exhibition, titled "The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000 - 3500 BC," is not the product of new archaeological finds, but is a new interpretation of old artifacts and discoveries gathered from nearly two dozen museums in eastern Europe. The sites of this Neolithic, pre-Indo-European society were first unearthed in the 1930's, and they were originally thought to be disparate and unconnected settlements. In the 1970's and 80's, new discoveries and scholarship led to the conclusion that they were part of a cohesive civilization that stretched across southeastern Europe, one that was, in fact, highly sophisticated for its time.

The Old Europeans' contemporaries in the Middle East and East Asia are far better understood, but this exhibition provides some fascinating insight into the structure and culture of this society. The show is organized around thematic elements and materials used in their artwork, many of which highlight the connections between Old Europe and the rest of the ancient world. Stylized pregnant female figurines are similar to those found in Anatolia, and sea shells from the Aegean Sea used in jewelery show that they were part of a trade network extending from Turkey to the English Channel. More copper and gold artifacts have been discovered at these sites than anywhere else in Europe dated before 3500 BC, and their pottery designs are highly advanced for their time.

The exhibit also explores the important place of the built environment in Old European art. They made architectural models of their settlements (pictured at right), and, as one display notes, "The miniaturization of human figures and architectural structures indicates a complex relationship between the Old Europeans and the built spaces defining their communities." No evidence of palaces, temples, or other public buildings has been found at any excavations, suggesting that their lives revolved around domesticity, and these small figures could be arranged around the home to allow daily interaction with art and spirituality. Despite the absence of grand buildings, some settlements found in western Ukraine dating to 3500 BC contained 1,500 to 2,000 buildings, making them the largest cities on earth at the time.

So, what happened to this vibrant culture, which appears to have simply disappeared more than 5000 years ago? The arrival of Indo-European peoples from the Eurasian steppe may have caused their decline, but many communities persisted for centuries after these horse-riding nomads made their first appearance. So much remains unknown about Old Europe, but this unique exhibit offers a fascinating new imagining of this ancient culture.

The museum is open every day except Monday, from 11am to 6pm, and until 8pm on Friday. This exhibit runs through April 25, 2010.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

Have you ever tapped out a message in Morse code over a telegraph wire? How about listened to music on a wax cylinder? Or played with a Tesla coil?

Well, you can do all of these things and more at the Vintage Radio & Communications Museum of Connecticut. Located just north of Hartford in Windsor, the museum is a treasure trove of artifacts about the history of communications, from the telegraph to modern computers.

The museum's director and founder, John Ellsworth (pictured above), took us on a tour of nearly every corner and item inside the warehouse tidily appointed with exhibits. Some of the highlights included learning the origin of the term "limelight"; before the advent of electric lighting, theaters would create light by igniting calcium oxide, or quick lime. The museum has a an example of a limelight rig likely used by a Vaudeville troupe around the turn of the century. We also got a chance to play with a Tesla coil, an experimental device invented by Nikola Tesla during his attempts to transmit electric power wirelessly (if you would like to learn more about this inventor and his connections to New York City, check out the Tesla Memorial Society of New York.)

The museum also lives up to its name as a museum of Connecticut communications innovations. There is a case containing photos and artifacts from an early 20th century radio manufacturer in Hartford, as well as radios built in former manufacturing centers of New Haven and Manchester. The museum also has an example of a monotype machine, a device invented to replace the linotype used in printing. The machine never caught on, and its failure bankrupted long-time Connecticut resident Mark Twain, forcing him to sell his Hartford home and move to Europe.

Mr. Ellsworth also told us the story of Edwin H. Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, who conducted many of his experiments from Meriden's West Peak – due to its history and continued use as a broadcasting center, the area has been dubbed "Radio Mountain." W1XPW (now WCHN, a once great rock station that now plays adult contemporary), established in Meriden in 1938 under Armstrong's early FM standard of 42-50 MHz, was the first FM broadcaster in the state and one of the first in the country. Patent disputes with RCA over the standard – as well as the company's successful lobbying of the FCC to move the FM band to today's location of 88-108 MHz, rendering Armstrong's radios and transmitters obsolete – caused him to become deeply depressed, and he committed suicide in New York City in 1954.

And if you love radios, they've got a lot of them. From unamplified table radios to cabinet receivers to hi-fis, the museum has got some of the coolest sets I have ever seen. They even have a refrigerator with a built-in set, built by the 1940's car maker Crosley. The Crosley Shelvador was also the first fridge to have shelves built into the door, an idea for which Crosley paid $15,000 to the inventor – he turned down the initial offer of a 25-cent royalty on each unit sold, a deal which would have netted him over $1,000,000.

The museum has also developed an innovative way of supporting itself. In addition to the small admission fee visitors pay, the museum also generates income by repairing equipment and selling parts and schematics for vintage electronics. As most electronics have moved from vacuum tubes to solid-state components, these parts have become more and more difficult to find, and there are only a handful of factories in the world still making them. Luckily, the museum has tens of thousands of vacuum tubes for sale at very reasonable prices, and they can help you get your old radio back to playing crystal clear analog sound.

Even for someone who is not an electronics aficionado, the personal touch of the staff and volunteers make a visit to the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum a special experience. Its well-crafted hands-on exhibits make it an ideal place for children and school groups. The museum is a real treasure, and we encourage you to visit – and if you are in the market for equipment or parts, or looking to get rid of some old radios, your purchase or donation can be another great way to support them.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

There are few things that will get me out of bed at 5:30 in the morning to drive out to Staten Island in the freezing cold. Apparently, a weather-predicting rodent is one of those things.

We made the pre-dawn trip across the Verrazano Bridge to see Staten Island Chuck, the city's official Groundhog Day mascot, at the Staten Island Zoo. Every year, Chuck is rousted from his lair by the mayor and asked whether or not he saw his shadow. The ceremony included a few brief speeches from city officials, who seemed to take great joy in rattling off corny jokes about Mayor Bloomberg's mishap last year, when Chuck took a small bite out of his finger when the mayor was trying the extricate him from his house. Though several speakers talked about what a great borough Staten Island is, no one made the obvious pun about the fact that they were about to coax a groundhog out of his "burrow." Now that's comedy gold.

The fracas last year, and the resulting media attention, did much to improve attendance this year; according to one reporter we talked to at the zoo, there were far more cameras and reporters on hand than at previous ceremonies (you can see a report from NY1 here). I guess they were all chasing the story every cub reporter dreams about, "Groundhog Bites Mayor." That's the stuff of Pulitzers and Local Emmys. Aside from the reporters and civil servants, we appeared to be the only adults there who weren't accompanying small children.

To avoid a repeat biting, the mayor sported a pair of heavy-duty gloves, and an expert animal handler was waiting in the wings should Chuck get frisky again. The prediction went off without incident, and the mayor did not have to use the boxing gloves that were given to him by the zoo's director for his "rematch" with Chuck. According to the mayor's translation of Goundhogese (the language in which all groundhogs relate their meteorological knowledge), Chuck did not see his shadow, meaning spring is fast approaching. This was in direct contradiction of the statement made by Punxsutawney Phil, easily the world's most famous groundhog, who did see his shadow, meaning much more winter is ahead.

But the field of groundhog weathermen is far larger than just Chuck and Phil – there are no less than 45 groundhogs across North America that are stirred from their winter slumber every February 2nd by men in silly hats, according to Groundhog Central. The two groundhogs on Long Island, Holtsville Hal and Malverne Mel, both called for six more weeks of winter; combine that with Wednesday's snow storm, and it looks like Chuck may have botched the call this year. Many joked last year that Chuck's bite was a rebuke to the mayor for seeking changes to the city charter that would allow him to run for a third term. Perhaps the canny rodent has found a much more effective political weapon against Bloomberg than his teeth – passing him bogus information to make him look bad. Though it could just be that Bloomberg's Goundhogese is getting rusty.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

A century ago, New York Harbor was choked with ships transporting goods and people to and from locations around the globe. Today the ship traffic is a fraction of what it once was, as the city's air, truck and rail hubs have supplanted much of the need for shipping. But New York remains the country's third-busiest port, and the largest container port in the North Atlantic. Shipping used to be concentrated along the waterfronts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but today, that traffic has moved west to the Port Elizabeth/Newark terminal and Bayonne, New Jersey, though there still are smaller cargo terminals within the city limits in Red Hook, Brooklyn and Howland Hook, Staten Island. This past weekend, we got a glimpse of the bustling harbor thanks to a tour organized by the Working Harbor Committee, which works to educate the public about the history, activities and continuing importance of the Harbor of New York and New Jersey. 

Many people travel every day aboard ferries linking Staten Island, Brooklyn and New Jersey to Manhattan; even more of us cross the harbor in automobile and subway tunnels dug beneath it. Yet we rarely notice the working ships that make the harbor so important to life in New York City. From our view along the northern shore of Staten Island, we were able to understand a little bit of how these ships and the people that work on them make the harbor run.

After a brief crossing aboard the Staten Island ferry John F. Kennedy, we started our tour at the St. George Ferry Terminal, which is visited by 75,000 commuters every day. This area of the island used to be a terminal for the Baltimore & Ohio and Staten Island Rapid Transit railroads, which transported freight from New Jersey across the Arthur Kill to the cargo ferries in St. George. Service along this north shore line was abandoned in 1953, but much of the track still remains (though it has been rendered unusable by neglect), and there are a few scattered remnants of the piers that once lined the Kill van Kull.

Due to the narrow channels and sharp turns that ships must negotiate in order to get to the main terminal in Newark Bay, the harbor has no shortage of tugboats. Most of the boats are run by family-owned companies, and each can be recognized by its signature colors or logo. Maroon tugboats emblazoned with a large "M" belong to Moran Towing, one of the oldest tug companies in the harbor; the white and powder blue boats are from the fleet of Dann Ocean Towing. Though large and well-protected, New York Harbor is not naturally deep, so to accommodate modern vessels that can draw in excess of 40 feet of water fully loaded, the Army Corps of Engineers fights a constant battle against the Hudson and Hackensack rivers to dredge the harbor of buildups of silt, sand and rock. You can often see these dredging rigs at work in the harbor, lifting, scooping or blasting 3 million cubic yards of material from the bottom of the harbor every year.

Massive container ships are a common sight in the harbor. The containerization of cargo played a large role in the decline of New York City's waterfront. Ports required far more space when they became integrated sea, rail and trucking hubs for containers, but they also required far less manpower, leading to the disappearance of jobs for stevedores and longshoremen, who had previously made up a large portion of the city's working class. Now with direct links to interstate highways and railroads, containers don't need to be unloaded until they reach their final destination. Unfortunately, due to our huge trade imbalance with China, most of the containers that arrive on our shores are eventually scrapped because they cannot be filled with enough goods headed back to East Asia to make the journey cost-effective.

After we finished our tour with lunch at R.H. Tugs, we stopped by the Sailors Snug Harbor. Originally established as a rest home for retired sailors with a bequest from Robert Richard Randall in 1833, the residence closed its doors in the 1960's. The site was then rescued by the New York City Landmarks Commission, becoming the first place in the city to earn landmark status, and in 1976, it opened to the public as a museum. We visited the Noble Maritime Collection, which displays the work of John A. Noble, an artist who depicted the waterfront in transition, when Staten Island was ringed by wooden ships scuttled in shallow waters. His work is hauntingly beautiful, and remnants of what he saw can still be seen today in the island's ship graveyards along the Arthur Kill. Perhaps the most interesting part of the exhibit is his houseboat studio – constructed from scraps of wooden ships, including a yacht owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II and a ship used to transport bodies to the city's potter's field on Hart Island, his studio barge was towed around the harbor so he could work close to his subjects. The studio has been completely reconstructed inside the museum, though the barge portion has been removed.

If you are interested in other activities related to the harbor, the Working Harbor Committee has frequent programs, including lectures, tours and cruises. In September, they also run their annual tugboat race and competition, in which tugs from across the country compete on speed, power and skill.

When the weather turns warmer, the John J. Harvey, a restored fireboat from 1931, will have cruises and picnics open to the public – they are also always looking for volunteers to help with maintenance, education and running the ship.

You don't have to go down to the water with a pair of binoculars to know what is going on in the harbor. All large vessels are equipped with an Automatic Identification System, or AIS. You can track vessels in real time and get information about their dimensions, speed, heading and destination online, and not just in New York Harbor, but anywhere in the world.

PortSide New York is a project to develop a site for waterfront events and interpretation of the city's maritime history. The project is centered around a 172-foot tanker the Mary Whalen, which is being repurposed into a floating performance and exhibition space. The ship moves frequently, but it will soon be docked at its permanent home in Atlantic Basin in Red Hook.

And thanks to our tour guide, Bernie Ente. We hope to go to a lot more WHC events in the future.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

Like many of you, we at Urban Oyster had a busy holiday season that did not end with the New Year. In recognition of the incredible support we have received from Most Holy Trinity-St. Mary parish in Williamsburg and Father Timothy Dore, we decided to do a pair of special holiday tours of the church. We held the tours on December 20 and January 10, and we had over 40 visitors, including many members of the congregation, and a few people who had traced their ancestral roots several generations back to the church and its early German parishioners.

The church has an incredibly rich history that is intricately tied to the various immigrant communities that have called this neighborhood home over the past 150 years. Most Holy Trinity church, opened in 1885, is a spectacular building that was beautifully decorated for the Christmas season. Tour participants got to hear Father Timothy tell the story of the parish's beginning as a small, wooden church in 1841, and learn about the origins of Christmas traditions and their connections to saints depicted in the church's windows and statues. We also got to climb 70 feet up the church tower and descend into the crypt where the parish's founder is buried. After the tours, we enjoyed refreshments in the rectory basement, which has been modeled after a traditional German Rathskeller.

Proceeds from this tour went to Trinity Human Service Center, a non-sectarian, not-for-profit organization that provides educational and social services as well as food and clothing to the needy in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick. We would just like to thank Most Holy Trinity-St. Mary for all of their help and support getting Urban Oyster off the ground, and we would also like to thank all the tour participants for their generous contributions to this important charity.

We did not just spend our holidays working, however; we took some time to enjoy many sights across the city, including the usual suspects (our families were visiting from out of town). Though it's a bit late to see them this year, you can add some of these places to your list of holiday activities for next year – remember, Christmas is just eleven and a half months away!

If you think your neighborhood goes crazy with the Christmas lights, you should take a drive over to Dyker Heights. These people do not mess around. Nearly every house has at least a modest sleigh and reindeer; the serious Christmas displays roll out twelve-foot Santa statues, rotating toy soldier carousels, and enough lights to misdirect incoming flights to JFK. One house even hired a real Santa to sit in the front lawn and accept children's gift requests. So as you take down your own Christmas lights this month, you better start thinking of ways to improve your decorations if you want to compete. One serious contender for the electrical consumption title is our neighborhood parish, Immaculate Heart of Mary in Windsor Terrace, which still has up its impressive display of lighted trees and angels.

Though it's available year round, one of our special Christmas treats this year was a trip to Di Fara Pizza in Midwood, Brooklyn. I'm a native of New Haven, Connecticut and a life-long adherent of Frank Pepe's, but I will say this, publicly, on the Internet: Di Fara's is the best pizza I have ever tasted. Each pie is handmade by the owner, Dominic DeMarco, so get there as soon as they open or you will have to wait a while (okay, there's one caveat – Pepe's clam pizza is still my favorite pizza of all time, and Di Fara's does not make a clam pizza, but if they did, I'm sure it would be spectacular).

According to the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church, Christmas and the New Year come 13 days later than in the West, so we decided to celebrate these belated holidays the traditional way – by going to the Russian Baths in Gravesend. We have been to nearly every bath house in the city, and this is our favorite one so far (despite what that review might say) – the banya is hot, the food is excellent, and the place is decorated with Russian hockey memorabilia. I can't think of a better combination than a schvitz, some pickled herring and a hockey game. This was our Urban Oyster end-of-year celebration to mark the end of one successful year and the beginning of new challenges in the next.

We hope you had a restful holiday, and join us on our upcoming tours. Our next Brewed in Brooklyn tour will be a special Valentine's Day tour on Saturday, February 13. Regular tours will resume in March, as will the Brooklyn Navy Yard Tour, dates for which will be posted soon. We will also be launching new tours throughout the spring and summer, so stay tuned for more details.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

I attended the NYC Food and Climate Summit this past weekend and was shocked and awed by the sheer number of people globally that have begun to wake up and see our food system for what it really is.  It was only recently that I woke up myself.  And I have to say, it was like waking up from the matrix.  Suddenly grocery stores look like the bleak world from the movie to me, and making decisions about how and where to eat has taken on so many more questions that I never even knew that I had!

I have to admit though, I always had an idea that something was wrong, this nagging suspicion in the back of my head that perhaps we shouldn't be eating tomatoes all year long or that meats should not have long expiration dates on the packages when they had already made a long trek through a processing plant and on a truck and to the pallet to get to the shelf.  I swatted these suspicions away, choosing not to know, because it makes it easier right?  But I also must fess up that I never found it easy either.  Going to the grocery store to pick out my dinner used to be a relatively daunting task for me.  I could never figure out, from the endless possibilities, what I wanted to eat.  I find that too many choices makes it harder to pick.  So all too often I ended up eating dried pasta and sauce from a jar.  Easy right?  But healthy?  Good for the environment? How do you know?

I was raised in a household where most everything was organic.  The meat we ate was free-range (back when free-range meant free roaming), and we ate vitamins every day.  I always wondered why it mattered so much to eat organic, and when I was old enough to make my own choices about what to eat I of course chose by price.  Because they are all the same right?  Just one costs less?  Then about six months ago I read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dillemma," and that was when suddenly all of my nagging little suspicions all made sense.  As much as it pains me to say it, my mother was right (actually, I ALSO have to admit that she is usually pretty much right about everything, which gets to be a little annoying sometimes. ;)).  Organic vegetables ARE better.  They are better for you they are better for the environment and they are better for our future.  And sustainably grown non-monocrop vegetables are even better than organic.  At this point you might be saying "WHA??  Who is this hippie chick??".  I know, because six months ago that was how I felt, that all tomatoes were the same, and whoever told me different was selling something.

Why is it better?  Lots of reasons.  Factory farms are the number one reason for water pollution in this country.  Yes, you heard it, number one.  Normally when cows, chickens and pigs are running around in pastures and woodlands their waste replenishes the ground as fertilizer to grow more of what they eat for the next time they come around.  On factory farms the sheer number of animals prevents them from being pastured, so instead they stay inside the barn in very tight spaces and their waste is piled in a shed nearby.  The rain comes, and the waste runoff gets into nearby streams and waterways.  The excess nitrogen in the water promotes algae blooms which create areas where there is no oxygen in the water . . . thus killing off all other life in those areas.  There is a "dead zone" the size of Connecticut right now in the Gulf of Mexico.  Similar things happen with industrial fertilizers which are used in an attempt to replenish the nutrients that are stripped from the soil by crops such as corn or soybeans.  These plants would not be evil if the crops were rotated (non-monocrop) and plants that replenish the nutrients naturally were grown in their place for a period of time.  Because of federal regulations where these plants are subsidized farmers get into a poverty cycle where they have to produce a monocrop to get the subsidies which requires more and more fertilizers and promotes soil deterioration and runoff which reduces crop yield and so on and so forth.  Phew!

So why does this matter and how does it have anything to do with Urban Oyster?!? you say.  So my fiance and I recently decided to change the way that we interact with the food system.  Not the way we eat, but what we purchase and from where and of course it means we are eating seasonally.  We eat all of our meats, fish and vegetables from the local farmers markets (only where the farmer's practices are sustainable of course.  Amazing, even at the farmers market you have to ask the questions!  Do you overtill your soil?  What types of fertilizers do you use?) and we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)(actually, multiple potentially . . . did you know that there is a CSA farm serving Williamsburg that serves up sausage, salami, sopressata, and all other yummy things that come from pigs GOURMET STYLE???  Wow!!!).  And we have both lost weight and are healthier.  It is amazing.  The two rounds of flu that went through the office passed right over me!  And when you start to look you start to see that there is an entire underground movement to buy and eat food that is separate form the industrial food system that is not unlike the underground craft brew market that is now just beginning to thrive in this country.  People realized that beer could taste good, could be good for you, could be different than just piss-water pilsner, could actually taste . . . .well, like beer SHOULD taste!  And that is just what is happening with food.  Did you know that you can buy tomatoes that do not taste like sawdust and lettuce that does not require dressing . . . .it is so spicy and crisp I throw a little bit of lemon and a touch of olive oil and sea salt and it is a FABULOUS lunch!  I cannot believe that this has happened to me.  Forget the environmental and health benefits . . . . food tastes . . . . well I think that the word is AWESOME.

And going to the Food and Climate Summit, I realized that we are not alone.  Like the craft brewers there is a whole world of people out there that are standing up and demanding that food be produced and delivered in a different way.  A way that makes it taste better.  A way that does not destroy our world.  I just hope that those folks in Copenhagen are standing up and listening.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact Cate Lloyd.

While sitting at my desk this afternoon writing a different post for this blog, a flash of bright green across the street caught my eye. Then I saw another, and another, and it appeared as if the tree across the way had been swarmed by some sort of tropical parrot. I threw on my coat and rushed outside, where I discovered that, indeed, our street in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, had been visited by South American Monk Parakeets.

Also known as the Quaker Parakeet, these birds have been present in large numbers in New York City for 40 years. They gained a foothold in the United States in the late 1960's, when the birds began to be imported as pets – many escaped their captors, or were released, and their numbers quickly ballooned. It is believed that the population in New York was established when they escaped from a shipping container at John F. Kennedy Airport in either 1967 or 1968 – the exact date and circumstances of this incident remain shrouded in mystery (that may be due to a connection with organized crime and some of their shenanigans gone awry).

Originally confined to the vast marshes of Jamaica Bay that border the airport, the birds have settled on Brooklyn as their favorite borough. One of the largest and oldest colonies is in Green-Wood Cemetery, just a block from our front door. If you walk to the front gates of the cemetery on 5th Avenue, you can see the massive nests they build atop the Gothic spires – these are the only variety of parrot that build large communal nests out of sticks. Though they are year-round residents of the city, from what I can tell this is one of their more active times of year, at least in our neighborhood. The super of our building, known affectionately as "the Mayor of East 2nd Street," said they usually gather in large numbers on our block in December.

Though they are an invasive species, there is some dispute as to whether these birds are a nuisance. Their massive nests can cause problems, and some power companies often remove them from utility poles. New York City embarked on an eradication program in the early 1970's, but to no avail, and today the birds are established in at least 15 states from Massachusetts to Florida and as far west as Oklahoma. I just think they are a welcome, if raucous, splash of color and sound on a dreary winter day.

Interestingly, once the prattle of parakeets had departed, their scraps were mopped up by a group of European Starlings, another invasive species that gained an American foothold in New York City. Now numbering 200 million in the United States, Starlings first came to America as a small flock of less than 100 birds that was released into Central Park in 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin, who was supposedly trying to introduce all of the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. Though the Starling thrived, Schieffelin failed in his mission, as by my reckoning, there are no wild Choughs, Jackdaws, Wagtails or Ostriches in the US – there is a complete list of all 45 of the Bard's birds here.

If you want to learn more about the tropical birds that flourish in wintry New York, there are a couple of websites you should visit. BrooklynParrots.com organizes birdwatching trips to their regular hangouts; their next outing will be January 9th at Brooklyn College, which has one of the longest-established colonies. Wild Parrots of New York also posts sightings with photos and other information, so send them your hot tips.

New York City is actually a wonderful place for a birdwatcher. The city is ideally situated for viewing migratory birds – the Atlantic Flyway passes right through here, as most northeastern birds head south through New England, then bank west and fly the length of Long Island to avoid flying over open ocean. That makes what little green space the city has prime real estate in this migratory bottleneck, meaning urban parks like Central Park and Prospect Park are packed with birds. The city's waterfront parks, like Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx and Manhattan's Inwood Hill Park, are also great for birdwatching; Jamaica Bay in Queens is a massive bird sanctuary within the city limits, and it is a wonderful site for viewing marshland and shore birds of all varieties. Once the weather turns warm again and the ferry reopens, Governors Island is a great spot as well, and the National Park Service has regular free birdwatching programs run by volunteer Annie Barry.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

On 10th Street in Manhattan’s East Village, standing at an angle offset from the surrounding city streets, stands St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, the oldest building of continuous worship in New York City. Built in 1799 by Peter Stuyvesant II, the great-grandson of the 17th-century Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, the parish became the first Episcopal church independent of the famous Trinity Church in America. The church was actually built atop the burial vault of the elder Stuyvesant, who had been buried on the family farm that once occupied the land (Bowery comes from the Dutch word for farm, bowerij). This explains the building’s north-south orientation, as the grid of streets that now surrounds it had not yet been laid out.

We recently paid a visit to St. Mark’s during last month’s 5 Dutch Days 5 Boroughs festival, which celebrated Dutch culture and the city’s historical ties to the Netherlands. Rev. Michael Relyea, as associate pastor who has worked at the parish for 40 years, led us on a guided tour of the church’s rich history and many ongoing projects and programs.

The offset orientation of the church creates open spaces around the building, including the East and West Burial Yards and a public triangle in front. The triangle is dedicated to Abe Lebewohl, the owner of the famous Second Avenue Deli (now located in Murray Hill), who was murdered during a robbery in 1996. Peter Stuyestant’s burial vault lies beneath the church in the East Yard, but unfortunately, no one has been able to access it since 1953, when his last surviving direct descendant, Augustus Van Horn Stuyvesant, was laid to rest. in his will, he ordered the chamber sealed, and he, along with 80 of his relatives (and perhaps a few slaves who worked on the Stuyvesant farm) were encased in a truckload of concrete.

In the West Yard, there is a curious burial slab marked Vault No. 95. The vault belongs to John Slidell, who died in 1854, but beneath his name is engraved “Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry.” Commodore Perry, famous for opening up Japan in 1854, spent a large part of his career at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was second-in-command of the yard during the 1830’s, overseeing construction of the steam warship USS Fulton. In 1841, he was promoted to commandant, a post he held until 1843. Perry died in 1858 in New York City, and though he was meant to be buried at his family plot in Newport, Rhode Island, difficulties transporting his body caused him to be temporarily interred at St. Mark’s in the burial vault of his friend John Sidell. In 1866, his body was disinterred and moved to its current resting place in Newport.

St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery has long been a supporter of the arts, and the church has been transformed into a multi-use performance and exhibition space as well as a place of worship. Since the 1920‘s, the church has hosted cutting-edge dancers, actors and poets - the poet Khalil Gibran was appointed to the parish arts committee in 1919. The Poetry Project has been in the church since 1966, and St. Mark’s is currently home to the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, an experimental theater founded by Richard Foreman and housed in the church since 1992. St. Mark’s also has a long history of involvement in historic preservation and community outreach. In the 1960’s, the church took in active role in trying to revive what was a rapidly declining neighborhood by launching the Preservation Youth Project, a program which enlisted neighborhood youth in cleaning up and revitalizing the church’s outdoor spaces. The yards were transformed into parks for the community, and the West Yard was laid with cobblestones recovered from the construction of the 2nd Avenue Subway tunnel (which remains unfinished).

The parish’s involvement in preservation has continued through its relationship with the Neighborhood Preservation Center, which is housed in the church rectory. The center provides resources for research and meeting spaces for organizations and individuals engaged in efforts to “facilitate and encourage citizen participation in the improvement and protection of New York City’s diverse neighborhoods.” The center is currently holding an online auction, which runs through December 7, to raise funds for its various programs. Among the items for auction are a trip to the oldest bath house in New York City, a gift certificate and cookbook from Veselka, a membership to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and four tickets for our Brewed in Brooklyn Tour for the 2010 season.

St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery does offer occasional guided tours, but they do have an excellent self-guided tour of the church and grounds available on their website.

Correction: St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery is not the oldest building of continuous worship in New York City, but it sits on the oldest site, as there was a Dutch Reformed chapel where St. Mark's stands today. Many thanks to the keen eye of Rev. Relyea for spotting our mistake.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

When the Russian futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky traveled to the Americas in 1925, he was taken aback by the view from his train, which had carried him from the Texas border town of Laredo to New York, cruising across Manhattan into the sparkling Grand Central Terminal. This is how he described the scene in his collection of essays My Discovery of America:

"Even more striking [than Penn Station] is Grand Central, which towers over several blocks. The train skims through the air at a height of three or four stories. The smokey steam engine is replaced by a clean, non-spluttering electric one – and the train plunges underground. For a quarter of an hour there will still flash below you the green-entwined railings – chink of quiet, aristocratic Park Avenue. Then this too finishes and there stretches out half an hour of subterranean city with thousands of arches and black tunnels, streaked wit gleaming rails: every roar, thump and whistle pulsates and hangs on for quite some time. The gleaming white rails go yellowish, then red, and then green from the changing colors of the signals. In all directions, there seems to be a tangle of trains, choked with arches. They say that our emigrants, arriving from the placid Russian quarter in Canada, at first cling dumbfoundedly to the window, and then start whooping and lamenting, ‘We’ve had it, mates, we’re being buried alive! How can we get out of this?’"

During our recent visit to Grand Central, we had the privilege of entering the seldom-visited towers of the terminal and hearing the story of the building of the “subterranean city” and “tangle of trains.” A couple of weeks ago, Cindy attended a lecture on the fascinating history of the New York City subway map by John Tauranac (his website and maps are worth checking out). While there, she met Paul Kalka, the president of the New York Railroad Enthusiasts, and he graciously extended an invitation to the club’s annual open house. The instructions were as follows: “Meet at Grand Central at 7 o’clock, next to track 23.”

We arrived at the appointed time and place, and there milling around the track entrance we met Paul and several other club members. After corralling the troops, we were taken up a nearby service elevator and through the catwalks inside the windows above Grand Central’s main concourse to the Williamson Library. The library has been the home of the New York Railroad Enthusiasts since 1937, and inside is a treasure trove of material befitting the club’s name.

The centerpiece of the evening’s entertainment was a lecture by Russell Guibord, the great-grandson of Arthur Bateman Corthell, one of the chief engineers of construction of the Grand Central Terminal. Before the current structure was completed in 1913, a huge section of Midtown Manhattan was a vast train depot, trains belched coal smoke across the city as they approached the terminal, and the broad, leafy Park Avenue was not in existence. This vast public works put the depot underground – the “subterranean city” Mayakovsky described – electrified the tracks, and buried the rail lines entering Manhattan 50 blocks to the north. The magnificent main building on 42nd Street is the only evidence of the project on the surface, but much of the underground network of track was the handiwork of Corthell.

In addition to a fascinating lecture, Russell, who had traveled all the way from Maine to speak, brought with him surprise – he donated all of his great-grandfather’s papers to the Williamson Library. Russell had come across the papers by accident more than thirty years ago while visiting his great-grandfather’s former home in New Hampshire, and he has spent the intervening years poring over the correspondences, architectural drawings and photographs. Now the collection will be passed on to the worthy stewards at the NYRRE.

We would like to extend our thanks to the the New York Railroad Enthusiasts for their warmth and hospitality. We hope they occupy a special place in Grand Central for 70 more years, and we look forward to attending more of their events in the future. To learn more about the NYRRE, visit their website. Their library is open by appointment for research purposes – just send an email to their general information address (info@nyrre.org).

If you would like to learn more about railroads in and around New York, visit the NYRRE’s links page, or check out some of these suggestions:

The New York Transit Museum, the official museum of the MTA, located in downtown Brooklyn.
Take a tour of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel (and read our blog post about it).
The New York Museum of Transportation in Rush, NY (near Rochester). This museum has the only surviving cars of the Rochester subway – yes, Rochester had a subway.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.

The USS New York, a slick new Navy warship, sailed into New York harbor Monday to much fanfare. The amphibious transport dock was built as a floating memorial to the attacks of September 11, 2001 - steel recovered from the World Trade Center site was used in its construction. The ship is currently docked next to the permanently moored Intrepid on Manhattan's West Side, where it is scheduled to remain until Veterans Day, November 11. The vessel will be officially commissioned into the US Navy on Saturday.

Though constructed in Louisiana, the New York continues the connections of the city and the state to a long and proud shipbuilding tradition. There have been six previous New Yorks in the US Navy, three of which were built in the state. The first such vessel was actually part of the first American fleet, though it was little more than a large canoe. The American Navy was born in Whitehall, New York, at the southern tip of Lake Champlain, far from any ocean, in 1776. The ships were hastily built to halt the British southern advance down the lake; though 11 of the 16 American ships were destroyed, including the New York, and the Americans were forced to retreat, the Battle of Valcour Island did delay the British enough to force them into winter quarters far north of their objectives in the Hudson Valley (for more on this fascinating history, check out the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum across the lake in Vergennes, Vermont).

The second New York, a frigate built in a Manhattan shipyard in 1800, saw action in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars and the naval conflict with France. It spent most of its life laid up at the Washington Navy Yard until it was burned by British troops during the War of 1812.

Far larger than a canoe or a frigate, and a far more famous vessel was the battleship USS New York which served in two world wars and was built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Laid down in 1911, the New York participated in the blockade of Germany during World War I. In the Second World War, it saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, providing cover for the invasion of North Africa in 1942 and the assault on Iwo Jima in 1945. After being decommissioned, it was used as a target ship for the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946, which it miraculously survived mostly intact, though the ship was finally laid to rest as a target for conventional weapons in 1948. About 70 sailors who served aboard the battleship will be on hand for the commissioning ceremony on Saturday.

The New York is a memorial to September 11, but it will only be in the city temporarily - a more permanent memorial to the tragic events is taking shape in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, however. Architect Michael Arad has erected a mock-up of the National September 11 Memorial in the Navy Hospital campus. You can find out more about the memorial here, but you will get to sneak a peek at the model if you come on a tour of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  There are just two tours remaining this year - Sunday November 8 and Sunday, November 22. Tickets are available here. These tours are possible thanks to our ongoing partnership with the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation and the Brooklyn Historical Society.

For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact andrewg@urbanoyster.com.