Three weeks ago, my friend Margie sent me an email asking me if I wanted to go camping in Central Park. Now, I know lots of people camp in the park every night, and usually not by choice, but it was not something I ever really wanted to experience. The first thought that came to mind was a scene from the movie The Out-of-Towners, when Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis are forced to sleep in Central Park after being mugged, kidnapped, and marooned there, at which point they are promptly mugged again while sleeping, this time at knifepoint by a man in a cape.
But Margie reminded me that this was all totally above board – the Parks Department runs a program called the Urban Park Rangers, which offers camping experiences in nearly all the city parks during the summer. The camping is totally free, but due to the demand, slots are awarded by lottery. Margie’s roommate Johanna had put her name in for four slots, and she won – a Friday night in Central Park’s Great Hill. The Parks Department provides you with a tent and dinner, so all you need to bring is a sleeping bag, flashlight, and whatever else you think you might need for a night in Central Park.
So we loaded up our packs, and Cindy and I were headed off to our campsite by subway. Though it’s billed as “family camping,” there were only three or four children in the entire group of 30 campers. The rest were made up of couples without kids or groups of young people (like us) out to experience the city in a new way. First step – set up our tent. We may have been the fastest setting up, but by no means were we the most effective. During the night, one of the stakes holding down our rain fly came loose; when heavy rain struck, water began pouring into the tent, leaving me, sleeping next to the wall, in a rather unpleasant puddle. In my half-awoken state, I thought it better to simply roll away from the rapidly accumulating water than to get up and fix the problem, and I eventually fell back to sleep, sopping wet. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
But Margie reminded me that this was all totally above board – the Parks Department runs a program called the Urban Park Rangers, which offers camping experiences in nearly all the city parks during the summer. The camping is totally free, but due to the demand, slots are awarded by lottery. Margie’s roommate Johanna had put her name in for four slots, and she won – a Friday night in Central Park’s Great Hill. The Parks Department provides you with a tent and dinner, so all you need to bring is a sleeping bag, flashlight, and whatever else you think you might need for a night in Central Park.
So we loaded up our packs, and Cindy and I were headed off to our campsite by subway. Though it’s billed as “family camping,” there were only three or four children in the entire group of 30 campers. The rest were made up of couples without kids or groups of young people (like us) out to experience the city in a new way. First step – set up our tent. We may have been the fastest setting up, but by no means were we the most effective. During the night, one of the stakes holding down our rain fly came loose; when heavy rain struck, water began pouring into the tent, leaving me, sleeping next to the wall, in a rather unpleasant puddle. In my half-awoken state, I thought it better to simply roll away from the rapidly accumulating water than to get up and fix the problem, and I eventually fell back to sleep, sopping wet. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Margie and Jo prepare for the wilds of Central Park
Due to restrictions on campfires and other open flames – and, I’m guessing, budget concerns, as this is a free program – dinner options are quite limited. The Parks Department’s solution is to distribute surplus MREs – Meals Ready to Eat – from the United States military. As a food, they leave a lot to be desired, but for someone who has never served in the armed forces, tearing into one was an illuminating experience. The whole meal comes in a small cardboard box, and inside is an assortment of smaller vacuum-sealed bags; mine included cinnamon bread, apple sauce, crackers, lemonade mix, and my main course of imitation boneless pork “ribs” (similar to a McRib, but without the bun). Without the convenience of fire to heat your meal, the MRE comes with a chemical pouch – stick in your meal (still in its seal bag), add some water, and in a couple of minutes the chemical reaction raging inside the bag will have your meal piping hot. While you wait, you can read some of the interesting information on the outside of the MRE box, like “Nutrition: Force Multiplier”; the box also doubles as a postcard that you can write to friends and family. In all, we were left with a not inedible meal, and a depressing pile of plastic bags. All the campers were good enough to throw out their accumulated trash, but it made me think of the mountains of MRE detritus piling up in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, but I don’t think I’ll be stocking up at the army surplus store for my own camping trips in the future.
After dinner, we waited a while for the sun to set completely so that we could embark on a nighttime hike with a park ranger. I was pretty unfamiliar with the northern potion of Central Park, but the hike convinced me it’s a place I need to return to in the daylight. I can’t recall the exact route of our hike (it was pitch dark, after all), but we walked along the Pool and the Loch – a series of ponds, waterfalls and archways that evoke incredible seclusion – and out to Lasker Pool. Along the way we encountered a raccoon (which I didn’t see) and a screech-owl (which I only heard).
One of the intriguing things about Central Park is that the landscape at once gives you a sense of what a wild Manhattan may have looked like, yet at the same time it is an entirely artificial creation. The northern reaches of the park were hilly, and streams flowed through it, both of which are absent in the surrounding streetscape. One stop on our hike was the Blockhouse, a redoubt dating to the Revolutionary War and the park’s oldest structure, which still sits on the original hill it did back then. Yet so much of the landscape is manufactured. Hills were plowed down and built up; streams dug and waterfalls formed; trees planted and meadows cut. The park’s architects wanted visitors to have a transcendent experience of the natural world, but the slice of Manhattan they carved out offered insufficient majesty and diversity of features in its natural state for their liking. The park has also changed greatly since it opened and adapted to meet the needs and tastes of the city around it. Rather than “a retreat as completely rural in character as circumstances would admit,” as its chief architect Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned it, Central Park is a recreational and cultural resourcing serving far wider functions – and a far wider public – than Olmsted ever imagined.
A recently restored cenotaph that commemorates the lives of fallen servicemen in the Battle of Canton in 1858, Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital Campus. Photo by Kristin Brenneman Eno.
And since this first great park was created, many more have joined it; a glance at the subway map will tell you that the city is rich with parks, despite their unattractive, olive green tint. But beyond the meticulously constructed natural landscapes of city’s parks, there are neglected, forgotten spaces where one can witness the natural world re-emerging. Photographer Nate Kensinger documents these places on his blog, which he terms “the abandoned & industrial edges of New York City”; but nearly as evocative in some of his images as what was cast off and left behind is what is taking its place. One such place is the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which Nate has photographed extensively. While most of the old industrial sites are being revived for new businesses (more than 5,000 people are employed at the Yard today), other places haven't yet caught up with the Yard’s reinvention – at least for now. Inside the Yard, the Navy Hospital Campus is a lush and haunting site. While the hospital closed in 1948, the Navy operated housing and offices on the 20-acre property as late as the 1980's (it was later sold to the city and makes up part of the industrial park). With few visitors and the buildings not in use, it is a tranquil place in the midst of the city, currently occupied only by feral cats and the remnants of a former cemetery that will soon become a memorial park. But it will not stay that way for long – talks underway to adaptively reuse the site, including the landmark Surgeon's House and Navy Hospital, as part of a university campus. Incidentally, the only way for the public to visit the Hospital Campus is on one of our bus or bicycle tours of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and it is always a highlight.
It is in these spaces, I would argue, where one can still experience the “retreat” that Olmsted was aiming for, and in fact, they are as much a part of the resurgence of the natural in New York as our parks. Deindustrialization has opened up new spaces for habitat, and when combined with an already extensive network of parks and a commitment to cleaning up the city’s air and waterways, it means natural diversity is returning to New York in a big way. Sometimes this comes as a pleasant surprise, as when beavers reappeared in the Bronx River, or a seal lumbered up on a Manhattan beach. Other times, we find it less convenient, like yesterday, when a bale of turtles invaded a runway at JFK Airport, or when a flock of geese put a passenger jet in the Hudson. Author Robert Sullivan wrote last year in New York Magazine:
It is in these spaces, I would argue, where one can still experience the “retreat” that Olmsted was aiming for, and in fact, they are as much a part of the resurgence of the natural in New York as our parks. Deindustrialization has opened up new spaces for habitat, and when combined with an already extensive network of parks and a commitment to cleaning up the city’s air and waterways, it means natural diversity is returning to New York in a big way. Sometimes this comes as a pleasant surprise, as when beavers reappeared in the Bronx River, or a seal lumbered up on a Manhattan beach. Other times, we find it less convenient, like yesterday, when a bale of turtles invaded a runway at JFK Airport, or when a flock of geese put a passenger jet in the Hudson. Author Robert Sullivan wrote last year in New York Magazine:
Nature is prospering in New York. Yes, the otters, minks, bears, and mountain lions have long since disappeared. But nature as a whole—the ecosystem that is the harbor—never went away. In fact—and this may seem implausible—nature is in many ways more plentiful in New York City than it is in the surrounding suburbs and rural counties. New York is again a capital of nature; we are an ecological hot spot.
But back to Central Park. After the hike, we retired to our tents around 11, earlier than we would on most Friday nights, and judging by the sounds around us, earlier than most people in New York City. Throughout the night we could hear the rumble of traffic on Central Park West and the clatter of the Metro-North trains on the Park Avenue Viaduct to the east. The park does not close until 1 a.m., and people seemed to take full advantage of this late curfew. Between the traffic noise and a nearby drum circle that started up around midnight (not to mention the small flood that would come later), it was a somewhat restless night for me. But we could not sleep in because we had to be packed up and off the lawn by 8 a.m., when the sprinkler system is scheduled to turn on. Soon after that, our little campground would turn back into a field for children playing games and Saturday picnickers.
By 8:30, I was back home in Brooklyn, hanging up my pack and sleeping bag in the shower to dry, and thankful that, in this city that can seem so impossibly crowded, so removed from natural beauty, you can still experience at least a taste of wilderness.
If you would like to participate in the Family Camping program, online registration takes place throughout the summer, and there are upcoming programs in nearly all the participating parks, including Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Click here for registration deadlines, program dates, and other details. Nate Kensinger recently wrote about his own urban camping experience, and the piece includes photographs of the campsite at Staten Island’s Wolfe’s Pond Park, as well as a lot of useful information about camping opportunities in New York City. If you would like to see more work by Kristen Brenneman Eno, visit her website.
For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact Andrew Gustafson or leave a comment. If you would like to follow this blog, subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for the Urban Oyster email newsletter. All photos by Andrew Gustafson unless noted.
But back to Central Park. After the hike, we retired to our tents around 11, earlier than we would on most Friday nights, and judging by the sounds around us, earlier than most people in New York City. Throughout the night we could hear the rumble of traffic on Central Park West and the clatter of the Metro-North trains on the Park Avenue Viaduct to the east. The park does not close until 1 a.m., and people seemed to take full advantage of this late curfew. Between the traffic noise and a nearby drum circle that started up around midnight (not to mention the small flood that would come later), it was a somewhat restless night for me. But we could not sleep in because we had to be packed up and off the lawn by 8 a.m., when the sprinkler system is scheduled to turn on. Soon after that, our little campground would turn back into a field for children playing games and Saturday picnickers.
By 8:30, I was back home in Brooklyn, hanging up my pack and sleeping bag in the shower to dry, and thankful that, in this city that can seem so impossibly crowded, so removed from natural beauty, you can still experience at least a taste of wilderness.
If you would like to participate in the Family Camping program, online registration takes place throughout the summer, and there are upcoming programs in nearly all the participating parks, including Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Click here for registration deadlines, program dates, and other details. Nate Kensinger recently wrote about his own urban camping experience, and the piece includes photographs of the campsite at Staten Island’s Wolfe’s Pond Park, as well as a lot of useful information about camping opportunities in New York City. If you would like to see more work by Kristen Brenneman Eno, visit her website.
For questions or comments about this blog post, please contact Andrew Gustafson or leave a comment. If you would like to follow this blog, subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for the Urban Oyster email newsletter. All photos by Andrew Gustafson unless noted.