SHADOW ON CONEY ISLAND

It is said that when Henry Hudson sailed into the mouth of the Hudson River, he first discovered Coney Island before sighting Mannatus. The stretch of forest, sand and beach along the three islands that constitute todays Coney Island beguiled the English man. Islands so bright, without shadow, opening to a great body of water, had to have been a spiritual place for the Native Americans. Hudson's Rabbit Island was more than that for the Canarsie Indians. Now, joined in the middle by landfill with Sheepshead Bay on one side and Coney Island Creek on the other, the island-ness of Coney is less remembered and more felt, as the impending development of Thor Equities and the Bloomberg administration takes into effect. The vulnerable ecology of Coney Island waterfront includes the families and individuals whose lives were lived cultivating the excess and banality of Coney Island's pleasures, providing New Yorkers their enchantment and forgetting without leaving their city. The rezoning of Coney Island will wipe out these long entrenched individuals and their life stories, unless the city invests in human capital as part of the heritage of Coney Island.

GARDENS, WATERFRONT, CROWD FLOWS

On certain days large flows of people coalesce around certain geographies.  Today, July 18, it was strange to traverse entire streches of green space dense with pedestrian and kinetic activity.  Governors Island was packed with boat after aboat  of crowds milling onto the island on bikes, skates, walking, running, kayaking.  The Hudson River Park Greenway was packed with waterfront users and the area around the HIGHLINE was dense with activities- people enjoying the city amidst gardens.  Three different kinds of garden logics: the island, the waterfront and the train tracks are harnessed in one bike ride from the Meat Packing district to Governors Island on a weekday.  The emergence of Manhattan and its environs as a diverse garden city is a new experience whose goals are rooted in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlanNYC2030 imperative of a park for every New Yorker.  At this point, many New Yorkers live too far away from adequate green space,  children in particular. The move to green the streets, sidewalks and roofs, create micro green spaces on window sills and fire escapes, and slowly transform the macadam of New York into green habitats is reminiscent of the brilliant little gardens in LOISAIDA.  It is gradually transforming NYC.