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June 02, 2006
Red Hook
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CityGardenGuide took a field trip yesterday to Red Hook, one of our favorite New York neighborhoods. No, we didn't go to check out the new Fairway, though we did drop in and do a little shopping (wide aisles, few people and friendly cashiers--it's not really a Fairway experience). We went to visit an outstanding bit of urban landscaping--the Waterfront Garden and Pier 44 Jetty. It is the first part of what will be a 1/2mile public walkway between the Beard Street Warehouse Promenade (beside Fairway) at the foot of Van Brunt Street and Pier 41 at Van Dyke.
The garden is right at the water's edge. A serpentine walk backed by fairly narrow beds culminates in a naturalized clover meadow and a rather bare windswept seating area. The beds are beautifully planted with species that do well in difficult seaside conditions. And they have. At this moment the nepeta, repeated continuously throughout the garden, is a stunning, vibrant blue and bears no resemblance to the washed-out stalwart that most of us grow in our own gardens. The plant palette is blue collar (although there are moments of gentrification), just like the neighborhood. Sturdy plants like goldenrod, willow, sedums, grasses, chokecherries, form an attractive matrix punctuated at the moment by the afore-mentioned nepeta and a delicate bearded iris.
This is a magical place. It helps that the view is wide open to the Statue of Liberty with the beautiful Civil War-era warehouses of Pier 44 in the foreground (the warehouses remind one of the Arsenale in Venice). As to the neighborhood, it has changed a little bit, but for the better. The Fairway building and the Beard Warehouse along with Pier 44 are three of the most beautiful buildings in the city (truly- -no hyperbole), and it is a relief that they are clearly in hands that will take care of them. The rest of the neighborhood seems to have just about the same mix of industrial buildings and small warehouses and row houses as on our last visit a couple of years ago--and that's great too.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at June 2, 2006 11:40 AM