Sunday Morning in Prospect Park: Foraging with Wildman Steve Brill

Sunday Evening in Hell's Kitchen: Dinner at Clinton Cove Park

We took some soba noodles with tofu and honeydew over to beautiful Clinton Cove Park this evening so we could sit out overlooking the Hudson, wearing our favorite outfit -- shorts and a T-shirt -- and enjoy dinner outside on what was probably the last summerlike Sunday of 2011.

We're teaching seven classes six days a week at four colleges this semester, so we don't have much free time anymore. And this is our last term in New York. In three months, it will be Christmas, and we're moving out west again at that time.

But we'll always be grateful for our times in New York City's wonderful parks.

Saturday Morning in Greenpoint: Breakfast at McGolrick Park

We got the B48 bus on our corner early on this gorgeous morning and took it up Lorimer Street, Manhattan Avenue and across Nassau Avenue deep into Greenpoint to have breakfast outside at a peaceful, beautiful Msgr. McGolrick Park, which people have been telling us for years to visit more often.

This early-bird squirrel was so into munching his food, he didn't notice us.

Others were enjoying baguettes, croissants and other Frenchy stuff.

There are some huge, thick old trees lining the park, which dates to the 1890s, when it was known as Winthrop Park. It was renamed in 1941 for the Irish priest who had been pastor of St. Cecilia's for fifty years, Msgr. Edward J. McGolrick.

According to the Parks Department,

A handsome shelter pavilion was erected in the park in 1910. Designed by the architectural firm of Helmle and Huberty, the curved building of brick and limestone features an elegant wood colonnade. It is listed on the National Register and recognized as a New York City landmark.

Apparently, like a lot of us in New York, the park went through hard times in the 1970s and there was a major restoration in 1985. That included the shelter pavilion and this World War I memorial, designed by Carl Augustus Heber, to the 150 Greenpoint residents who fought in the war.

Wikipedia says,

The statue depicts a female allegorical figure, holding aloft a modified laurel, a symbol of victory, and in her right hand supporting a large palm frond, a symbol of peace. The granite pedestal is inscribed with the names of battle sites in France.

Most people seem to know that the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was built here in Greenpoint (Monitor Street is the eastern boundary of the park) and outfitted at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This 1939 sculpture by Antonio de Filippo celebrates the 1862 battle of the Monitor and Confederate Merrimac. It's pretty cool and buff.

This is tulip season. Unlike the ones we saw Monday at the Fordham Lincoln Center campus or at the Brooklyn College quad yesterday, the McGolrick Park tulips were only red: no yellows here.

After a couple of hours (thanks to the park workers who cleaned the bathrooms so assiduously) of sitting on a bench and drinking iced tea and reading the Sunday sections of the New York Times delivered today, we got back on the B48 bus. We're grateful for nice mornings like this and that old-fashioned Coca-Cola luncheonette signs still exist over real, functioning Brooklyn stores, like this one by the park at the corner of Nassau Avenue and North Henry Street.

Sunday Afternoon in Tribeca: Parents and Kids in Washington Market Park

Winter returned soon after the springlike lull of Thursday and Friday, but despite the frigid weather on Sunday afternoon, little kids and their parents were out having fun at Washington Market Park, at the corner of Greenwich and Chambers Streets in Tribeca. It's especially popular with kids.

This semester our weekend teaching for the wonderful Borough of Manhattan Community College is on Sundays at the Chambers Street main building, which is between the park and Stuyvesant High School. Between our 12 noon-3 p.m. and 5 p.m.-8 p.m. classes, we have an office hour and then a free hour at 4 p.m. when we usually go out to have an early dinner, and this afternoon We walked down the steps into the park. That's One World Trade Center going up in the background.

One boy was playing kickball with his mom, off camera view to the left.

This little girl seemed to be new to a two-wheeler but she was getting good. In a few seconds she was on the ground and needed her mom to right her, but she seemed sanguine and in another half-minute was telling us to get out of her way as she biked past.

There's a little train, like the one in East River State Park, and this mom was putting her kids on it.

And this dad was having a lot of fun on the playground equipment, delighting his kids by acting like a scary monster or something.

Snow is expected tonight. Spring is still one month -- four weeks -- away.