New York - Modern Ideas

Battery Park, New York City; view of Statue of Liberty with Hosta

I seem to find gardens everywhere I go, and New York has them tucked all over. I really like the Battery Park area at the foot of Manhatten overlooking the harbor. It really feels like a park with abundant shade trees – which frame views in every direction.

Trees offer vertical lines that can divide the camera’s frame into sections and spaces, whether looking toward the Statue of Liberty or the towers of Wall Street.

A new section of Battery Park has an Urban Farm, using some of the newest ideas of permaculture – the food forest. The idea, not entirely proven in my own estimation, is to combine in one growing space fruit trees, vines, perennial and annual vegetables, as a more easily sustainable food ecology. It may be just theory because any sort of food gardening is a fairly intensive, but the gardens, managed by the Battery Park Conservancy, are designed to be educational. In a huge city, that’s all good.

I particularly liked the sign marking the Battery Urban Farm.

Battery Urban Farm – New York City

Perhaps my appreciation was enhanced because I had just visited the Museum of Modern Art and saw a connection between the sign and Piet Mondrian – Broadway Boogie Woogie.