Fort Greene and Me

About a year and a half after I moved to New York City, my multiple temporary living arrangements finally ended. I had stayed in a run down single-room occupancy hotel on the Upper West Side, a room in a YMCA and an apartment shared with two roommates, but now I had my very first apartment, a tiny studio on the fourth floor of a walk-up in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. It was near other under appreciated neighborhoods in which I would also live in the coming years, such as Boerum Hill and Crown Heights. In addition, just down the street was Fort Greene Park. I would soon gain great familiarity with the park and its high hill possessing a monument at the top of its grand, majestic stairs, along with the brownstone neighborhood of the same name.

Fort Greene Park contains only about 30 acres. It has fields, tennis courts, lawns, paths, playgrounds and plenty of trees. Unlike the surrounding neighborhoods which are mostly flat, the center of the park rises quite intensely to provide views of nearby streets and in the distance the East River bridges and Manhattan. Its special feature is the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument. During the Revolutionary War, the British kept American prisoners on ships under terrible conditions in a nearby bay on the East River. Around 11,500 prisoners died from disease and malnutrition. Olmsted and Vaux, the designers of the park (as well as the much larger Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn) envisioned a crypt to hold their remains and an appropriate monument. The crypt was built and the remains of the prisoners were re-interred there in 1873. Architects McKim, Mead, and White won a design competition and the monument was unveiled in 1908 by President-elect Taft. It is a 149 foot tall granite Doric column over the crypt. At the top is an eight ton bronze urn. At night the monument is illuminated by four electric lights set in four granite shafts.

Although it was only minutes from my apartment, I almost never walked to the park and instead traveled its curving walkways on only two wheels, riding my ten speed bicycle through it on my way to and from Manhattan. It required extra effort to reach the top of the park but the view was always a reward. Whenever I left the park, I rode past beautiful brownstones that are now considered to be some of the most desirable in Brooklyn.

In my early days in the city, the monument was vandalized by a great deal of graffiti, all of which has since been erased. Although I do not regret seeing it during its more difficult times in the 1980s, I am glad that it is no longer scarred. It stands today as the magnificent beacon it was intended to be. The park and memorial column are old friends of mine who have recovered from considerable challenges and who have arisen, bright and young, once again.