Photo of the Day: Bella Abzug Park, NYC

I took the photo accompanying this post a few weeks ago, when I had a few minutes to spare before boarding a Megabus for a short Thanksgiving vacation in Pittsburgh.

Oddly enough, though I had been in Hudson Yards a few times since it opened several years ago, I had never noticed Bella Abzug Park. 

New York residents who are Gen Xers or younger are likely to have little memory of the local politician this urban park honors, and the knowledge of tourists coming upon it by happenstance at Hudson Boulevard between West 37th and 33rd Streets is likely to be thinner still.

But, for almost a decade and a half from the mid-Sixties to late Seventies, Bella Abzug (1920-1998) attracted a great deal of attention, even beyond the borders of New York State.

This colorful and controversial feminist would have garnered at least some national attention anyway, because of the way she demanded respect from her male colleagues on Capitol Hill. But she became an especially outsized figure in New York, the media capital of the world, at a time when the anti-war, feminist, and gay rights movements were coming into their own.

News image creators from that time—newspaper and magazine editors, TV crews, and cartoonists—latched onto Abzug’s penchant for enormous hats (which she began to wear as a young lawyer, she later recalled, because “working women wore hats; it was the only way they would take you seriously”).

Then there was that voice—regarded as assertive by supporters and abrasive by critics.

Abzug would claim that her critics were, all too often, guilty of male chauvinism. There was more than a little truth to her view (she was frequently shunned by all-male committees and mocked for her weight—criticisms that most male colleagues never had to endure). 

But it is also true that her anger management issues could lead her to lash out even at supporters and her own staffers. The nickname "Battling Bella" might have been a badge of honor she wore proudly, but also pointed to the stereotype that would ultimately limit how far she would go in politics.

Nobody, however, could deny that Abzug was a conviction (as opposed to convicted) politician—a figure who displayed incisive intelligence and a steely will in labor, civil rights, and civil liberties cases undertaken as a young lawyer associated with the National Lawyers Guild, an organization of progressive attorneys denounced during the Fifties by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Abzug was part of the Manhattan-based Democratic reform movement of the late Fifties and early Sixties that helped overthrow the Tammany Hall machine. In 1970, she was elected to the House of Representatives, and five years later became the first woman to hold a job as party whip. 

Unfortunately, her time in the corridors of power was short, as she lost her seat when she tried unsuccessfully to move up the Senate, only to be beaten by Pat Moynihan in the 1976 Democratic primary.

But Abzug left her mark in advocating for unions, the peace movement, and civil rights, civil liberties and LBGQ rights. And now, this park, part of a six-block-long greenway in Hell’s Kitchen, will remind future generations of her contributions.

Ironically, a park that offers weary urban walkers a chance to rest has taken its name from an activist politician who rarely if ever rested throughout her career.

Photo of the Day: Sculpture and Rider, Allegheny Landing, Pittsburgh

I took this photo in what seems like an eon ago, in terms of freedom of movement: last October, while on vacation in Pittsburgh. I hadn’t intended to do so at the time, but the image captures at once one of the unique appeals of this stretch of greenery between the 6th and 7th Street bridges on the north bank of the Allegheny River next to PNC Park, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ballpark: its sculptures and its use for recreation. 

Since its dedication in 1984, Allegheny Landing has pointed the way for other major cities on how to capitalize, in a different way, on one of the original reasons for their existence: their location by rivers. In the beginning, rivers served as points of commerce; now, more primally, they remind us of the mainstay of life itself: water.

Photo of the Day: Washington Square Fountain, NYC, Late Summer

Washington Square Park has long been one of my favorite areas for walking around and just observing the crowds and sights of Gotham. So it was a couple of weekends again, once again, only this time I was so taken with the fountain (renovated in 2009) you see here that I photographed it.

Photo of the Day: Vest Pocket Park, Houston Street, NYC

With more irregularly shaped wedges of land than an outsider can readily imagine, New York City has lent itself to the creation of “vest pocket parks.” I came across one last weekend down by Greenwich Village, near the intersection of Houston Street, Bedford Street, and 6^th Avenue. 

I didn’t notice a sign carrying the name of this plot of greenery, but it intrigued me even to take this photo. I especially liked what looked like, from where I was standing, a vanishing point--obviously an optical illusion, considering the tiny size of this park.

Photo of the Day: Washington Square Arch, NYC, Late Summer

After emerging from a movie theater in Greenwich Village on Saturday late in the afternoon, I walked along the surrounding streets. From far away, I beheld the familiar, majestic Washington Square Arch. I’m not sure how often I have seen it over the years, but it still moves something in me—and certainly this weekend, when I took this photo.

Created originally as a wooden structure in time for the 1889 centennial celebration of George Washington’s inauguration, the site proved so popular that in a couple of years, enough money was raised to turn it into the marble neighborhood anchor known today. I think most visitors would agree that every penny raised to create it was money well-spent.

Photo of the Day: Twilight, Paley Park, NYC

Around sunset this past Saturday, I took this photo  of Paley Park, on East 53^rd Street in New York. I worked across the street from this “vest-pocket” park for a decade, but, even though my office only relocated about five blocks south about 20 years ago, I have had few occasions to go there since. 

Last weekend was a reminder of what I had been missing—indeed, it gave me a different impression of the site, as I can never recall it  at end of day. The pieces of the Berlin Wall that I remember vividly were relocated a few years ago indoors very close to here, in the lobby of 520 Madison Avenue. 

But I love what remains: the seating, the ivy-covered walls, the waterfall in the background that drowns out the noise of the city beyond. What you don’t see here, just to the right of this shot, is a café, which makes it a hangout for nearby office workers. 

The site (named for the father of CBS head William S. Paley) was once a hangout of a different sort: the legendary Stork Club, one of the great watering holes of Gotham for three and a half decades. At one time or another, from its founding in 1929 to its closure in 1965, one might have come across celebrities like Walter Winchell, Ernest Hemingway, Joe DiMaggio, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Dorothy Kilgallen here. 

That was an exclusive world, however. The same space belongs now, blessedly, to the public, an oasis amid the noise and haste of a crowded city.