the story of our saturday...in pictures

The votes were counted, the Powers That Be considered them, and then they ultimately decided to skip the parade and head to Prospect Park. And so that's what we did. Because I don't want the bazillion photos we took go to waste, here's The Story of Our Saturday...In Pictures:


We took the subway to the west entrance of the park. Once in, we headed toward the south side to see the lake. At the lake we stopped to visit with some geese.


As we walked and wound our way through the park, we came across some awesome underpasses. These were no regular underpasses. These were pieces of architectural art.


We stopped at this pretty scene just outside the Audubon Center (which we did go inside to take a look at, but decided that it would be a better use of our time to come back when Garrett was a little older and could appreciate the cool activities they have set up there). The bridge behind me was built in 1889, which should give you an idea of the history surrounding this park. Actually, Prospect Park has a pretty cool history, so let's pause in our story for a moment so that Mrs. History Teacher Lindsay can tell you about it.

The park is located on the site of The Battle of Long Island, fought in August of 1776 during the Revolutionary War. Planning for the park began before the Civil War, as the City of Brooklyn began purchasing the land from the local farmers who figured that a former battleground was as good a place as any to throw down some crops. It ultimately cost them $4 million to buy. In 1866, designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, after they called it wraps on their previous project, Manhattan's Central Park, started work on Prospect Park. The landscaping and engineering of the park was considered revolutionary for its time and received harsh critiques for breaking with the "typical" traditional style European park. So Olmsted and Vaux must have been ahead of their time for thinking that a park which recreates nature in the wild would be something that people would enjoy visiting. Prospect Park officially opened in October 1867 while it was still under construction. Ultimately, the park cost about $5 million. Was it money well spent? We thought so. Okay, now back to Saturday.


On Saturday in the park a bunch of local, amateur musicians had gathered to perform. We stopped and listened for a minute to this guy...and admired that one fellow's pretty intense mohawk.

At the north end of the park we came to Grand Army Plaza, a big Civil War Memorial. At the base of the arc was a farmer's market. Where these people found space to grow their organic produce in Brooklyn I'll never know. But it did look pretty tasty.


Just east of Grand Army Plaza was the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Blake got himself a library card while we were there, and then we quickly browsed around. And wow. So many books! The Brooklyn Public Library system has 60 branches across the borough, most of which are pretty dinky. They do have it set up, thank goodness, for patrons to be able to request that items be sent from one branch to another. I think most of the requests are gathered from this library.


By this time, Garrett was hungry. So we fed him. Aren't we good parents? :) By this time we were also ready to call it quits at Prospect Park, but since it was still early in the day, we weren't quite ready to head back home. Garrett finished his bottle and was happy as a clam, so for that reason (and also because we were right next to a subway entrance), we decided it'd be safe to head into Manhattan to do some more exploring. Our usual method of sightseeing in NYC is to pick a spot we've heard is supposed to be cool to see, go there, see it, and then wander until we find something else that's neat. Saturday's chosen beginning spot: Wall Street.


A friend of ours from the ward, who is doing an internship near Wall Street, told us once that the sun doesn't shine in the Financial District. It's the oldest part of city, so the streets are very narrow, and the buildings are very (very, very, very) tall, so it's always in the shade. He was right. We walked down Wall Street at, oh, 2:00 in the afternoon, and for all we knew, it could have been dusk.


Across the street from the New York Stock Exchange...


...is the spot where, on April 30, 1789, George Washington gave his first inaugural address as the first president of this country. Mrs. History Teacher Lindsay thought that was pretty cool.


We next stumbled onto St. Paul's Chapel, where George Washington worshiped while in New York City. Sitting under the Great Seal of the United States, was his private pew, which Mrs. History Teacher Lindsay thought was also pretty cool.


Probably because I could only handle watching so much news coverage of 9/11, I wasn't aware that finding St. Paul's Chapel also means finding the site of the World Trade Center. Ground Zero is currently under construction (they're building both a memorial, as well as some just-started new sky scraping buildings), so we couldn't see it too well. But it was pretty obvious that's what it was because of the starkly missing buildings basking in the sunshine in an otherwise shadowed part of town. This is a picture of the site as seen from the graveyard at St. Paul's.

After St. Paul's, we hopped on Broadway and started walking north. At Canal Street it was pretty obvious we were in SoHo. The crowds totally gave that one away. Oh my word! I'd never seen so many people in my life! It was hard enough to keep up with Blake, who is better at maneuvering a stroller through a sea of people, so we didn't get any pictures. But that doesn't mean I don't have crowd photos to share! To deviate from Saturday for just a moment, let me show what Sunday was like on our street:

A big annual street festival was going strong as we walked home from the bus stop after church. It was huge, spanning at least 30 blocks, and stocked with vendors of all sorts who unwittingly tempted us with their fabulous smelling foods. It really was a shame that the festival was on a Sunday. Apparently all the local festivals here are on Sundays rather than Saturdays, most likely to cater to the Jewish population (which I'm pretty sure is quite a bit larger than the LDS population).


On every block there was a concert blaring. The one nearest our apartment featured the King in his bejeweled white jumpsuit. We spent a good 2-3 hours Sunday afternoon listening to him croon from our livingroom. Thankfully, by the time we returned home from a dinner invitation, the King had died. (No offense to his apparent talent, but I was getting a headache.)


Okay, back to Saturday. After escaping the crowds in SoHo, we found a nice Italian place where we stuffed our starving bellies with the most delicious calzones in the world. Mmmmm. And after that we all but gave in to our worn out feet and worn out baby and headed back home. We took an express subway home, which took us over the Manhattan Bridge (as opposed to under the bay). Here's a picture of our tired Garrett during our few minutes of subway sunshine as we rode over the bridge.


And because I have one, and because he's cute, what with his perpetually wide-eyed startled look (someone once asked us if Garrett ever blinked...for the record, he does), here's another shot of subway-riding Garrett, back underground. He's a big fan of subway rides.

And now snip, snap, snout
This Saturday tale's told out.

The End.