MTM: Alley Pond Park, New York City

Last week I wrote about being home (finally) and getting “Back in the New York Groove.”

Our dear friend Leah, who blogs over at The Goat’s Lunch Pail commented that my “apartment complex looks quite nice, perhaps even peaceful.” And I responded that the entire tone is set by Alley Pond Park which sets the northern border of our development. I opined that the park deserves its own post and well, here it is.

I am always bragging about how I love living in New York City but that doesn’t mean I love concrete more than grass and trees. I live a block away from Alley Pond Park, which provides 657 acres of wetlands, forest, tidal flats, meadows and plenty of places to play for those of us living nearby. The “Alley” was created about 15,000 years ago when an ice glacier receded and the area of the park became the Harbor Hill terminal moraine.

The northern part of Alley Pond Park is estuarine, i.e., a place where a river current meets the tide. Fresh water moves into the Alley from the hills and bubbles up from natural springs. The fresh water flows northward and merges with the salt water of Little Neck Bay.

I live south of the wetlands where the park widens into a forest and the hills are dotted with boulders that fell when the glacier melted. Some of the boulders are still sitting around. We also have a number of kettle ponds, formed when the water and rock gushed from the melting glaciers. Many are dry now and I have climbed down them and up again. And I always think, “Not bad for a city girl.”

Right behind my house, at the very edge of the park is a remnant of the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, built between 1908 and 1911 by William K. Vanderbilt Jr., a great-grandson of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. The private 45 mile road stretched from Flushing, Queens in New York City to Lake Ronkonkoma in eastern Long Island. The parkway was originally constructed so that Vanderbilt and his friends could have daring automobile races.

Then it became a private toll road with gate houses at every entry point. During prohibition rum runners frequently used the Vanderbilt since, as a private road, it was not patrolled by the police. Finally the construction of the public access Northern State Parkway in the 1930s, ended the colorful career of the first highway in the nation to use bridges and overpasses. The City of New York took over a section of the motor parkway when they created Alley Pond Park and it is where I have taken many a morning walk over the past twenty something years. For great pictures of the motor parkway, I have linked to the NY Bridge and Tunnel Club website. Click here.

For more My Town Monday excitement, visit Travis Erwin, who started it all.

Terrie