First signs of spring

A brave flower emerges from the ground outside the Bartow Pell Mansion in Pelham Bay Park in very late winter. One of the first signs of spring. This was one of the loneliest flowers I have ever seen.

Ghostly boat wreck overlooking Long Island Sound

Boat wreck along the Long Island Sound, in the Bronx. I took the photo, but that is not my boat, I am much better at steering boats than that.

This photo was taken in Pelham Bay Park in the north-east corner of the Bronx, the only borough of New York City that is on the U.S mainland. At 2,766 acres, Pelham Bay Park is the largest park(more than 3 times larger than Central Park) in the entire city, with miles of trails meandering through its many woods and marshlands, as well as along the Long Island Sound and its many inlets.

The diversity of wildlife in this park is remarkable for an urban park. Besides squirrels, it is home to many deer, opossums, hawks, owls, turkeys, cardinals, blue jays, raccoons, turtles, and a few people here and there.

Due to its distance from Manhattan and most major tourist attractions, it isn’t very touristy, except for the Bartow-Pell Mansion(that’s a whole other post) in the middle of the park, but mostly during the summer. Like just about all the parks I visit, it is a terrific place to run and observe wildlife, and you can access Orchard Beach from the park. I first learned how to joggle in this park and in the nearby streets many years ago when I lived closer to it.

Luckily(or unluckily, if you prefer more excitement), the neighborhoods adjacent to the park are not among the Bronx’s most crime-ridden, though I’ve observed drug activity in it over the years. The Bronx and Pelham Bay Park shares its northern border with the boring town of Pelham, and the even more boring town of Pelham Manor, which are in Westchester county.

Green space beneficial for health

It’s always sweet when something we intuitively know gets verified by science. So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that science has found that living near green space is associated with better health, even after controlling for socio-economic factors. So if you have a significant amount of parkland or woods nearby, consider yourself lucky, even if bears or wolves live in them.

According to J Epidemiol Community Health. 2002 Dec;56(12):913-8.- Urban residential environments and senior citizens’ longevity in megacity areas: the importance of walkable green spaces.

CONCLUSIONS:

Living in areas with walkable green spaces positively influenced the longevity of urban senior citizens independent of their age, sex, marital status, baseline functional status, and socioeconomic status. Greenery filled public areas that are nearby and easy to walk in should be further emphasised in urban planning for the development and re-development of densely populated areas in a megacity. Close collaboration should be undertaken among the health, construction, civil engineering, planning, and other concerned sectors in the context of the healthy urban policy, so as to promote the health of senior citizens.

One of my favorite parks. It is also a supermarket to me, since I love to gather edible plants from here when they are in season

There are few things as refreshing as going to the park to relieve stress, to observe wildlife, to exercise, to meditate, to get bitten by bugs(not very refreshing unless you’re a masochist) or just to explore. As I always say, the larger the park, the better! Besides beautifying neighborhoods, trees also remove CO2 from the air. This is one of the reasons parkland is so essential for human health.

When it comes to exercise, nothing beats a park. If you don’t like indoor gyms(like me), just bring some resistance bands with you to the local park and you can do a total body workout there, besides of course juggling, running, or joggling around it.

”Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.” -Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

This subject is related to my earlier post – The effects of air pollution on exercise

Whatever you do, try to promote green space wherever you live. Get involved in park activities or community gardens, plant trees, or even start a garden(indoor or outdoors) to help clean the air. Do it for your own health and for the health of your community.

Ghostly ruins of train station

My joggling routes sometimes take me through some interesting areas. Here are the ruins of an abandoned train station I occasionally joggle by. I don’t think they’ve used it for over 70 years, unless you count “ghost” passengers. I admit it is a little scary going by it, especially at night.

This train station is in the Bronx, very close to the Westchester county border, so it is many miles from midtown Manhattan. It is surrounded by the dense woodlands of Pelham Bay Park, the city’s largest park and woodland area. And no, I haven’t seen(or heard) any ghosts at this location. Still, I don’t recommend going to this place.

Photo sources: C.P Wild Juggler