A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident

This photograph of the new Battery Park City was taken on my last visit to Manhattan, in the fall of 2019. The World Trade Center peeks from behind the skyscraper on the right. The dark, small, cylindrical edifice is an entrance to trains and subways.

Until this year my friend Pete and I enjoyed long walking tours of the city at least once a season. We chose this location because we had not yet walked through the new parks and residences of this neighborhood. Battery Park City had been conceived back in the 1960s to replace the moldering remains of the shipping industry, which gave the area all the charm of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Long in the making, and with a financial structure more complex than the architecture, it was finally a reality.

We were impressed. We strolled between high rises in parks carefully designed to provide residents with both nature and community. The underlying principles of the project were those of Jane Jacobs, the urban activist who successfully saved Greenwich Village from the highways and high rises of Robert Moses. One third of the area has been reserved for parkland.

The dominant feeling on the sidewalks is serenity, a rare emotion in Manhattan. One sees all the large, new condos, shopping areas and restaurants, but only as background to trees and playgrounds. It is as though the trees are a cover, making it impossible to focus on the buildings beyond their entrances and shrubbery. I took this photograph as we prepared to return home on New Jersey transit.

When I saw it, I saw a reality the landscaping had obscured. The one-third area reserved for parkland is square footage. The cubic footage of human construction dwarfs and obscures what is in fact a comparatively small amount of greenery. From any perspective beyond submersion in the project, one sees how the buildings dominate. Manhattan’s trees still grown in the shadows of the skyscrapers, but at least they are becoming part of the conversation, if only in a whisper.