New York/Gravesend - JOURNAL • BRIAN ROSE

Gravesend, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

New York City spreads out like an endless carpet across Long island comprising the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. I took the D train down to Gravesend just one stop before Coney Island on the Atlantic Ocean. The streets are lined with single family houses and duplexes fronted by elaborate decorative railings and religious icons.

Gravesend, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

It is, apparently, a mostly white neighborhood, some Asians mixed in, A number of large housing projects loom off to the east, and consistent with the segregated nature of much of New York, are predominately black. We are in Trump country, almost for sure. The cheap ostentation, the gaudy appliqué, are clues. But maybe I’m wrong. I’m out of my element here. It’s a strange world with its own peculiar culture, its own aesthetic rules.

Gravesend, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

Many of the houses are built up above garages, I’m guessing to stay above flood waters. This area lies only a few blocks from the Lower Bay of New York harbor,

Gravesend, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

Some of the houses are set back behind driveways and are located in the middle of the block. Very odd.

Gravesend, Brooklyn — © Brian Rose

Manicured shrubbery, and plastic tulips. This is an apartment building. Three buzzers and a well-fortified door. A wreath with a plastic bird’s nest, and to the right a wind chime. A bright turquoise hose hides behind the bush.

Calvert Vaux Park — © Brian Rose

I crossed over the Belt Parkway, which follows the contour of the shoreline in Brooklyn, and walked into Calvert Vaux Park. Vaux and Fredrick Law Olmsted were responsible for Central Park — Vaux designing many of the bridges and structures in the park. I have no idea why anyone would name this place for him.

Some of the park was under renovation, and there were two new turf soccer fields, in use by young players in uniforms. Further along I reached my destination, a scruffy baseball field where my son was playing for his college team. Next to a parking lot reeds popped up out of the marshy ground, and a flock of ducks flew overhead.

A player raked the infield dirt before the game began. A scraggly line of trees stood just behind the outfield fence, and in the distance a line of buildings in Coney Island. It was 42 degrees and windy..

There was almost no place to watch the game at this field. The dugouts blocked much of the view, and there were no bleachers. Spectators stood or sat on folding chairs huddled together behind chain link fencing, wherever there was a glimpse of the field. I followed a narrow path between the dugout and some fencing, ducking beneath tree branches to reach a small area adjacent to a shed containing various tools for raking and tamping down the infield. I plopped my chair down and could just see home home plate and the infield.

Baseball in New York City on barely acceptable fields in bone chilling cold. My son’s team won both games of the doubleheader. He got on the team bus, and I trudged back to the D train.