Hyper-local Hiking: A Love Letter to Prospect Park

For all but two of the eighteen years that I’ve been in Brooklyn, I’ve lived within a mile of Prospect Park. It’s been my training ground, my place to barbeque, to picnic, to meet with friends, a place to be introduced to new babies and new bands, to watch the shadows grow long on the hill behind the Picnic House after an afternoon of conversation. I’ve ran, I’ve rode, I’ve walked, I’ve led hikes, I’ve learned about its history. It is both central to my life and also in the background, always present. I have visited it in the snow with a backpacking pack on, while training for my thru-hike on The Appalachian Trail. I’ve rode countless circles around it, keeping my cadence at a consistent 80 rpm while training for the NYC Triathlon. I’ve watched fireworks from the infield after the Philharmonic played on a warm summer night and from the entrance at Grand Army Plaza after running a 5k in 20º weather on New Year’s Eve, popping bottles of champagne in celebration. The flowering trees are especially nice this year. I’m watching them fill in more every day. There are periods of time where I have visited multiple times per week and other times weeks or maybe months will go by without me stepping foot inside.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to the park on this consistent of a basis before. With no sense of urgency, I'm able to take the time to take in all the little details of the meandering paths, the perfectly placed stone walls, the statues of long-dead composers and the commemorative trees planted by loved ones of our more recently departed. There's a certain sense of solidarity with my fellow outdoor space seeking New Yorkers who are also finding their way down the less travelled paths in the park. I feel an unspoken connection with that older man, sitting on the wall at the top of the steps of Lookout Hill, eyes closed with his face toward the sun, breathing the moment in and just being present. I relate to the woman closer to my age, sitting on a bench along the Lullwater, paperback at her side, who has stopped reading to watch the stalking walk of the Great Heron in the water, ready to snatch up its prey.

What I see right now is my past selves. Little slices of my life, like interdimensional planes of reality all co-existing at the same time, in the same place. All of who I have been over the years coming together, influencing my walks, bringing me down memory lane.

Andersen introduced me to the Boathouse, with it’s floor to ceiling arched windows and terracotta tiled roof, light poles aligned and white globes lit up by the water’s edge. We headed there one late summer afternoon so I could photograph him swinging around them like Gene Kelley in Singin’ in the Rain. He wanted some new headshots and I wanted practice taking portraits. I think I charged him $75 for the day plus the cost of film. It was 2002, and I was slinging coffee at a café in Park Slope alongside him and an ensemble cast of other starving artists, actors, singers and writers. I had lived in Brooklyn all of two or three months and had yet to venture much further into the park than the Long Meadow, nor find my inroads into photography. Five years my senior and having already had some success on stage, Andersen seemed to carry the energy and the promise of truly living an artistic life right beside his multiple outfit changes that day. The road ahead was of his making as we traipsed across The Nethermead and strolled over the Lullwater Bridge, landing at the elegant yellow brick herringbone base of the Boathouse steps. It was a moment in time he wanted to be captured in order to be remembered at some point in the distant future, in a setting that felt significant and sophisticated. 

The photos that came out of that session may be lost to the depths of my storage space, but this recollection of a shared experience with a fellow human remains. I am still grateful for that glimpse into his passion and drive to become something more than who he was in that moment. While our futures and what the world has in store for us is as uncertain now as it was when I was in my twenties, it always feels right to be following the path of our own possibility and dreams, and those dreams are always most vivid in Brooklyn.