UPTOWN PARKS – SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

BY Led Black (@Led_Black)

Beth Greenfield of the NY Times included my favorite park, Inwood Hill Park, in her Fall-Color tour of New York City Parks. Like I have said in the past, Inwood Hill Park is NYC’s best-kept secret. That might change soon. See below for the Inwood Hill Park portion of the interesting article that also includes a slideshow of photos of the featured parks taken by Joshua Bright.

Another urban respite containing some of the last remaining natural forest in Manhattan is Inwood Hill Park, where the Lenape lived and foraged before colonists settled. The area became parkland in 1916.

“You can come here sometimes and not run into any people,” said Jim Wilson, an Inwood resident and a professional oboist who walks the trails several times a week. “Even if you take the same walk every day, it’s always different — different foliage, things dying and things coming up. It’s a morale lift.”

With most of its 196 acres perched above Inwood, the park has eastern ridges that offer city views. From a western overlook, you can gaze down at the Hudson River and watch spectacular sunsets.

The park is thick with groves of maple, oak and pine, and it holds Manhattan’s last remaining salt marsh as well as a valley that sprouts a carpet of spring wildflowers. The marsh is home to great blue herons, snowy egrets, raccoons and black squirrels. Black-capped chickadees and cardinals are among the birds that pass through in the fall.

“Right now there are warblers, and lots of hawks — red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks, and great-horned owls,” said Bill Andermann, an Inwood resident and retired post office employee who was walking the trails with his camera and enjoying the solitude. “Other parks have more diverse types of birds, but they have more people too,” he said.

Read More: nytimes.com/2010/11/05/nyregion/05forest.html