“My memories of Sept. 11, 2001 are still intense, and they are mainly about the outpouring of concern from the rest of the country. The piles of donated clothes and food, unused but not necessarily unwanted since each bit was a token of someone else’s good will toward the city. Helping us achieve that state of public grace is the highest possible duty of every elected official.”

I also just heard Mayor Bloomberg being interviewed at the memorial ceremony held down at Ground Zero this morning. WNYC asked him how New York has changed in the past nine years, and he talked about the realization – both for New Yorkers and for Americans in, say, a tiny town in the Midwest – that we all cherish the same things, and there’s a lot more common ground than we realize relative to the rights and freedoms granted by the Constitution. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but his was clearly a message about cohesion and solidarity, and about that brief moment of public grace.

It’s a phrase that is going to stay with me.

i’ve spent quite a bit of time running, biking, soaking up the sun, and sometimes just strolling along the hudson lately… i grew up on its banks up at west point and this summer, perhaps more than ever, the river has served as a welcome antidote to the heat and density of the city. i’m on a deadline today and just walked out to west harlem piers park for a bit of a breather, and after what seems like an obligatory stop into fairway i was walking back alongside a sweet little old lady who made my day. i can’t remember why we started chatting, but soon enough she was telling me how happy her doctor is because she’s been walking along the river every single day since this park opened up. she’s lost weight, her hips don’t ache anymore, she’s sleeping better… she’s just downright healthier. in her words, “i don’t know why people move to florida, we’ve got it all right here!”

we continued to talk about how much the waterfront has changed, and how the only part of the entire length she doesn’t like is between 23rd and 59th “where they haven’t made as much of an effort.” here’s the kicker, though: when i asked her how long she’s lived in harlem to see all the changes up here, she replied “oh i don’t live here honey, i live in queens!” this woman takes the subway over from queens nearly every day to walk along the hudson river!

so congratulations and thank you to all the hudson river park designers – barbara wilks for west harlem piers, thomas balsley for riverside park south, michael van valkenburgh for chelsea cove, signe nielson for the fabulous stretch down in the west village, and of course the patrons and stewards at hudson river park trust – for bringing us a little closer to the edge.

(images courtesy of the cooper hewitt, where west harlem piers park was nominated for a 2009 people’s design award.)

“…incidents that prompted citizens to pick up and leave included the sight of garbage bags stacked 5 feet high on the sidewalk; the realization that being alone among millions of anonymous people is actually quite horrifying; a blaring siren that droned on and fucking on; muddy, refuse-filled puddles that have inexplicably not dried in three years; the thought of growing into a person whose meanness and cynicism is cloaked in a kind of holier-than-thou brand of sarcasm that the rest of the world finds nauseating; and all the goddamn people.”

Genius.

Of course I understand the desire for privacy and solitude – I head to Cumru township to escape the insanity of NYC fairly regularly. But if we’re talking 100 yards I have to ask: are neighbors and pets jogging by really that much of a nuisance?  More and more it seems like we’ve lost sight of what it means to be part of a collective – yes it’s messy and even a little uncomfortable at times, but I believe we can learn so much from our neighbors. Not just about an upcoming event or great new recipe, but about our shared values. Our differences. Our humanity. And something like a trail – one that promotes fitness and engagement with nature, among other benefits – seems like a pretty darn discreet and effective way of bringing people together.

My vote is with the Berks County Conservancy on this one.

today’s new york times article about the oil spill off the coast of louisiana presents the wetlands degradation issue there as succinctly as i’ve heard yet:

“The wetlands in the Mississippi River Delta have been losing about 24 square miles a year, deprived of sediment replenishment by levees in the river, divided by channels cut by oil companies and poisoned by farm runoff from upriver. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita took large, vicious bites. The questions that haunt this region are how much more can the wetlands take and does their degradation spell doom for an increasingly defenseless southern Louisiana?”

i’ve been working for several months now on a project, led by an incredible team at environmental defense fund, to come up with an “alternative design process” for the lower river and surrounding delta that mitigates land loss and proactively addresses the urgency of the situation — because with or without the added impact of this oil spill, the entire coastal ecosystem is on the verge of collapse. and when it does it won’t just be wildlife and critical habitat that gets destroyed…  it will be entire fishing villages flooded. the city of new orleans made even more vulnerable than it already is. key commercial navigation routes interrupted, and no longer economically feasible to maintain. some say the port of new orleans is the country’s highest volume port for exports… if we don’t step in and start managing the river and its impact on the coast more holistically, the port too may go the way of the wildlife.

i consider this a national landscape. a local and regional issue, to be sure, but just as much (if not more) a national problem. the big question revolves around the word “we” — who is really going to step in? what authority? which agencies? what kind of leader, willing to put his or her entire career on the line to catalyze the sort of top down action that’s needed? (not to mention the sort of bottom up participation that’s paramount to progress in anything related to the built environment these days.)

as with gateway national recreation area, i’m once again humbled by the opportunity to contribute to the thinking around such an important landscape. more to come as i get back up to speed in blogland. and in the meantime, here’s the NYT graphic about the spill’s extent, an update from my colleague paul harrison, EDF’s senior director for rivers and deltas, on the situation and how you can volunteer to help, and another NYT piece that gets into the politics of offshore drilling.

(respectfully stolen from flickr via apartment therapy)

yesterday was one big simple pleasure. the morning started with a maple bacon scone from city bakery (genius), followed by a brisk walk along the snow-dusted columbia street waterfront in brooklyn. i was headed toward red hook for an afternoon workshop at little flower school, the brainchild of floral designers sarah ryhanen (saipua) and nicolette owen (nicolette camille).  i first noticed saipua when it opened its gorgeous wood-paneled storefront last summer, and have been following their blog pretty regularly since then.  fast forward to yesterday and i found myself in the back of the saipua warehouse with a handful of other creatives and crafters seeking a little more color and/or nature this time of year.

yesterday’s class theme was hellebores – a delicate,  intricately detailed species of winter flower that comes in nuanced shades of white, plum, and dusty lime green. let it be known that i’m a big fan of green flowers in general – the arrangement i ended up making is testament – and the fact that hellebores come in green is what motivated me to sign up once and for all.

to round out the hellebore palette sarah and nicolette provided an absurdly huge range of absurdly high quality flowers for us to play with. note that the photo here was taken *after* the class had picked through everything and finished their arrangements:

the space was amazing, the environment was totally mellow (with a little lionel richie and bjork to keep us company), and sarah and nicolette encouraged everyone to experiment away after they had taken us through the basics. this new york times write up describes the class pretty accurately, celebratory prosecco and all.

it was really interesting to see how wildly different everyone’s arrangements ended up being (check them out here), and more than anything i’m excited mine made it home in one piece! the images below are from this morning, showing details of everything i used: willow branches, eucalyptus, queen anne’s lace, ranunculus, anemones, freesia, paperwhite, a number of different hellebores, and scabiosa (my new favorite – the foliage looked like dark green daisy petals).