The High Bridge, completed in 1848 and now New York City’s oldest standing bridge, spans the Harlem River at 173rd Street in Manhattan. It officially closed sometime during the early 1970s — the Parks Department, mysteriously, isn’t certain of the exact date — but remained open for ranger tours until the late 1990s, when the gates were shut to all but Parks employees after engineers discovered structural flaws.

Today the bridge lies unused but not ignored. PLANYC, the Department of Parks & Recreation’s initiative to find new and creative uses for open or unused space, is in the process of restoring the bridge. They plan to re-open it to the public as part of Highbridge Park by 2013.

We were excited to walk the bridge before the restoration, not only to capture its features before they’re refurbished, but also because the City’s plan understandably calls for safety fences to be installed along the bridge in addition to the waist-high, 19th Century railing in place today. While the new, taller fences won’t altogether mar the panoramic views from the bridge, they will certainly diminish the open, birds-eye feeling one gets standing on its deck.

—Daniel Ross, producer

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We first visited the Park Slope Armory on a rainy afternoon in May.  I was immediately struck by its details – from the lanterns to the brickwork, the armory seemed like a medieval castle from a different time. Entering through the Park Slope Armory YMCA’s entrance on 15th street, it felt as though we’d gone from night to day.

We returned to the armory in October with architectural historian Francis Morrone and had the opportunity to explore the building further.   Sitting in the red bleachers above the old drill floor and walking through the halls where classes are now held, I could sense that the space had a unique presence, as though the history of the building and its various residents live within the walls. Although we never met the armory’s rumored ghost (a veteran who died before he was sent out on WWI), it’s not hard to picture him here.

Early on in the armory’s history, the YMCA sponsored track and field events on the drill floor. Tom Gallagher, an 86-year-old Park Slope resident and member of the Park Slope Armory YMCA, used to play basketball at the armory as a teenager. He still recalls the tanks and canons they used to share the armory with, and the old setup of the bleachers used for games. “Basketball was a big attraction for this neighborhood in those days,” he says.

Tanks and canons may no longer have a place in the armory, but its significance to the neighborhood is clearly intact.

– Michelle Michalos, Producer

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Before we knew about the Greenbelt, we were looking for the Heyerdahl House, the ruins of an 1800s stone home in Bucks Hollow. Following directions found online, we made our way to a trailhead and proceeded to get lost in the woods. After about an hour of hiking through a forested swamp still wet in late spring, we realized that we didn’t need the house. The trails were special enough on their own. Secluded in the woods with nothing but trees in sight or earshot, we were impressed to find a place like this in New York City.

For a few months we casually sought a guide to these trails and learned that the area we hiked was part of a much larger complex of greenspace called the Greenbelt, managed by the Greenbelt Conservancy.

We returned in the fall with Greenbelt advocates Kathleen Vorwick and Dorothy Reilly to find a forest of yellows, browns, and red and a swamp dried out from the summer months. As we learned more about the area’s sites, history, and preservation efforts it became clear that much would have to be left out of the video. As the trail map on the Greenbelt Conservancy website reveals, the Greenbelt offers New Yorkers diverse sites that call to be experienced year-round.

—bijan rezvani, producer

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We emerged from an overgrown access path behind Hinchliffe Stadium into what would have been in days gone by right-center field. The vastness of the U-shaped structure from that vantage suggests not a baseball or football stadium but a raceway, as it was indeed used for from time to time.

The remnants of a morning thunderstorm had just burned off, and our clothes clung to our skin from the humidity as we climbed onto the bleachers for a better view of the park. There we found a spot to interview our guide, Brian LoPinto, founder of Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium. We set up the shot and began our questions.

At some point during the interview I noticed a pinching sensation in the backs of my thighs. Afterwards, when I stood up, my jeans glittered with shards of fiberglass from the deteriorating bleacher seats. Every step I took after that was like walking in a pair of pants made of staples.

We went on with the shoot, circling the perimeter of the grandstand. At the top of the stadium, directly behind where home plate once stood, lay five empty concession windows like hollow eye sockets in a skull. We were wary about investigating the interior of the concession booths after we had spotted a tattered vagrant disappearing into one of them as we interviewed Brian. By the time we passed by for a look, however, the man had vanished. Still, we found evidence of him nearby floating in a wayward toilet bowl and scattered and smeared about the concourse just outside the windows. A black swarm of horseflies fled the scene as we approached. It was time to go.

—Daniel Ross, producer

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Ridgewood Reservoir is one of those places that defies the common imagination of New York City. A lake sits surrounded by reeds and two massive basins, each with its own habitat. Dirt paths lined with iron gates from previous centuries surround the basins, but this all hides within a chain-link fence that cuts off access. The fence is a patchwork in constant development, telling the story of repeated entries with wire cutters. A few people might circle the outer fence’s road on foot or bicycle, but for the most part the site is empty.

When we first visited the reservoir with Rob Jett, a birder and local activist, I was struck by the variety of habitat. Aside from the center water body, there were hardwood trees, soggy wetlands, some sort of bamboo, grasses, and a host of other plant clusters. Every moment things were changing, even the ground. Some areas were rocky. Some had compacted dirt, others had soft soil. One wooded zone had trees growing on thin soil, roots exposed, trees slightly bouncing as we walked carefully between them.

Rob Jett and the Highland Park-Ridgewood Reservoir Alliance see the reservoir as an educational opportunity, a chance to take students and locals through distinct environments in a controlled space, but the city Parks department has on its eyes on the park for development.

Ridgewood Reservoir is one of a handful of PLANYC projects, in which the New York City Department of Parks & Recreations seeks to find new and creative uses for open or unused spaces. Although no master plan has been selected, active recreation (such as ballfields) are on the table, which has some local residents worried.

For active recreation the city is focused on one basin in particular, which has shallow soil on top of clay, a ground that they claim may never sustainably support a healthy native habitat. The Highland Park-Ridgewood Reservoir alliance points out that these same drainage issues could also make the site inappropriate for ballfields.

As the city moves forward on an early development phase, making improvements to the perimeter walkway, it’s clear that any thoughtful improvement will likely benefit this long overlooked space.

—bijan rezvani, producer

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Tucked away on the corner of Broome and Allen Street on the Lower East Side, a relatively hidden historical treasure makes its home. The last Greek synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, Kehila Kedosha Janina remains a gathering place for the Romaniote Jews (Greek Jews) of the city nearly a century after its construction in 1927.

A minority within a minority, the Romaniotes are unknown to most Greeks, who are predominantly Greek Orthodox. When I mentioned the existence of Greek Jews to my grandmother, who hails from the not-so-bustling Greek island of Nisyros, she seemed stunned, to say the least. Which is why, perhaps more than any other reason, the presence of Archbishop Demetrios – the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America – at the opening of the synagogue’s exhibit “Dikoi Mas, Los Muestros” on Greek-Jewish Families this past Sunday (running through late October 2011) was so significant.  (See a gallery of the exhibit opening event below).

Born in Thessaloniki, the Archbishop was well aware of the presence and history of Jews in Greece. As he addressed the congregation, he recalled a Jewish French teacher he had growing up, and the “empty space” and sadness left behind by his Jewish neighbors who were lost in the Holocaust, including a schoolmate of his. He thanked the congregation for preserving their own memories, and encouraged the young people to keep the culture alive.

“Dikoi Mas, Los Muestros” is an exhibit dedicated to Greek-Jewish families, but, more specifically, to Kehila Kedosha Janina’s community, who are featured throughout. I watched as several generations came together for the exhibit to honor their common history and share memories of times past. With the Romaniotes’ traditional Greek music playing (and the smell of burekas and spanakopita nearby), it became clear to me how unique this small group really is. Small, but thriving – and hopefully here to stay.

—Michelle Michalos, associate producer

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We stood in the basement of 169 W. 133rd Street in Harlem shining a lantern at the rotted walls, saturated ceiling panels, and corroded fixtures. A lawn chair surrounded by discarded soda bottles occupied a corner of the room where the bandstand once stood. Who knows how they got there, or who would’ve wanted to spend time in so dank a space. Eighty years ago the Nest would have been throbbing with music, drinking, and dancing. The day we visited with our guide, David Freeland, author of Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan’s Lost Places of Leisure, we found the space as silent as a recording studio. Mushrooms sprouted out of the cold muck on the floor.

The Nest, which lies padlocked behind the doors of an abandoned building on a quiet residential block, is arguably one of New York City’s greatest unsung cultural landmarks. The development of jazz as an artistic movement in the city is linked to this spot, which opened on October 18, 1923, in the basement of what was then a barbecue club. In its heyday, during the height of Prohibition, the Nest hosted some of the most popular names in Harlem, like Sam Wooding and Luis Russell. It also attracted super star patrons like Mae West. Eventually more speakeasies opened in basements along the same block as the Nest, fostering a culture of clandestine drinking and improvised performance for an integrated audience. On a given night one could spot Duke Ellington, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Fats Waller, and Billie Holiday either performing or catching each others’ sets at Pod’s & Jerry’s, Club Mexico, or Basement Brownie’s. Billie herself said 133rd Street “was the real swing street, like 52nd Street later tried to be.”

It all began to vanish in the years following Repeal when the demand for covert drinking spaces evaporated. The music moved to Midtown where it found a more commercial infrastructure, and the 133rd Street clubs died out.

Still, most of the buildings on 133rd Street that housed the original speakeasies remain standing, including one spot notable for a resurgence of jazz on the block: Bill’s Place, formerly Tillie’s Chicken Shack, where saxophonist Bill Saxton performs every Friday night with a rotating cast of talented musicians. The lively scene at Bill’s offers a stark contrast to the ghostly ruins of the Nest down the block.

Standing there in the dark, we imagined what it must have been like all those years ago at the Nest, but soon it was time to go before we were exposed to any more mold.

–Daniel Ross, producer

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Think you know New York? The City Concealed, Thirteen.org’s online video series dedicated to exploring the unseen corners of the city, takes viewers to places where even the most jaded New Yorkers have likely never ventured.

From locations you never knew existed to places usually off-limits, the new season of The City Concealed explores a wide range of hidden sites. We’ll visit the birthplace of the jazz speakeasy in Harlem, and check in on the last remaining Greek synagogue in the Lower East Side. We’ll visit the original baseball stadium of the New York Black Yankees of the Negro Leagues, and take you to a circa 1917 fort in the Rockaways. And much more.

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North Brother Island lies in the East River, between The Bronx and Queens, just west of Rikers Island and directly under the flight path of departing jets from LaGuardia. It was once the site of Riverside Hospital, a tuberculosis facility later converted to GI housing after WWII. Previously, it was home to the infamous “Typhoid” Mary Mallon during her years of quarantine. Throughout the 1950s, the city operated a drug rehab center for adolescents there, but the hospital closed in 1963, and North Brother was abandoned. Nature slowly reclaimed the island.

Today North Brother Island is a protected heron habitat, owned by the Department of Parks and Recreation. Access to the island is extremely limited due to the sensitivity of the bird-breeding habitat.

In the past, a number of colonial water bird species nested on North Brother Island, including Black-crowned Night Herons, Glossy Ibis, and Great Egrets. Over the last several years, however, the bird population on North Brother Island has declined.

To keep track of colonial water bird populations in the city, the New York City Audubon Society conducts a yearly survey of seventeen islands within New York Harbor, including North Brother Island. This May, The City Concealed joined Dr. Susan Elbin and research associate Liz Craig on their survey to find out whether the herons are back on North Brother Island or nesting elsewhere.

For more about the history of North Brother Island, check out Opacity’s overview (which features some really nice historic images). Also see northbrotherislan.blogspot.com, Forgotten-NY, and bridgeandtunnelclub.

And for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of our experience shooting on the rugged island, read this post.

– Daniel Ross, Producer

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without much help from Dr. Susan Elbin, Elizabeth Craig, New York City Audubon, the David Rumsey Map Collection, and the The New York Public Library. Thank you to all.

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Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island was New York City’s primary landfill from 1948 to 2001. Thousands of tons of daily garbage composed the largest man-made structure on Earth.

In 2001 the landfill was finally closed, with a brief reopening to accommodate the World Trade Center wreckage.

Since then it’s been the site of Freshkills Park, a 30-year project to cover and slowly open parts of the former landfill.

While the trash of New York City ships to other states, the park’s decomposing refuse mounds generate methane gas that National Grid sells back to the island’s inhabitants.

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