Performance Art
The process of taking care of street trees is a kind of performance. It’s a spectacle. You stand in the middle of a sidewalk and go through a choreographed sequence of elaborate gestures. People stop and stare. They ask you what you’re doing. The act elicits emotional responses from the audience that range from doubt … Read more
Secret Highway
I snapped this picture at the junction of Routes 34 and 537 in Monmouth County, NJ during an apple/pumpkin picking expedition two weeks ago. My childhood memories of this area are filled with horse farms and apple groves. Little wonder that I got lost on the way to the farm and accidentally drove the Zip … Read more
Catching Up
I haven’t written here in over two weeks and I’m beginning to doubt my ability to keep up with the rigor of blogging. Who really has time for all this? Maybe I’m a little old fashioned. It’s difficult for me to write without the comfort of drafts and revisions. So why “Ecotone Projects?” It’s an … Read more
Natural’s Not In It
The NY Times grapples with the challenge of restorative landscape architecture in a recent article on coastal pollution in a region of Italy sandwiched between Rome and Naples. The article covers Alan Berger’s efforts to re-engineer the regional lanscape in order to arrive at a site that is ecologically functional without negating the thousands (millions?) … Read more
The Narrows
I found this beauty filed near the New Jersey Turnpike postcard at The Brooklyn Flea. The caption on the front reads “The Narrows, Bay of New York.” This photo could have been taken in the first decade of the 20th Century. Roughly fifty years later, this beautiful open sky would be filled with the towers … Read more
Street (Tree) Furniture
I can’t exactly remember where I snapped this picture, but it looks like Garrison Avenue in the Hunt Point area of the South Bronx. Every day, over ten thousand trucks make their way into and out of the Hunts Point Terminal Food Market at the other end of this heavily industrialized peninsula. Over the past five … Read more
Naked Zelkova
This little beauty of a Japanese Zelkova sits in front of a tenement on St. Marks Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. A stone’s throw away from the Prospect Heights Community Farm, it hadn’t been pruned since it was planted (probably eight or nine years ago). Its low hanging branches were starting to interlace and grow … Read more
New Jersey Turnpike
Whenever I visit book stands and flea markets, I always keep an eye out for local maps. This little bauble caught my eye in a stack of post cards at The Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene a few weeks ago. The back of the post card reads: “The New Jersey Turnpike is a divided highway … Read more
In The Burbs
I’m writing this first blog post from my cousin’s porch in the depths of Middletown, NJ. The sky is blue, the crickets are chirping, and I’m finding myself slowly lulled into a state of complete calm that I have hard time accessing when I’m in the city. Even a peaceful few moments in the community … Read more
