Keep walking

At Pier 6, Crataegus "Winter King." At least, I'm going out on a hawthorn limb and calling it. I should check the park's plant list (and point out some typos). The fruit tastes a little like apple, and is very seedy.

The water- and landscapes of Brooklyn Bridge Park are still changing. Pristine floating docks have appeared. Not too many of those, in New York

Asters are still in bloom.

A wild black cherry turns bright.

And a beach rose - invasive Rosa rugosa - burns with rosehips.

The Piers that walk into the water offer river-wrapped views.

The Frenchman had not been here since we moved to Harlem, and he offered complimentary murmers. That doesn't happen often, either.

There are the death stars, of course: the apartments that have risen like fungi between the water and the BQE, fruiting from the mass of everpresent and swarming mycelia beneath the paving, offering high-cost living spaces squeezed irrepressibly between park and highway.

The city is change. The homes on the Promenade, below, sigh in relief, knowing that only a green berm lies between them and the million dollar view. Others have not been as lucky.

But access to these waterways is for everyone. And I think that in some ways little has changed there from the time of Whitman, and Melville - the men with words and water in their veins.

I love this park.

We walked to what we used to call thenoisiestparkintheworld, between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, where the trains rage overhead, and wolfed a late-afternoon Shake Shack burger each (my first - fast food is interesting). Bridal parties, engaged couples, and quinceañeras groups posed around us. White and turquoise dresses, retinues, Manolo Blahnik stilletos.

Fortunately, we did not have to resort to a white stretch Hummer to get home.

We turned and walked back into our hood, heading down Court Street and pausing outside Moo Burger to appreciate the 5pm-rush stroller parking. This neighborhood has more strollers per capita than any other. We fantasize about buying one, and putting our fullgrown tiger in it. Leaving him parked outside Union Market with all the leashed dogs...