Local Ecologist Blog

The following photographs were taken mid-afternoon on Wednesday, August 27 proceeding from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street.

I think I first read about No-Impact Man and his family in the NY Times - an article titled "The Year Without Toilet Paper." The second time I read about No-Impact Man, Colin Beavan, was definitely in the NY Times - a recent article titled "And Now, the Impact of No Impact." No-impact living is impressive, especially what this family has done, but I was especially pleased to learn that No-Impact Man gardens in our neighborhood. Yes. At the LaGuardia Corner Gardens , a 28-year old community garden on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village. In one of the photographs that accompanies the article, you can see the Morton Williams grocery store awning in the background. By the way, the grocery store is owned by NYU (an interesting story about this here ). I really like the garden; in particular, I think it's great that the space is a "designated Backyard Wildlife Habitat and Monarch Waystation." Whenever I walk by, the garden is filled with birds , squ

The residential section of the Schenley Farms National Historic District was designed by Franklin F. Nicola and developed between 1905 and 1920 from land purchased from Mary Schenley's estate. (One of Pittsburgh's four regional parks, Schenley Park , was also created out of Mary Elizabeth Croghan Schenley's estate.) The district is a combination of City Beautiful civic design and model planned suburban development of the early 1900s. The residential area includes "96 detached, single-family homes for upper-class residents" (Borchert and Borchert 2002) with underground utilities and several types of architecture - traditional English, French, Colonial-style homes, and Craftsman. (The architecture in the civic section is "predominantly monumental, four-story stone structures in Beaux Arts, Classical, and Renaissance Revival styles.") I encountered Schenley Farms going back and forth from a hotel in the historic district. I was immediately struck by

When I lived in Berkeley, I exchanged fruits and herbs with Forage Oakland . From one exchange, I received nocino - an Italian liquer - made from unripe walnuts from Delaware Street for nocino I made from a Parker Street walnut tree growing in the sidewalk. I am an Eat Street Trees! advocate - a program of localecology.org that promotes the planting of street trees that produce fruits for human consumption. Although I did not eat the walnuts, I did drink their extract. It's an acquired taste (read: bitter, medicinal) and best served chilled and on ice. The walnut tree on Parker Street. Walnut shells courtesy of neighborhood squirrels. The recipe I used was published by the Hammon Company but the website no longer works. Here's a similar, simple nocino recipe from Simply Recipe. After a few months of steeping, I brought the nocino to a party where a friend of Italian heritage recommended a longer steeping with slices of lemon. Here's an image of

The most well-known of Chicago's greening initiatives and programs is its Green Roof program. The city led the way with the City Hall Rooftop Garden. I believe the roof garden was completed in 2000. I really enjoy the city's the street gardens - street-tree gardens, hanging planters, and median planters - one its Urban Heat Island Mitigation strategies. According to an EPA "Smart Growth and Urban Heat Islands" factsheet , Chicago planted "over 500,000 trees" between 1991 and 1998 and by 2005, an estimated "280 miles of new median planters" were added to 120 miles of existing medians. So what is the Urban Heat Island effect? Urban areas are warmer than their rural counterparts due to the types of surfaces prevalent in cities - asphalt pavement versus woodland. Darker surfaces not only absorb and radiate more heat, they evaporate less, and thus cooling less. In addition to hot temperatures, the urban heat island contributes to smog formation.

Looking south towards SoHo. A frequent walking route takes me through Washington Square Village, one of NYU's faculty housing developments. My absolute favorite parts of Washington Square Village are the trees. I won't showcase them all in this post. This entry is about the London planetrees that lines the westernmost roadway into the village. There are 23 planetrees: 11 on the east and 12 on the west-side of the roadway. The eastern trees appear smaller in diameter than the ones opposite them. Coincidentally, or not, the eastern trees are growing in an asphalt sidewalk below grade of the Village park/garden/courtyard. In contrast, the trees on the western side of the roadway are larger in diameter and are growing behind a hedge, in a lawn. One of the identifying features of the London planetree ( Platanus x acerifolia ) is its bark. The bark exfoliates to reveal a spectrum of colors: yellow-green, gray, brown, dark brown. The coloring resembles a soldier's camoufl

POP City's current issue reports that Nine Mile Run Watershed Association (NMRWA) has received a $50,000 Springboard grant that will fund, among other projects, the construction of the Regent Square Gateway . The Gateway project will demonstrate how innovative environmental infrastructure development can improve aquatic and riparian habitat in an urban park, and enhance community access to open space and clean water. In addition, it will safeguard and enhance the considerable investment that both local and federal governments and private foundations have already made in Nine Mile Run and the surrounding park, an investment which is now still at risk during large storms. I visited NMRWA, the run, and the future site of the Gateway in the summer of 2007. The road to the site is lined with old rail tracks. As you approach the gateway site, you pass a play center on the right. The tracks enter Frick Park at Braddock Trail. To the left of the trail sign is a stormwater outfall into

This hummingbird nest was located in a narrow crotch of a purple leaf plum planted in a landscape strip between an apartment building and the sidewalk. Read more about the nest. This is a funky-looking nest - complex, elevated, pendulous - which we found in a tree overhanging a sidewalk in Berkeley. For more about "Funky Nests in Funky Places," visit the Celebrate Urban Birds website.

Our photograph of the de Young Museum's grounds, designed by Walter Hood, was featured in the Summer 2009 issue of the Pittsburgh Park Conservancy newsletter, the Voice. The Hood garden is in the foreground.