The historic Broadway mile marker in Isham Park

 

Above: Broadway entrance to Isham Park on the occasion of the Isham Park Centennial September 29, 2012. The marker is at left; the poster at right was part of a temporary signage series by VIP identifying the elements of Isham Park.

Today a small group of volunteers for Isham Park worked along Broadway, in and around the south entrance to the park, once the entrance drive to William Bradley Isham's estate.

Maria Lall invested countless hours creating and maintaining gardens this area of the park which she deemed "Isham Alley."  A community effort is underway to name the path in her honor.

There is a worn stone mile-marker embedded in the retaining wall beside the north pillar at the entrance that has been described by many over the years.  A friend at the Historic Districts Council sent VIP a link to a recently posted article about the marker from the blog Ephemeral New York:

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/the-only-colonial-era-mile-marker-remaining-on-a-manhattan-street/

This Butterfly Bush hedge has matured

 

Maria & Walter planted this Butterfly Bush hedge

a while back; this summer it is blooming profusely.

 

Stone edging was donated by our neighbor Jackie.

 

Isham Park Summer 2021

 

Missing Maria

 

    

 "Hey Baby!"  

Who will greet us this way now? 

     

    

Dawn Redwoods: A symbol of resilience for 2021

For the 2020 holidays, posting about these intriguing trees located in the top lawn of Isham Park, in part because park visitors often ask about them. 

They are supposed to grow in low-lying areas near water, so their location on this highpoint is thought to be unusual, even though a couple of very large examples also stand in front of the Glyndor Gallery at Wave Hill, in another dry, elevated location. 

They are deciduous, i.e., they loose their leaves in the fall when they also produce tiny cones. Dawn Redwoods were thought to be extinct until the middle of the 20th century when a group of them was rediscovered and an effort was made to distribute them widely.

Best wishes for 2021! 

 

Fall 2020 in Isham Park

 

Just to share a fall image of the memorial terrace in Isham Park. 

During this Pandemic year, Isham Park has provided a respite for all. Its quiet nature has come to the aid of families and individuals, young and old alike. 

The park was given to NYC in 1912 - actually dedicated in September of that year. So it existed during the 1918 flu epidemic when it must have also served as a place of quiet recreation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

NYC Parks took their "Wednesday Walk" in Isham Park last week!

Last Wednesday, July 15, 2020, NYC Parks made their weekly Wednesday Walk Facebook Live Video in Isham Park! Walter Markham, the NYC Parks Gardener for Isham, is interviewed by video producer Adrian Sas about the great gardens he has designed for the park over the past five years:

https://www.facebook.com/nycparks/videos/303919740656133/

While the video is very spontaneous, it is also very effective communicating the beautiful design of the park which was created in the late 1930s by landscape architects Gilmore Clarke and Michael Rapuano under then NYC Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses.

Isham Park is graced by beautiful WPA stonework, in the form of simple walls and steps that frame and enhance the gardens discussed, which are also juxtaposed to open areas of lawn with stately, mature trees. 

The triangle described by Walter is a signature feature of the paths of both Isham and its younger and much larger neighbor, Inwood Hill Park. Both parks were designed simultaneously and share triangular intersections as a feature. It is fun to locate the many triangulations during a walk on Inwood Hill. Some paths in the lower portion of Inwood Hill Park also end in semicircular openings that frame views, especially to the north and west of the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades.

In Isham Park, there are two circular terraces: one on the park's eastern slope above Broadway serves as a memorial to the Isham family and another at the top of the park that must have been intended to provide views in all directions, a major feature of the park when it was given in 1911.

Isham Park's design shines in this spontaneous interview!
Thank you Adrian Sas!
Congratulations to NYC Parks and to Parks Gardener Walter Markham.