Inspiration Point on the Hudson River Greenway in Northwest Manhattan
If you go up the Hudson River Greenway, between the 181st pedestrian footbridge and where the Greenway currently ends at the northern branch of Riverside Drive at the northern edge of Fort Tryon Park, you’ll find Inspiration Point.
There’s no way to access Inspiration Point except by using the trail. There are no parking spots and no way to pull over to the side of the road, though it looks like there might have been at one time. There is a raised section of concrete there that my wife stood on while she waited for me to finish taking pictures and looking around.
I suppose it’s a spot that not many people will visit. It’s isolated, and regardless of whether you enter the Greenway on the north end or at the pedestrian footbridge to the south, it’s a pretty long walk to get there. Maybe the fact that there are rarely people there is why the area is called Inspiration Point. You can be alone with your thoughts there, if you can ignore the highway traffic directly behind you anyway.
View of the Hudson River from Inspiration Point
Regardless, the structure is really well made, and really interesting. It has a sort of ancient Rome feel to it, minus the red brick flooring anyway. What was this structure originally built for? I can’t imagine such an extravagant structure would be erected just for the occasional walker on the Greenway. Looking at Google Maps, I got the impression that the section of the Henry Hudson Parkway between where Riverside Drive stops at 181st Street and where it starts again north of Fort Tryon Park used to actually be Riverside Drive and was then converted into the northbound lane of the parkway.
A little further down from Inspiration Point are two pillars on the opposite side of the road that look like the entrance to an old driveway. It is currently overgrown. That, and what looked like an old parking area near Inspiration Point makes me think traffic on that road used to be a lot slower.
On a blog about infrastructure (infrastructureemily.com), I saw a picture of stairs leading down the side of the Inspiration Point structure to another lookout area. I didn’t even notice that. Now I definitely need to go back and take another look. The author of the other blog didn’t try to sneak down there and look around. I might!
Billings TerraceBillings Terrace
Right next to that driveway I mentioned earlier is Billings Terrace. It’s very cool looking from down on the Greenway! I really want to go up there and take a look around. Billings Terrace is in Fort Tryon Park, where the Cloisters and most of the medieval art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art is housed. There are also renaissance fairs there sometimes.
On Sunday, when my wife and I walked over the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, we stopped by the Fort Lee Historic Park, which is right next to the bridge and offers a great view of the Hudson River and Manhattan, which, I suppose, was the reason the fort was originally built. We didn’t really expect to see a whole lot there. We were just looking for a place to take a short break before turning around and walking back over the bridge. We were both surprised by how much of the historic fort has been restored. We want to go back sometime with real cameras and spend an afternoon there looking around.
The best part of the pit stop, though, was when we saw wild deer snacking on the underbrush in the middle of the park. Even when I lived in Georgia, it was rare to see deer in high traffic areas, and it was especially bizarre for me to look one way and see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and then to look the other and see a little family of deer hanging out like they were special guests in a petting zoo. It reminded me of a snapshot I’d seen on instagram a few weeks ago (I think) of a deer eating flowers from a planter in the middle of an outdoor, strip mall.
I first spotted them when we were a good distance away and I snapped a few photos, because I expected them to bolt the moment they realized we were there. We kept walking closer though, and they didn’t seem to mind at all. The mother deer kept looking up at us, but she decided we weren’t going to bother her and went back to eating. Later, a large Chinese family with loud kids showed up and the deer just kept grazing. I got the impression that these deer live there and people are used to seeing them in the park. I stood about arm’s length from the mother deer and she ignored me. They’re almost domesticated.
In a way, it’s a great bonus to have wild deer hanging around the park. It helped take me completely out of the city and let me better enjoy the trees around me, the open space, the smell of foliage and dirt, and the lack of crowds.
Lower Manhattan and Hoboken (I think), New Jersey as seen from the George Washington Bridge
When I was in the Army, there was a running cadence that went something like this:
I can run to Jersey just like this,
All the way to Jersey and never quit.
I can run to New York just like this,
All the way to New York and never quit,
Because I’m hardcore,
Motivated,
Dedicated,
etc. etc. (The cadence changes here depending on the unit type)
Well, when I crossed the bridge on foot yesterday, I wasn’t running, but this cadence was rattling around in my head. I was thinking that, of all the times I responded to or called that cadence when I was in the Army, I never actually crossed any state lines during PT (physical training). But, yesterday, I started a walk in Manhattan and ended up in the Fort Lee Historic Park across the river in New Jersey, and then came back again. Maybe in a few months I will go back and run that route, but for now I’m trying to take it easy and just enjoy myself.
The bridge’s walkway is pretty popular. I saw a lot of tourists with name tapes stuck to their shirts as well as families walking across, or hanging out on the bridge. Just as a side note, I noticed a lot of Jewish people hanging out up there. I was reminded of how many Jewish people I saw in the Bronx Zoo last June. I don’t say that to be racist or anything. I’m just wondering if I’m stumbling across popular hangout spots for Orthodox Jewish families, because I don’t recall seeing that many Jewish people hanging around lower Manhattan, the Natural History Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or it could be that I just never noticed?
Anyway, the views going across the bridge are stunning. My iPhone photos aren’t going to do it justice. I’d like to go back with a real camera to try to get some better shots, and I will definitely have the opportunity, because even if I don’t run across the bridge one day, I’ll definitely be walking all the way back to Jersey.
Also, just as a side-note: In my last blog post I wrote about walking up the Hudson River Greenway underneath the George Washington Bridge and I noted that it seemed like the bushes along some parts of the trail were hollowed out, like people live there. Well, it seems like there are some homeless people living in the park, after all. When I was on the bridge, looking down, I saw a homeless guy through an opening in the trees trying to get comfortable. You can barely see him in this image, but he’s resting his legs on that blue box:
A homeless man getting comfortable in the bushes off the path in Fort Washington Park along the Hudson River Greenway.
I’ve started taking long walks for exercise purposes. While I’m out, I usually listen to the news using a new app I found called Umano (which is pretty cool, by the way), but still, looking at the same scenery over and over gets old, so I’m always looking for new places to go. Normally, I walk down Riverside Drive and head south along the river, past Riverbank State Park. Saturday, my wife and I took a detour and discovered the Hudson River Greenway.
My wife and I had seen the Greenway before, from Riverbank State Park, which is completely elevated, but we didn’t know how to actually access the area. The Greenway is a route that follows the edge of Manhattan island and caters to cyclists, joggers and walkers. There are plenty of places to picnic and barbecue along the way, as well.
So, Saturday, my wife and I were walking down Riverside Drive when I saw a woman walking up a set of steps that led down towards the highway. We’d always wondered where those stairs go, but the area looks a little creepy, so we never went down to check. The woman told us the stairs lead down towards a park, so we decided to take a chance and headed down the steps. The path led to a set of metal stairs at the on-ramp for the Hudson River Parkway at 158th Street and at the bottom of the steps, we found the Greenway.
We went right, only because we were hoping for good views of the George Washington Bridge. We didn’t realize how long the path is, or how much stuff there is down there. There are parks, camp areas, tennis courts, basketball courts, and there are areas under construction that look like they’re going to be really nice sitting areas.
Kudzu (aka Japanese Arrowroot) killing flora in New York City. I didn’t realize this stuff had spread this far north. Common sight in Georgia.
The George Washington Bridge and New Jersey Shore
People on an outcropping of rock looking at the George Washington Bridge
The Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge
We didn’t leave for our walk until late. We didn’t expect to find an interesting trail to follow, and while we were down there, it started to get dark. It’s a little spooky down there when the sun starts to go down. There are places along the trail where the brush is hollowed out like people (or animals) are living there. I was really surprised at how many people there are using the trail, though, and how even after dark women were walking through there alone. I don’t think I’d want to walk there alone at night.
We followed the trail under the George Washington Bridge, where it doubled back on itself and headed up to street level, and then we headed back home through the city. The walk was really fun and not too tiring at all. And, we discovered that the neighborhood around the George Washington Bridge is really, really nice. We saw a few new restaurants we’d like to try. I suppose that’s one of the great things about going out for walks. It helps you discover cool stuff in and around your neighborhood.
On Thursday, my wife and I were walking downtown and, mixed in with advertisements, I saw this graffiti on the barrier walling off an empty lot. The first thing I thought of when I saw the images were the animal paintings in the cave at Lascaux, France. Those are some of the oldest cave art images in the world. I remember reading about them in an Art History course I took a few years ago. But, when I saw the humanoid figures, I was more reminded of the style of North American Petroglyphs, which I’d seen in… ::cough, cough:: … Ancient Alien History channel specials, with that white guy with the crazy, curly looking hair:
Anyway, I like most of the graffiti I see anyway, but I especially appreciated the attempt of the person who did this to present something historical. I wonder if aliens painted this graffiti, in an attempt to remind us of the eternal truths of the petroglyphs in the southwest United States?
This graffiti is located on Varick Street, between Watts Street and Broome Street:
Last June, my wife and I took a trip up to the Bronx Zoo. Prior to moving back to New York City in 2010, I’d lived here as a kid, or visited numerous times, but I don’t know that I had ever been to the Bronx Zoo before. Anyway, we showed up about two hours after opening and, after some deliberation, went ahead and put out the extra money for the all-access passes instead of paying a-la-carte as we went through the zoo. The zoo has a large amount of free “content” but if you want the “premium” experience, you have to pay a heftier fee.
I think it was worth the money. We almost exclusively visited the premium areas, but ran out of time before seeing everything. Of course, some of the stuff we wouldn’t want to see anyway, because it was geared towards kids, but basically the Bronx Zoo is a two day experience, at least. There’s so much left that we didn’t see that we’re definitely going to have to go back again.
My favorite photos from our trip:
Mural in tunnel near Boston Rd. Zoo Entrance
American Bison
Vulture
Okapi butt
Rhinoceros
The big gorilla in the “Congo Gorilla Forest”
Red Panda
Black Panther
Orange baby monkey
Otters
A bright orange poison dart frog.
If you’re thinking of visiting the zoo, my only suggestions are to bring water, food (inside prices are out of control), a hat for shade and comfortable shoes for standing in lines for access to some of the premium areas like the Asia Monorail and the Dinosaur Safari, which we didn’t ride, but saw the line for while walking towards the butterfly garden.
View of the Hudson River from Riverbank State Park
I sort of let myself fall off the exercise wagon while struggling with other commitments, so now that Summer session classes are over, I’m taking August to try to get myself together. That involves a lot of sorting, organizing, shopping, bill paying, appointment scheduling, and, of course, getting myself back into shape. I’m not going to be a hero and try to go from barely being active for two and a half months to dropping 5ks like they’re nothing, so I’m starting out with long walks first. This is definitely a great neighborhood for it, both in terms of scenery and because the area is hilly, rather than flat, making walks more physically challenging.
We walked down Riverside Drive from about 168th Street, where Columbia University Medical Center is and eventually wound up in Riverbank State Park, which is the nicest park I’ve seen in New York City, other than Central Park. The facilities are probably better than those at Central Park, though, since they’re newer. We saw an Olympic-sized running oval, a skating rink, and somewhere in that park there’s also a pool. We’re looking forward to going back and spending some time there. I bet that oval makes for good running, that’s easy on the knees.
A view of New Jersey from Riverside Drive
George Washington Bridge
A set of train tracks that run along the river.
Riverside Drive
Creepy looking stairs off Riverside Drive. Not sure where they go.
Interesting building on Riverside Drive.
No idea what these are. They’re just inside the park at the 145th Street entrance.
George Washington Bridge as seen from Riverbank Park
Looking back toward Manhattan from Riverbank Park
Looking back toward Manhattan from Riverbank Park
Looking back toward Manhattan from Riverbank Park
View of New Jersey from Riverside Drive
Classes start again at the end of the month, so hopefully I can make the most out of my time!
“Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” Book Cover
The first time I heard of “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” by Reza Aslan, was when I heard people complaining about it on Twitter. Well, not really complaining about the book per se, but the author’s religion. I’ve previously read another book by this author and I remember it being pretty good, especially considering it was a book on religious history, and I didn’t recall it being unusual or laden with religious messages that could indicate a lack of academic impartiality in the writer. Apparently, though, for some people, just being a Muslim makes one incapable of being an academic or of being objective.
Fox News (a.k.a. Fox Entertainment) published an Op Ed about the book by John Dickerson, claiming the author is just some random, poorly educated schmuck who must have an agenda because he is a Muslim. As a result of the unfounded allegations and fear-mongering spin Dickerson put on the article, the Fundamentalist Christian-Taliban masses were enraged and set out to destroy the infidel (Reza Aslan, PhD) for daring to be a non-Christian while writing about Jesus.
It’s almost amazing, in a negative sort of way, how difficult it is for some people to comprehend that people of other religions are capable of obtaining higher degrees and writing from an academic, objective standpoint. Here’s an example of a Fox News desk jockey embarrassing herself while reading from a pre-prepared script during an interview with Reza Aslan:
She just can’t seem to get past the fact that he’s a Muslim and wrote a book about Jesus, as if it’s impossible to write about another religion with academic impartiality. She also seems to think that Reza Aslan’s claims to being educated are some sort of fantasy hocus-pocus that she just brushes off to get at the heart of the matter (in her opinion): “You are a Muslim! You are not capable of rational thought, because Fox says so! I say so! Every day!”
Reza Aslan during a taping of NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 2005. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
After watching the YouTube interview and reading the piece on ThinkProgress about how Dickerson’s claims are all sorts of retarded, I proceeded to check the Kindle book out on Amazon. The product page was flooded with one-line, one-star reviews that do not analyze or review the book, but simply discredited the entire possibility of the book being worthwhile because the author is a Muslim. It was pretty obvious that most of the “reviewers” had simply regurgitated what they’d read on Fox. Some didn’t even bother to process the information and just cut & paste the article into the review section, as if that would magically prove their uneducated and uninformed hate-mongering to be undeniably true. Some “reviewers” went so far as to claim that a conspiracy exists to trick people into buying the book because the author never revealed his religious orientation during previous interviews (also parroted from Fox), as if that has some bearing on a book written from a secular, historical perspective.
Does every Christian author need to reveal his religious preference prior to writing a book about the history of a religion other than Christianity? No, of course not, so why does Reza Aslan have to defend himself to a mob of Fox Zombies that are claiming his religious preference somehow invalidates his four degrees, including a BA in Religion from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, a Doctor of Philosophy in the Sociology of Religion from UC Santa Barbara, and an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop? The history of religion and its development is this man’s bread-and-butter. If he’s not qualified to write a book on it, then doctors with medical licenses aren’t competent to diagnose the common cold.
I reported quite a few of those one-star reviews as abuse, because that’s what they are: hate-speech and abuse that have nothing to do with the product and certainly aren’t legitimate reviews that should be allowed to affect the product rating. The obvious intent behind this mob-style digital attack on the book’s product page is to prevent sales just because the author is a Muslim. And not only is he a Muslim (and according to some the instrument of Satan), he’s not writing about Jesus from the modern Christian fundamentalist perspective, much like dozens of other authors before him have done in an attempt to understand who Jesus-the-man was. Amazon seems to not really care about hate-speech or abuse or fake reviews that damage sales, though, because none of the so-called reviews have been taken down. In fact, the number has jumped by 10 since I looked at it last night.
I took the time to try to have a discussion with one reviewer about why he feels that Reza Aslan is incapable of writing a book about Jesus, but instead of actually addressing that question, he attempted to convince me that Peter never denied Christ, Christ never rebuked Peter for trying to convince him to not be crucified, that “Allah” does not translate directly to “God” and does not represent Abraham’s God, even though the Quran specifically mentions numerous times that it is a prophetic work in the tradition of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael and Jacob. I kept asking him what his point was to try to figure out what his comments had to do with the ability of Reza Aslan to write a book, but he kept going on and on, changing topics as soon as he was proved wrong on some point. I finally realized that he wasn’t trying to justify his opinion or create a logical, though complicated argument about the book. He was just trying to waste my time by turning the conversation into one about the validity of Islam as a religion instead of being about the validity of the book as an academic work.
The bottom line is, the attempt of fundamentalist Christians who somehow believe it’s ok to break one of the ten commandments and bear false witness by pretending to review a book they haven’t read has propelled Reza Aslan’s book to the #1 best-seller position on Amazon, something it may have never achieved otherwise. It only goes to show that when you approach someone with hate in your heart, your efforts will usually fail and often backfire. If there’s something wrong with the book, because of its style, a failure to prove the thesis, or because the author played fast-and-loose with sources and added too much interpretation, then those are valid criticisms. But, just because a person is of a religion that is not the religion of the person they’re writing about (let’s forget the fact that Jesus was a Jew and Christianity didn’t develop until hundreds of years later for a moment), that doesn’t automatically invalidate the work as a whole. Obviously. Well, to me anyway, and to plenty of others who are calling out Fox for this rampant stupidity. For example, the Lauren Green interview embedded above is being hailed as a new contender for the most embarrassing interview ever by MSN.
I purchased the book. It will help me prepare myself for a course I’m taking on the historical Jesus this Fall semester at college. I’m also going to make sure I leave a real review for the book on Amazon to help counter all of the ridiculous bashing, assuming the book is good of course.
