Cochrane Park

This is a neat little surprise I found just wondering through the neighborhood. There is an engraved poem in the shelter that makes you feel like you’re living through someone else’s nostalgia. You can literally «feel the children in the air.» It was very meditative actually — I didn’t really want to leave.

This park is the home of the New York Life eagle and features a fine view of the high bridge and river environs. There are benches for seating and a water fountain for those hot summer months. You can even watch the Harriet Island fireworks from here with the proper viewing angle.

What amazes me is the history that is barely under the surface no matter where you go. Not great world history, but just little forgotten tidbits of happenings that you learn about and go HMMM, Interesting!
Just scratch a little bit (on the internet, of course) and there it is, a glimmer of what things were like 50, 60, 100 years ago.
Take this park for instance.
There is a shallow fountain pool with a Paul Manship sculpture inside, water spitting up from the four geese, a nice little stone shelter with an engraved quote from Robert Louis Stevenson about kids playing that is ghostly and eerie.
What I learned online was that in the 60’s, the sculpture was vandalized during what they call urban flight, and city officials moved it to a safer Como Park. For years, what sat in this park was a fiberglass replica.
The neighborhood turned again, and now the original is back home, where it belongs.
Interesting, huh?