One of the reasons the view across the Hudson River from Linden Terrace at Fort Tryon Park is so unspoiled, as the story goes, is that when John D. Rockefeller, Jr. bequeathed the land to the city in 1931, he also bought hundreds of acres of the Palisades to prevent it from becoming developed. Well played, Johnny. Now you can sit, relax and look at the river, the George Washington Bridge arcing off west and a bunch of densely forested New Jersey, which is often better to look at than other kinds of New Jersey.
I was checking out the view up there late this morning for the Fort Tryon Park Trust’s “Pancakes in the Park” benefit. It was the first such benefit staged by the Friends Committee of the 25-year-old Trust and it reminded me of the “spaghetti supper” events from church basements and school cafeterias of my youth. It was a bunch of chatty Mom-types selling $10 meal tickets at the base of the terrace. Set up on the terrace under a tent was a catering service dishing out steam-tray scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, sausage, sweet rolls, orange juice and coffee, and pancakes that were being made one at a time on griddles, and could be topped with blueberries, sugar or a grilled onion-vegetable medley.
The maximum turnout while I was sitting there on a bench eating my brunch was maybe 50 folks, seemingly a solid half of them young children. I’m bad at guessing ages, but these were in the range of stroller-bound up to that age where they’re running all over the place, and even when you shout, “Cody, stop it! Get over here!” they ignore you and keep darting about.
A yard sale was part of the breakfast although the intermittent rains made it a challenge to sift through the macramé owls and World’s Best Dad coffee mugs that had been carefully arranged atop card tables. It was an actual yard sale, and paired with the pancakes, it made me momentarily nostalgic for the suburbs.
Later in the afternoon, sitting out the drizzly weather in my apartment, I came across a tidbit in a New Yorker article from 1926 mentioning that the Morris-Jumel Mansion, at Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street in Washington Heights, had on exhibit the only mastodon bones ever found in New York City, unearthed on Dyckman Street very near where live. I certainly had to check this out, but the problem with not having home internet access (yes, it’s down again) is an inability to fact-check. I should have figured an 80-year-old article might not have contained the most up-to-date information available. When I showed up at the mansion, there were no bones in sight, other than the sour old woman who admitted me, seized my $4 admission and told me she’d be closing the house promptly at 4 p.m. Then she retreated to the gift shop to read her romance novel.
Sitting atop a rise on a neatly landscaped plot, the house contains period furniture, drapery and other old-time decor. At just over 240, it’s the oldest house in Manhattan and has really creaky wooden floors and probably a few ghosts. George Washington, when he was commander-in-chief of the American Army, made the house his headquarters for the Battle of Harlem Heights during the American Revolution.