Spirits Rise and Sink During a Single Stroll Through the Neighborhood

Water finally returns to Collect Pond Park, left, and the nearby former Manhattan Detention Center, right, that is undergoing a controversial demolition, to be replaced by the world's tallest jail. "How lucky I am to be living in such an inspiring neighborhood," says the author, "and how powerless I feel as a citizen in contributing to the welfare of our beautiful, fragile and hard-striving community." Photos: Jonathan Hollander

On my way to pick up some dinner at the always-crowded-for-good-reason Bodhi Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant, I decided to walk diagonally through Collect Pond Park to get some relief from the concrete, steel and glass. To my surprise, the ponds that had been heralded when the park underwent several years of rebuilding, finally opening in 2012, were full of water and the sylvan glade ambience presumably intended by the designers was achieved.  Weeks, months and years— 10 years?—had gone by with the ponds empty other than discarded bottles, cans and trash carelessly tossed by the occasional park visitors.

Crossing the bridge that divides the two ponds with a feeling of relief and happiness that the City Parks Department had somehow conquered the filling of the ponds, I continued East into Chinatown, passing the unsightly and foreboding Manhattan Detention Center and North Tower of the Tombs complex, entirely shrouded with scaffolding. My spirits sank, thinking about the incomprehensible decision on the part of both DeBlasio and Adams Administrations to demolish these buildings and erect the world's first skyscraper jail. Does our City need such a "landmark" that will fail to address the broken incarceration system, the mental health crisis, the homeless tragedy?  

I proceeded towards the restaurant on Mulberry Street, but took the path that circumscribes Columbus Park, Chinatown's only large greenspace, soon to be polluted with the toxic dust, noise and vehicular traffic that will serve the dismantling of the detention center buildings. What I saw inside the park was the best of New York City—the confluence of ethnicities, cultures, generations, genders (definitely more than two) engaged in playing soccer, boxing practice, Chinese traditional dance with long colorful scarves, chess, mahjong, and just plain socializing among friends, tourists, and passersby.    

I finally retraced my steps with packets of eggplant in garlic sauce, sauteed string beans and brown rice, and sat down to eat and reflect how lucky I am to live in such an inspiring neighborhood but how powerless I feel as a citizen in contributing to the welfare of our beautiful, fragile and hard-striving community.

Hollander is the founder and artistic director of Tribeca-based Battery Dance.