C Tann-Starr

Rumor has it this arch has been standing since 1884. I believe it, for there are signatures on the bronze statues from the likes of William Rudolf O'Donovan and Thomas Eakins 1893 & 1894. According to Wikipedia, "It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1867." It is also reported by Wiki that, "it is perhaps best known for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, Brooklyn’s version of the Arc de Triomphe." You can read the full article with some very interesting historical links here.

There is nothing to compare the feeling of watching countless newly weds flock to Grand Army Plaza to be married. I enjoyed jogging in the sunshine while watching happy couples exchange their vows. Limos line up in rows while families and friends hop in and out to take auxiliary photographs of their weddings beneath the arch and in the surrounding park like settings of flawless landscaping showcasing historical monuments.

Grand Army Plaza is absolutely beautiful -- truly a Brooklyn gem, and a must see if you decide to vacation in New York City.

Here is some eye candy from my turtle run. Enjoy!

If you ever find yourself on Avenue U and East 33rd Street in Kings County, then you must pull into Marine Park and visit the Salt Marsh Nature Center (SMNC) located at 3302 Avenue U, Brooklyn, New York 11234, (718) 421-2021. I absolutely love this place and the kids are wild about it. Where else can you meet up with the Urban Park Rangers, the History Club, do some sketching in the Zen of Seeing and Drawing program as well as participate in Woodworking Workshops, Birding, Yoga, Pilates, Tap and Line Dancing all under one roof?

What a gorgeous roof it is -- and it hosts so many wonderful community projects! For example, the Salt March Alliance (SMA) routinely invites the public to participate in non-commercial art shows which are exhibited at the SMNC. The SMA may be reached at (917) 841-9283 if you would like more information and are interested in supporting the SMNC by participating in one of their charitable events.

The SMNC is directly across the Avenue from the fields in Marine Park. The cricket games are fascinating to watch and I do enjoy baseball. They hold soccor tournaments as well. I love to turtle run in Marine Park. (Truth be known, I think I love to turtle run anywhere where there is eye candy!)

I like to do my cool down and stretching in the side court by the atrium. Not only are there bathrooms conveniently located here, the entrance to the Salt Marsh Nature Center (SMNC) has some unusual eye candy suspended from the the atrium.

There is a collection of birds overhead floating in flight around the skylights.

This shot is one of my favorites! There are a lot of fascinating exhibits to engage one's imagination here.

Did you know if you strolled through the building to the rear Courtyard you will discover a beautiful place to hang out with spectacular water views? This is where Lawn Chair Theater is held! Another fav activity! Yay!

On 7/31/08 I am going to accept their invitation to view the Alfred Hitchcock Classic "The Birds." Their movies usually start around 7:30 PM (or when it's dusky enough to see the projection). The little minions are just as excited about their road trip as their Mama and have their Wiggles blanket all packed and ready to go. We shall picnic for dinner tomorrow and do a little gawking because Assemblyman Alan Maisel is co-sponsoring the event! He is such a treat, we plan to bring extra snack-age to share!

Here is some more eye candy from my Marine Park, Salt Marsh Nature Center turtle run in Brooklyn, Kings County, NY. (These are some of the views from the rear Courtyard.) Stay tuned for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza next. Enjoy!

This series of residential tours is inspired by my girlfriends Elizabeth Weintraub (of Sacramento) and Poppy Dinsey (of London, UK). The Weintraub Gallery features her favorite Land Park Homes in Sacramento (NY Times, About.com), while Poppy D (Zoomf) takes us on an eclectic tour of her neck of the woods in "A Walk Around Chester, England," and "A Walk Around London England."

In "Home Inspections" Elizabeth asks us, "Where Do You Draw The Line On Repair Requests?" If you haven't been acquainted with her blog, please make it your business to do so, for it is definitely a must read. E's blog also contains an outstanding kitchen remodeling series where we are taken on a delightful day by day, step by step, behind the scenes tour full of humor, angst, horror and praise while providing some excellent remodeling eye candy. It is by far one of the best on-line reads I have ever encountered. Truth be told, I just left there and I'm still giggling...

Poppy D has a "thoroughly British blog" and keeps the smile on my face with her delightfully humorous video entitled, "I may not be at Connect, but I have American candy!" What a neat introduction regarding some of her favorite foods and I enjoyed hearing her delightful accent! Now, when I read her blog and emails I enjoy the memory of her voice ringing in my ears and the words leap off the page with a British melody. We are so looking forward to your New York visit, my dear. Don't forget your cowboy hat!

You should also check out my friend Deborah Burroughs, an Agent/Loan Officer in Vista, CA who takes us on a delightful tour of things to do and places to see while showcasing the geological history of a local Volcano Plug. If you are into eye candy, like me, then you will enjoy visiting Deborah's blog for "Mt Calavera adds a bit of natural history and intrigue to the surroundings communities of Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista." See Part I and Part II of what is fast becoming one of my favorite Club Chaos Localism series.

Here is some eye candy from my turtle run in Jamaica Estates, Queens County, NY. I'm off to do another "historical post." Stay tuned for some eye candy from my turtle run around Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. Enjoy!

This turtle run was inspired by my girlfriends Elizabeth Weintraub, (NY Times, About.com) a Sacramento Real Estate Broker for Lyon Real Estate and Poppy Dinsey of Zoomf, London, UK. It is dedicated to a very talented gentleman, Gary Woltal, a Dallas Ft. Worth Realtor at Keller Williams Realty and my dear friend Melody Botting of Melody Botting RE/MAX Empire Realty. Mel gives us a taste of her vacation in the U.K. with her blog entitled, "Subaru Family Bragging Rights."

In "It All Counts," Gary presents some excellent talking points about how we influence people with our words. My favorite thought includes this partial quote from Leo Buscaglia: "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt." He does an excellent job of this, and so do my friends and I love their blogs.

Kudos and congrats to Elizabeth, who will be featured on HGTV's House Hunters! If you haven't read her blog, you need to make it your business to take a peek. She provides some wonderful eye candy regarding the behind the scenes day to day renovation of a marvelous rehab job of her kitchen. Her commentary had me tickled pink. Too bad you aren't privy to her phone calls... you'd be smiling for days.

Poppy D takes us on a new tour of the United Kingdom and provides some very delicious eye candy of historic buildings and landmarks with her latest blog entitled "A Walk About Chester, England." BTW, did you know that "according to new figures from the Bank of England, in some parts of the UK as many as four in ten home-buyers pull out before they complete?" Check out her 40% of British Buyers blog here. If you haven't checked out her company, you should. Zoomf is a genuine vertical search engine. Agents can list their properties for free (and seriously increase their Google juice). If you do list there, she also gives great advice with her blog entitled, "The Importance of Listing Photographs." I've been playing with its features and I have to say it has been a lot of fun peeking at available properties in the United Kingdom. If I had to choose three words to describe it, I would say "complete, unbiased and swanky." It's a shame they don't cover the United States, but maybe we can work on that together. It would certainly influence Craiglist to up its game and would probably make Trulia scramble to compete for content. Oops, sorry, Active Rain has already managed to do that... but I digress.

This turtle run is all about historical buildings. After checking out Chester, England, and Tower Bridge, how could I not? Today's eye candy features City Hall, which is located in the borough of Manhattan situated at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. According to the official website of the City of New York (NYC.gov NYCTV-OP page), "New York City's City Hall is the oldest city hall in the nation still used today as a center for city government. For 200 years this building has been at the center of politics, protests and civic celebrations."

Did you know that there are reportedly more than 100 paintings by some of the leading late-18th to mid-19th century American artists housed inside? The published list includes such notables as Samuel F. B. Morse, Rembrandt Peale and John Trumbull. According to Wikipedia, Samuel Finley Breese Morse not only painted portraits and historic scenes like the ones on display in City Hall, he also "created" the single wire telegraph system and was the "co-inventor, with Alfred Vail, of the Morse Code."

Stay tuned for Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. Here is some eye candy from my turtle run. Enjoy!

This has been, by far, one of the best turtle runs I have ever been on. It took four visits to collect these pictures and conduct a little research so that I could give an account to my out of state/country friends some history behind one of my favorite spots to enjoy some eye candy. This post is dedicated to my girlfriends Kathy Passarette, L.I. Staging/Decorating, a fellow Club Chaos Brooklynite, Elizabeth Weintraub, Sacramento Real Estate Broker, Lyon Real Estate, Poppy Dinsey ~ Zoomf, London, UK (who inspired this entire project with a delicious piece of eye candy of London's Tower Bridge). Since Poppy was kind enough to give us "A Walk Around London," I decided to give her a turtle run across The Brooklyn Bridge...

By the way, Poppy takes us on a new tour of the United Kingdom and provides some very delicious eye candy with "A Walk About Chester, England."

What can one say about "The Brooklyn Bridge"? As a native New Yorker born and raised in Brooklyn, one of the first things we were taught as little children is the fact that The Brooklyn Bridge happens to be one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. I don't know how long it is, there have been a few squabbles about that with the highway extensions being added, as well as the expanded "on" and "off" ramps, but I do know that it extends over the East River connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. At one point, it was the only land connection for people to cross between the City of Brooklyn and the City of New York. On the Manhattan side, it ends in front of City Hall Park. On the Brooklyn side, it ends on Brooklyn Bridge Blvd where the US Post Office and Court complexes are located. On completion, it was reported to be the largest suspension bridge in the world and is rumored to have been the first steel-wire suspension bridge. Originally referred to as "The New York and Brooklyn Bridge," it was called "The Brooklyn Bridge" in an 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and was eventually re-named by the City of New York government officials in 1915. It was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark as well as a National Historical Landmark, the latter taking place one year before I was born, sometime in 1964.

Construction reportedly began on January 3, 1870 and took approximately 13 years to complete. On May 24, 1883 The Brooklyn Bridge was considered officially opened. According to Wikipedia, "On that first day, a total of 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed what was then the only land passage between Manhattan and Brooklyn. The bridge's main span over the East River is 1,595 feet 6 inches (486.3 m). The bridge cost $15.5 million to build and approximately 27 people died during its construction. One week after the opening, on May 30, a rumor that the Bridge was going to collapse caused a stampede which crushed and killed twelve people. At the time it opened, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world — 50% longer than any previously built — and it has become a treasured landmark. Additionally, for several years the towers were the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere."

Here, and the following two photographs, I'm facing Brooklyn standing before the Manhattan side Tower where one of the corner stones is visible. This Tower was capped in 1875.

Here is a shot of the underside of the Brooklyn side Tower, near The River Cafe off of Water Street. There is a man-made water fall off the promenade I may have to feature soon. The eye candy at night is spectacular! Imagine dining under the BB while staring at the Manhattan skyline... I see a night run in my future...

If you are going to jog (or visit) beneath the BB, you must enter the promenade for a wonderful view of the bridge, Manhattan, the Statute of Liberty, and South Street Seaport.

I started each of my turtle runs from the Brooklyn end. I love coming around the bend and being greeted by the Manhattan skyline. Reaching City Hall is always such a nice incentive. I shall blog about that in the very near future as well.

Off camera, the Manhattan Bridge is to your right, well past the Verizon building towering in the photo.

Not only can you see the Manhattan Bridge to the right of the BB, if you look closely you can also pick out the Empire State Building in the left side of the photograph.

To your left of the BB, as you cross the bridge towards City Hall Park, you can enjoy views of the South Street Seaport and even see the Statute of Liberty off on the horizon.

At the Manhattan side Tower of the BB, there is a gap in the cables which gives you an unobstructed view of the Manhatan Bridge that is just awesome! If you look closely, you can see a man made waterfall streaming in the background just under the roadway and a little to the right of the base of the MB's Manhattan side Tower.

As you near the BB's exit, there is a gorgeous view of historical architecture...

Stay tuned for my next turtle run showcasing City Hall and City Hall Park.

I love New York!