Parks and Other Recreation Areas

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Estalló una guerra cultural por las casas señoriales del Reino Unido. ¿Quién ganó?

      by

      Una batalla en torno a la historia de las casas de campo más preciadas del país ofrecía un vistazo al estado de ánimo nacional antes de unas elecciones clave.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Un cuadro en Dyrham House, una gran mansión en el suroeste de Inglaterra, ofrece una vista panorámica del puerto de Bridgetown, Barbados, con plantaciones de azúcar salpicadas a lo largo de una ladera.En otra habitación hay dos figuras talladas que representan a hombres negros arrodillados, sosteniendo sobre sus cabezas conchas de vieira. Están encadenados por los tobillos y el cuello.Estas obras pertenecieron a William Blathwayt, quien fue propietario de Dyrham a finales del siglo XVII y principios del XVIII y, como auditor general británico de las rentas de las plantaciones, supervisaba las ganancias que llegaban de las colonias.Explicar la historia de un lugar como Dyrham puede resultar polémico, como ha descubierto el National Trust, la organización benéfica de casi 130 años de antigüedad que gestiona muchas de las casas históricas más preciadas del Reino Unido.Después de que la organización renovó sus exposiciones para poner de relieve los vínculos entre decenas de sus propiedades y la explotación y la esclavitud de la época colonial, provocó la ira de algunos columnistas y académicos de derecha, que acusaron al fondo de ser “progre”, insinuaron que estaba presentando una visión“antibritánica” de la historia e iniciaron una campaña para revertir algunos de los cambios.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      A Man Missing for 10 Days in a California Forest Is Found Alive

      by

      Lukas McClish said he lost 30 pounds in 10 days but was rescued without any major injuries.On the morning of June 11, Lukas McClish stopped by the home of a friend who told him about a granite outcropping in the nearby woods that piqued his interest, so Mr. McClish set out on his own, shirtless, to explore the scenery.Mr. McClish, 34, of Boulder Creek, Calif., would not be seen or heard from for nine nights and 10 days. His disappearance into California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park would prompt a search that involved about 300 people, emergency personnel from several agencies and ended with help from a dog.Mr. McClish, a hiker who does landscaping in forests that have been razed by wildfires, appeared to have been swallowed by the woods.“I was just so astounded by being lost,” he said in a telephone interview.The area where Mr. McClish was lost had been hard-hit by the C.Z.U. Lightning Complex fire in 2020 and “looks completely different from all of the other terrain,” he said.“That’s one thing that I didn’t take into consideration — when the fire comes through like that and decimates it, it turns into the desert, and you’re unable to find your bearings,” he said.Typical markers to gain a sense of direction, like deer trails or hiking paths, were gone. But Mr. McClish, an experienced backpacker who has traversed other rugged regions of the United States, took it as an opportunity to explore a part of his backyard that he was unfamiliar with.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      After Splash Park Shooting, Michigan Community Feels a Familiar Pain

      by

      The violence in the city of Rochester Hills, which injured nine people including children, comes three years after the shooting at Oxford High School in the same county. One day after a shooting in a splash park in suburban Detroit injured nine people, including children, residents on Sunday were struggling to process what happened, with bafflement, fear and shock. “It was hard to go to sleep last night. It’s hard to function this morning,” said Alex Roser, a 33-year-old pharmacy technician who said he grew up in the area.On Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire at a splash pad — a play area for children with blue cylinders that spray water — in Rochester Hills. The police identified the shooter as Michael William Nash, 42, and said that the handgun recovered at the scene was legally purchased in 2015 and registered to him. Authorities said that a motive was not yet known but that the attack appeared to be random. Mr. Nash was found dead with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound later on Saturday in his home nearby, they said. The wounded included an 8-year-old boy, a 4-year-old boy and their 39-year-old mother, authorities said. Others at the park that day were a city employee and 14 of his friends and family members. The city employee’s wife was shot, Mayor Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills said Sunday. He added that two of the victims were in critical condition, while the others were stable.As the community reeled, it was not lost on residents that this was the second shooting in the area in recent years: In 2021 at Oxford High School in the same county, a student fatally shot four of his classmates and injured seven others. And many were horrified that this time it happened so close to their home, in a city that promotes itself on its website as one of the safest in America. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Does P-22, the Celebrity Big Cat of Los Angeles, Have a Successor?

      by

      More than a year after the death of P-22, the beloved mountain lion who made Griffith Park his home, another has been spotted nearby.Vladimir Polumiskov witnessed a wild mountain lion near his home in Los Angeles.Vladimir PolumiskovFor months, Los Angeles residents believed the park had been vacated. Only the memory of P-22, the beloved celebrity mountain lion who had once made it his home, lingered as the city mourned his death. That was until this month, when an apparent successor — another mountain lion, seemingly bigger, younger and stronger — emerged late one night.“It’s very mystical,” said Vladimir Polumiskov, who captured footage of the big cat near his apartment complex, which borders Griffith Park, a sprawling urban reserve north of downtown Los Angeles. “They called P-22 the Brad Pitt of the Hollywood Hills,” he said. “This is going to be the puma DiCaprio.”Mr. Polumiskov, 30, saw the “huge cat” around 9 p.m. on May 14, he said, just as he was returning home from dinner with his wife and their 2-year-old son.He said he had just parked and was unbuckling his son from his seat when he noticed the creature standing just feet away from his car. He gingerly placed his son back into his seat, got back in the car, and closed all the doors — all while the animal stared at him. “I was shocked at how big he was,” he said. “This guy is just beautiful.”After the mountain lion known as P-22 was euthanized in December 2022, a new mountain lion, P-122, has emerged in the same area of the Hollywood Hills. Vladimir PolumiskovWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Veteran Describes Grizzly Bear Attack as ‘Most Violent’ Experience Ever

      by

      Shayne Patrick Burke, a disabled veteran in the Army Reserve, said the attack was “the most violent” thing he had experienced, including being shot at.Shayne Patrick Burke was on a short hike this month to photograph owls in the backcountry of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming when he spotted a grizzly bear cub about 50 to 70 yards in front of him.Instantly, Mr. Burke knew that the cub’s presence signaled trouble, he wrote on Instagram.Moments later, Mr. Burke, 35, was attacked by the cub’s mother.He turned his back, got on his stomach and locked his hands behind his neck, following advice he had read about grizzly bear attacks, he said.During the attack, on May 19, the bear repeatedly bit Mr. Burke and picked him up and slammed him to the ground, before, he wrote, one of his screams “unfortunately, but fortunately, turned her attention to my head.”It was a terrifying moment, but it ultimately saved his life.The bear bit at Mr. Burke’s neck, but his hands and arms were still interlocked behind it and, crucially, he had grabbed a can of bear spray when he saw the cub.“I never let go of the bear spray can,” he wrote. “As she bit my hands in the back of my neck she simultaneously bit the bear spray can and it exploded in her mouth.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Lake Mead Ancient Rocks Toppled by Vandals

      by

      After a video was widely shared online of two men pushing over a rock formation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, the authorities are asking for the public’s help to identify them.The National Park Service is seeking help from the public to find two men who were captured on camera toppling an ancient natural rock formation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada last week, officials said on Monday.A video posted on April 7 shows the two men, legs bent, pushing the large red rocks. A young girl in the background can be heard yelling: “Don’t fall … Daddy! Daddy!” As the men try to move the rocks, another person is heard off-camera saying, “But why?”The National Park Service is asking anyone who might be able to help identify the “vandalism suspects” to call or text the National Park Service-wide Tip Line 888-653-0009, submit a tip online or email nps_isb@nps.gov.Lake Mead National Recreation Area, established in 1936, is 2,338 square miles. It runs along the Colorado River, from the western end of Grand Canyon National Park to below Davis Dam. The sandstone formations on the Redstone Trail were shaped over time by geological forces from 140 million-year-old dunes, according to the National Park Service.“National parks are some of the most special, treasured, and protected areas of our country,” the agency said in a statement. “To protect these natural and cultural resources for this and future generations, all visitors to national parks are expected to follow park laws and regulations.”John Haynes, the public information officer for Lake Mead National Recreation Area, told KVVU, a Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, that he didn’t understand why someone would vandalize it.“This almost feels like a personal attack in a way,” Mr. Haynes said.Vandalism in national parks is nothing new, Jordan Fifer, a public affairs specialist for the National Park Service told The New York Times.“Unfortunately, it’s common,” Mr. Fifer said. “We rarely, however, see something of this nature where the people in the video seem so intent on destruction.”In 2021, vandals destroyed abstract geometric designs at Big Bend National Park in Texas that had survived for thousands of years by scratching their names and dates into them.The U.S. National Park Service condemns such behaviors on its website, noting that disturbing wildlife or damaging their habitats can directly lead to their demise and is illegal. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Lauren Haynes to Be New Head Curator on Governors Island

      by

      Lauren Haynes brings her curatorial expertise to the goal of growing Governors Island’s public art program.The Trust for Governors Island announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Lauren Haynes as the new head curator and vice president of arts and culture for the 172-acre island, situated in New York Harbor with ringside views of the Statue of Liberty, Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn waterfront.“We have big ambitions for the arts program here, which is to be New York’s pre-eminent public art destination,” said Clare Newman, the president and chief executive of the Trust, a nonprofit organization created by the city to develop and operate the island as a recreational and cultural resource.“Lauren is very good at bringing emerging voices and underrepresented artists to the forefront and shares our ideas about growing the public art program significantly,” said Newman, who tapped Haynes, most recently the director of curatorial affairs and programs at the Queens Museum.Originally used by the Lenape for hunting and fishing, the island became an Army base in the early 19th century, then was used by the Coast Guard in the late 20th century and opened to the public in 2005. Now ferries run regularly from Lower Manhattan year-round and directly from Brooklyn in warmer months, with 931,000 trips to the island last year, according to the Trust.“We have fantastic examples of public art throughout the city, but what makes Governors Island unique is really our location and the fact that it’s an experience to get here,” Haynes said. The idea of disconnecting from the city, while still visible, and reconnecting to nature on the island, she continued, “feels like where the opportunity is.”Haynes, 42, will build on a half dozen permanent and long-term public artworks by Rachel Whiteread, Mark Handforth, Sam Van Aken, Mark Dion, Sheila Berger and Shantell Martin that are positioned around the island and previously stewarded by Meredith Johnson, the first head curator at the Trust. Early this summer, Jenny Kendler is creating “Other of Pearl,” an immersive installation evoking marine ecosystems in the subterranean spaces of Fort Jay, on the northern part of the island.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Some of Washington’s Iconic Cherry Trees Are About to Disappear

      by

      The National Park Service plans to chop down 140 of the trees as it builds a new sea wall to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.Around 140 cherry trees that form part of Washington’s iconic spring attraction will be chopped down this year to make way for the construction of new, taller sea walls to protect the area around the Jefferson Memorial.The National Park Service, which is overseeing the project, said on Wednesday that it had tried to minimize the loss of the trees, which erupt each year in a burst of pink and white splendor that draws more than 1.5 million visitors. But the age of the existing barriers, rising sea levels and poor drainage forced its hand.The current sea walls have sunk as much as five feet since their construction in the late 1800s and are no longer an effective bulwark against tidal waves and storm surges. Tides submerge parts of the walls twice a day, the Park Service said.“Despite various repairs over the decades, the sea walls are no longer structurally sound and threaten visitor safety and the historic setting, including the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin,” the Park Service said in a statement.The sea walls at the Tidal Basin have sunk as much as five feet.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesBlossom lovers still have one chance to experience the blooms in their full glory. Construction will not start until late May, after the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which runs from late March to mid-April.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More