by Siskel » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:35 am
Continued once more ...
Anyway, we walked across the intersection and north on Broadway. We immediately came to Bowling Green, the first park dedicated in Manhattan. It is comparatively small and at its northern most tip stands the Wall Street Bull. Not that the bronzed statue has anything to do with the hunt and I am not even sure when it was erected, but it is worth noting that when standing at this spot and looking due north, the isle of B ultimately draws your eye to a single building in the distance - the only such building visible on the horizon - the Chysler Building (perhaps significant due to the eagle gargoyles that surround the upper portion of this skyscraper and which bear a striking resemblance to our illustrated bird). I tried to enlarge the picture to demonstrate this fact, but was not very successful, but take my word for it, it is eerily prominant and singularly visible in the distance. Also worth noting was a sign attached to the fence around Bowling Green (which is also next to a Subway stop - "Cars abound?" or is that just a reference to the sheer volume of traffic at this point?). I tried to take a picture of it but what it speaks to is the fact that this area was famous for sightings of the Peregrine Falcon (back to that damn bird again) a bird of prey that is bordering on extinction. The sign indicated that this spot was popular for viewing this rare bird. While it is doubtful this sign was posted back in 1982, the history may well have been known. Also, while the Peregrine Falcon's lower appendeges look more similar to our fine feathered friend in image 12, its beak is quite less pronounced leaving us with a hawklike cross between a falcon and an eagle. Should be noted that the Peregrine Falcon has a close cousin that is all white, the Gyrfalcon, also pretty rare, but more similar in its look to the one in the picture, however this bird is more closely associated with the arctic region unfortunately. Some other tidbits that drew us to this area included the reference to the "natives still speak of him of Hard word in three vols." which thus far Egbert believes might refer to Charles Dickens (author of Hard Times which, when written, was divided into three novellas) who visited lower manhattan in the 1860s and came to witness firsthand the area nearby known as the immigrant slum the Five Points (the model for the movie the Gangs of New York). Another possibility might be an additional reference to Netherlands born Peter Stuyvesant, a harsh ruler ("Hard word?") and autocrat, especially intolerant of religious dissenters. He served as director general of New Netherland from 1646-1664 and lost New Netherland to England. New Amsterdam became New York and Stuyvesant spent the rest of his life on his Manhattan farm called "Bouwerie" in Dutch; the road leading to Stuyvesant's farm is now the Bowery in Manhattan. Finally, Egbert and I ventured up to 97th Street, near Central Park, to see the most famous Russian Orthodox Onion Dome church in all of Manahattan, the St. Nicholas Cathedral (again, see pix). As you can see, the domes are very similar to those depicted in image 12, leading us to believe that the structure is more likely a cathedral and not necessarilly the immigration center on Ellis Island. Still, that said, there is no other nearby corresponding sites or signs that seem to relate to Image 12 or the verse we were trying to match it to in verse 10. Frustrating to say the least. And that is not to mention our inability to find a single stained glass window that bore any resemblance to those three colored panels which, as has been posted before, seem more and more to be a reference to those color blind tests, but without revealing anything hidden within. In the end, we were unable to narrow our search to a specific area in Manhattan and may have raised more questions than found answers, but we wanted to at least post the pictures with some elaborate explanation for those not able to travel to this area and/or to spark some more discussion for those locals and those far away in attempting to figure out this maddening picture. Thats all for now. Hope it was helpful.
Last edited by
Siskel on Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
"The way you do anything is the way you do everything." -- Buddhist saying
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