Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity

Chapter 6. Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park: Parks and Symbolic Cultural Expression

Chapter 6 Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park Parks and Symbolic Cultural Expression Introduction O n the Fourth of July in 1996, I (Suzanne Scheld) made my first visit to Orchard Beach. Typically, this holiday conjures up images of barbecues , festive good moods, and the colors red, white, and blue. That day I found all of this in the park. The colors of the American flag were prominently displayed. More often than stars and stripes, however, I saw triangles, rectangles, and crosses— the red, white, and blue symbols of the Puerto Rican and Dominican flags. These markers of Latino and Caribbean identity were tied to tree branches and to posts in the picnic area. Narrow pieces of twine were drawn between tree trunks so as to create private spaces and to delineate one family’s picnicking space from another’s. These decorative and expressive forms of territorialism impressed me. The park became a common ground for diverse cultural groups to share and to reshape one national holiday. Orchard Beach is our second case study of an urban beach. In contrast to Jacob Riis Park,1 Orchard Beach is a well-utilized park. It is thriving, full of life, activity, and cultural expression. Orchard Beach, located in the Bronx on the border of Westchester County, is part of Pelham Bay Park, New York City’s largest public space (map 6.1). While it is visited by many, it is especially enjoyed by Latino visitors, seniors, and naturalists. This chapter describes the symbolic expressions of these cultural groups, and it suggests that the number and types of cultural symbols displayed underscore how deeply attached visitors are to the park. The design, planning, and management of a park can stifle the cultural expressions of visitors. In the case of Orchard Beach, however, a laissezfaire approach to management—which is at times intentional and other times unintentional—enables visitor groups to elaborate unique symbolic displays of their connections to the park. As a thriving public space, Orchard Beach has additional significance. It is a resource for bolstering Latino community identity and thus contributes to sustaining New York’s cultural diversity. In this light, Orchard Beach is similar to American Beach, a Floridian seashore park celebrated for its role in African American history. Located on Amelia Island in the northeastern corner of the 128 R ETHINK ING UR BAN PAR K S state, American Beach was developed as a resort for employees of the AfroAmerican Life Insurance Company in the mid-1930s, when segregation in the United States prevented blacks and whites from sharing public recreational resources (Phelts 1997; Rymer 1998; Cruikshank and Bouchier 2001). Today residents decorate buildings and murals in the town to demonstrate that the political and social importance of American Beach has not been forgotten. At Orchard Beach an association with Latino identity was not created in response to the kind of racial segregation that shaped American Beach. However, the economic marginalization and spatial segregation of Latinos living in the Bronx played a role in the development of a strong Latino identification with Orchard Beach and the adoption of the park as a place invested with cultural significance. This chapter reflects how visitor groups, Latinos in particular, communicate cultural meaning through symbolic forms of expression such as music, dance, food, recreational activities, and ways of talking about knowledge and experience of the park. These kinds of communication reflect how marginalized groups within the city can feel “at home” in a park and how they can make it a place of their own. Map 6.1. Pelham Bay Park ORCHARD B E A C H IN PE L HA M B AY PA RK 1 2 9 Methodology The Public Space Research Group (PSRG) conducted a user study of Pelham Bay Park between July 1996 and June 1998. Orchard Beach was a major focus of the study, although other parts of the park were also examined, including the separate “southern zone” along Interstate 95 and Rodman’s Neck. Periodically park managers conduct user studies to better understand the populations they serve and to efficiently target efforts toward creating a successful public space. Typically these studies focus on describing the demographics of the visitors and collecting user evaluations of the park through widely distributed , self-administered surveys. The park managers of Pelham Bay were open to a complementary cultural approach that entailed extensive participant...