Red, White and Blueway?

$33 million announced for New York City Historic Preservation New York City Dept. of Parks and Recreation $29,300 The Bronx River Alliance, in partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation, will design and publish a Bronx River Blueway Paddling Guide focusing on the eight-mile Bronx portion of the river. This guide will complement and interpret ongoing Bronx River Blueway Trail development, construction of the Bronx River Greenway, and ecological restoration of the watershed. In the American Revolutionary War, the British government won the first "Battle of Long Island" against General George Washington. Admiral Cornwallis was in charge of the British Navy in New York City which it occupied, Staten Island a "staging area" for troops. Admiral Cornwallis (not to be confused with General Cornwallis, which the combined American and French forces (army and navy) finally defeated in Virginia) was a close friend of the British King George. So close some forensic scientists having tested his wig, which was found to be high in arsenic, propose he may have "inadvertently" poisoned the king! Admiral Cornwallis was ordered by the king to sail up the Bronx River and defeat the rebels in White Plains, where Washington had one of his headquarters. Apparently the maps of the time had not been properly drawn to represent the shallow, narrow Bronx River, today running alongside the United States' first motor parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, which has been moved and altered somewhat, and some of the settlements removed for the creation of the Bronx Zoo, today part of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Bronx Botanical Gardens. That the official Borough of the Bronx flower was the "Titan Arum," (Amorphophallus titanum) the giant "corpse flower" of Sumatra, was apparently due to its popularity in the public mind (or the politicians) in the late 19th century. One is currently blooming at Virginia Tech ("Hundreds watch 'corpse flower' bloom") and at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden ("Brooklyn's Bloom, a Sight (and Stench) Not to Be Missed") and others have made the news recently, one in western Australia I recall. A few years ago, under Borough President Ferrer and a recent mayoral candidate, the official flower of the Borough of the Bronx was changed to the "day lily".