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For the fourth year, the Riverside Oval Association is selling calendars depicting the neighborhood to raise funds to continue its work in the Lower Heights.
Homesick? Perhaps it’s time to go home. For some of us, home is a couple of train stops away. For others home means crossing state lines or hopping on a plane to see family and friends.
Those who can’t make the trip rely on other ways of connecting to home.
For a small group of Northern Manhattan natives, this year it will be the images of the Riverside Oval Association calendar that brought back memories of summers spent in the Cloisters and afternoons swimming in Highbridge pool.
The Riverside Oval Association is a neighborhood group that looks to improve the environment and the sense of community of the population living in the blocks west of Broadway between W. 155th and 160th Streets.
Since 2009, the area, including 20 distinctive pre-war buildings, has become the landmarked Audubon Park Historic District. Two of the residential buildings, the Grinnel and Riviera, celebrated their centennials this year.
The idea of the calendars started with Vivian Ducat, a member of the Riverside Oval Association, who grew up on W. 72nd St. and Riverside Drive and spent summers with aunts who lived in Washington Heights. Ducat started producing the calendar four years ago by working with different local residents to help select photos, copyedit, and create the graphic layout.
Thus far, the calendar has featured the works of painter Tony Serio and historical archival images that were collected by Ducat and her husband. This year it features neighborhood scenes photographed by Paula Winograd, a Parsons School of Design-educated photographer who also works with video, printmaking, and audio using her work as a tool for community empowerment.
The Riverside Oval Association’s 2011 calendar features the work of Paula Winograd, a Parsons School of Design-educated photographer.
“The calendar makes people excited because it depicts a neighborhood for which they have nostalgic feelings or because they’re proud,” said Ducat. According to Ducat, the money collected from calendar sales helps fund preservation activities of the Riverside Oval Association, such as installing tree guards, maintaining green spaces, and planting flowers.
The calendar has been a time machine for a number of people who, as former residents of the neighborhood, enjoy looking back and having the images to remind them of their childhoods. Although not all could be reached for comment, Ducat’s list of calendar fans extends from downtown Manhattan all the way to Florida, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia, where some of the former residents now live.
For Peter Zesson, 76, who grew up on W. 181 Street, the calendar brought back wonderful memories. Zesson, who now lives in New Jersey, learned about the calendar after reading a story in the Daily News. He decided he needed to get his hands on a couple to distribute to friends he had grown up with in the neighborhood whom he knew would be fond of the images.
“Every now and then I go back to Columbia Presbyterian and I take a drive through Audubon Avenue, I visit the Cloisters and the High Bridge,” said Zesson. Growing up in Washington Heights, Zesson looked back on the time when you could “walk to the candy store to get the paper and when everything you needed was within walking distance.”
Zesson, who attended J.H.S. 115, reminisced about summers he spent swimming at High Bridge pool, playing football, and going to street hockey matches outside Church of Incarnation on St. Nicholas Avenue, where he had a lot of good friends, some of whom he still keeps in touch with today.
After getting married, Zesson moved to New Jersey but continues to visit the neighborhood.
For Larry Ivers, who used to work on 181st St. and St. Nicholas Avenue, memories of working at the old supermarket and attending George Washington High School come alive every time he visits the neighborhood. Growing up in Inwood, during the late 50s and 60s, Ivers said that the neighborhood was predominantly Irish and Jewish, and that the streets were safe and the sense of community and brotherhood was clear. “It was a different pulse and beat at the time, and I realize that vibrancy is returning,” said Ivers.
Ivers, 58, who has lived in California and New Jersey and now lives downtown, said that although he moved out of Washington Heights he continues to make visits to the old neighborhood and even visited the “Off the Map” Holiday Market in Inwood last week. “I’ve become a reader of your paper and the Uptown Collective, so I found out about the market and took a trip to the neighborhood, walked around and relived my childhood,” Ivers said.
Ivers, whose father used to work at the Cloisters as the nighttime supervisor, bought the Riverside Oval Association calendar for himself and a cousin who also lived in the neighborhood. “I have a lot of fond memories from the Cloisters and Inwood, so now I bring friends to show them the neighborhood. I show them Ft. Tryon Park, the High Bridge, and the vibrancy that the place has now,” he said.
As a life long Manhattanite Ducat said she feels there are always new things to discover, from views to architectural details, which are all featured in this year’s calendar.
So far, Ducat has sold 357 of her Riverside Association calendars, over half of the number that were printed. The proceeds will raise money for the improvement and beautification of the area West of Broadway from W. 155 to W. 160th Streets.
“The neighborhood has fantastic architecture, even better than the Upper West Side. It has wonderful details on buildings, which I keep discovering,” said Ducat.
To purchase the calendar, or to support the Riverside Oval Association, contact Vivian Ducat at 917-301-1120 or at
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