Category — Mabel Tripp Gardens

It started as a fraternity stunt, but running enthusiasts the world over now look forward to it almost as much as the Boston and New York Marathons. It’s the Mile-High Marathon, a uniquely urban race, and it happens right here in our very own city.

The goal of the marathon (although, at seven total miles of running distance, it remains far from an actual marathon) is to run every continuous inch of it along the city’s landscaping and architecture – as long as you run above street-level!

The race begins – as it has ever since Tau Theta Mu pledges first made the run in 1978 – on the Calvin Siegel Walkway running adjacent to the elevated train at the Pepper Avenue and 77^th Street station. The brick walkway runs three-quarters of a mile along a beautifully landscaped flower garden, and luckily leads directly to the Industry Island Ferry.

Runners jog up the gangplank, up the stairs, and take a mandatory fifty laps of the upper decks before disembarking on the island (although officials frown on runners taking to using the low wall surrounding the island, they tacitly allow foot traffic as long as a strict one-at-a-time and “no rough-housing” rule is obeyed). From the walls, runners hop to the stairs leading up to the Wheat Bay Aquarium, running across the plexiglass “Bridge Across the Sea” (one at a time, monitored by off-duty police officers), and then taking speed-walking laps inside the elevated cable car as it takes them back to the mainland (deliberate rocking of the car earns instant disqualification from the race).

From there, it’s across the marble walkway at the Center Alley Public Library, across the backs of the Seven Virtues statues, up the stairwell at Business Plaza Tower to the 22^nd floor, where runners are allowed ten at a time across the enclosed corporate walkway leading to the Darcy Ford-Davis Building.

Runners then take to the second and third stories of Cashville Mall, eventually boarding the British-style double-decker tour busses which are specifically rented for the event. Traffic regulations limit the athletic activity in which one can engage on the exposed top tier of a two-story bus, so runners content themselves with stomping their feet while sitting comfortably, until they reach the Wonderland Walk at Mabel Tripp Gardens.

Running the Wonderland Walk boardwalk leads participants to an awkward scramble up and down the curves of the Gardens’ famous wooden roller-coaster, The ‘Splitter, after which elated and exhausted runners can finally reach the home-stretch- The Mile High Marathon elevated bridge, built specifically for the event in 2003, funded by private contributions.

Participants past, present and future are currently petitioning the city to add a 1300-foot extension to the Mile-High Marathon Bridge, linking it to modern artist Christo’s 1992 installation “Stilt City,” adding another valuable 500 yards to the Marathon and bringing it within spitting distance of Chauncey Butler Arena, the year-round home to the Chauncey Butler Circus and its tantalizing assortment of highwires and trapezes.
- J. Morris

A select listing of notable events around the city in the next week, culled from local publications:

Feb. 8
Devil and Ms. Milveaux book reading/signing- Author Margaret Milveaux reads from her locally best-selling book, 7:30 pm, Woldman Heights branch library. Free.

Feb.9
SCAMUG - The Society for Creative Anachronism Macintosh Users Group, 6 pm, Java (the) Hutt. Free.

Same Time, Next Year- President Heights Friends School 8th grade production of an edited version of the Neil Simon classic, 8 pm, President Heights Friends School’s Millard Fillmore Auditorium. $15.

Feb.10
Bruce Hornsby- 8 pm, Cranston Auditorium. $15-$50.

Comedy Killerz - Every Saturday, 8 pm, Zanies Komedy Kafe. Safe, fun improv for everyone! No swears allowed! $8.

Feb.11
The Range- 3 pm, Cranston Auditorium. $10.

Mabel Tripp Gardens winter tour- Park personnel take visitors on a five-hour trek around one of our city’s natural botanical marvels, during a time when everything is dead/hibernating, 11 am, $10.

Feb.12
ALASUMMIT- Representatives of local chapters of Alanon, Alano, Alateen, Alafam, Alaelderly and Alakidz gather to negotiate an end to the bitter and violent rivalries amongst these groups over the last two years. 6 pm, Constitution Hall, City Hall Annex. Free.

Feb.13
City Orchestra - Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and “La Mer,” Schubert’s “Symphony in C Major” and selections from James Horner’s score for Ransom. Orchestra Hall, 8 pm. $37.50-$125.

Feb.14
Single Methodists who Enjoy Lost- Discussion group, mixer and viewing of new episode, 8 pm, McCann Methodist Church, 1265 McCann Ave. $2.

Valentine’s Day Blood-O-Rama- Blood drive, Carson Drive Armory, 6 am-8 pm. Free

“Love Is S**t” - Special Valentine’s Day open mic poetry night, 8 pm, Coffee (Art Of), 876 South Archibald. Free.
- R. White, L. Dinkins-White

:: Sister city featured on municipal signage on December 6, 1941- Mihara City, Japan

:: Sister city featured on municipal signage as of December 9, 1941- Newcastle, England

:: Hanna-Barbera animator Clark E. Pantuso reportedly modeled the design for the Super Friends’ Hall of Justice on the Pioneer Square Strip Mall, at the corner of SE. South St. and Summer Blvd. The strip mall is currently home to a martial arts academy, an adult education annex of the YMCA, and an Olive Garden.

:: Protestant churches for every Catholic church (2005)- 4.1

:: According to Industrial Planning Magazine, stop lights in the city are 22% “pinker” than the national average.

:: Uptown boasts seventeen thoroughfares named after alcoholic beverages, including Martini Blvd, Gin Street and Calle Margarita. The Central Corridor is home to storied Tom Collins Ave. Teetotallers, however, may prefer to tread the non-spiritous footpaths of Temperance Square, located in the south-western corner of Mabel Tripp Gardens.

:: Lowest city unemployment rate (1998)- 3.7

:: Highest city unemployment rate (1977)- 10.2

:: Number of Buick Roadmaster Rivieras (Two-Door models) buried as “time capsules” around the city in a promotion for a local auto dealer in 1955- 5

:: Number of these which have been subsequently found or whose locations have been accounted for- 3

:: There were no Boy Scout troops in the city from 1972-1984 thanks to the locally-founded Little Rangers paying the mob to put the muscle on any attempted organization by the former.
- D. Andrews, B. Brockie, S. Levinson, J. Morris, R. White

In the first part of the 20th century, before making the cross-country trek to Hollywood, the motion picture industry settled briefly in our fair city. During the early years of cinema, film companies were based on the east coast, centered in New York City. However, costs began to increase exponentially, due to both organized crime and Thomas Edison’s stranglehold on the industry. The rackets forced producers to pay exorbitant fees for location shooting (this in the days before studio lighting). And Thomas Edison jealously guarded access to his technology and film stock. Any film company wishing to produce nickelodeons in the tri-state area would be forced to make a pilgrimage to New Jersey to pay their respects (and a large monetary offering) to the “Wizard of Menlo Park” before they could begin shooting. Adding to the difficulty, the newly installed elevated subway trains shook the film studios every ten minutes, making steady photography an impossibility.

Frustrated by the costs and difficulties of shooting in New York, independent producers began looking for alternative locations. After scouting several areas, Amalgamated Moving Picture Inc (AMP) and three smaller operators settled on our city. It was considered ideal because of its easy access to the railroad and early adoption of alternating electrical current (AC)— thus removing itself from the iron grasp of Thomas Edison and his direct current (DC) system. In 1914, AMP’s incvestors moved their production offices into the recently vacated Ellsberg Ironworks building (this following Seymour Ellsberg’s disastrous and financially crippling attempt to corner the world supply of aluminum). This proved to be fortuitous timing—the Cinco de Mayo Massacre of 1914 had just eliminated many of the city’s major organized crime players, thus saving the film companies from being fleeced by underworld syndicates.

In 1914, over 400 short films were produced in and around the city for the fast growing motion picture market. Unfortunately, few of these films survive today, due to poor preservation and the Great Flood of 1936, which submerged most of downtown, destroying much of the library’s archives (and washing away Storky, the city’s beloved mascot and the world’s largest free-standing ceramic statue from his perch in Mabel Tripp Gardens. The statue was never recovered). The few films that did survive provide a snapshot of the city on the grow, circa 1914—including the only known existing image of Mayor Jonathan T. Sanders, who still holds the record for shortest stay in office (36 days, 14 hours).

The era also produced the city’s first (and so far, only) cinematic genius, D.W. DeMarkowitz. Little is known about his background, but his quick rise to fame is a legend in film history circles. He began as an actor, with his first known appearance in 1914’s Dolly in Danger as the train conductor, a short that still exists in the Library of Congress archive. He quickly ascended to starring roles, including Richard III and Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, although, sadly, these performances exist only in newspaper reviews from the era. (The Journal-American said of his Hamlet “…for a non-speaking performance, he perfectly captures the infamous Danish ennui”…)

1915 would prove a career defining year for DeMarkowitz. He began his most ambitious undertaking in February—a 1/2 scale replica of the Coliseum, for use in his epic The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, which he shot in 16 five-minute installments between February and April. Nearly the entire city turned up for the grand opening, during which DeMarkowitz staged an enormous naval battle, depicting the Roman victory over the Persians. Admission was free, but with a catch—all attendees were required to dress in togas and consent to being filmed for part one of the epic. DeMarkowitz himself is said to have played Nero, giving the thumbs-down to the defeated sailors.

The Roman epic proved to be the highpoint for cinema in our city, as the film industry was soon to leave for the warmer climes of Southern California (perhaps also speeded by the fact that hundreds of the actors and sailors in the Roman picture came down with pneumonia due to exposure to the damp and chilly spring weather). D.W. DeMarkowitz was tragically run down by a trolley car only two years later, before finishing his promised masterpiece—a 90-part saga including every story in the Old and New Testament. He remains a footnote in film history, an early genius remembered only by historians. The other producers were soon lured west by the sunny climate and year round shooting available in Los Angeles. Additionally, the temporary vacuum in the criminal underworld was quickly filled by the notorious O’Sullivan brothers and demands for bribes began once again. In the end, it was all too much for Amalgamated Moving Pictures. Having banked a small fortune into DeMarkowitz’s bible epic, and seeing no possibility of a return on its investment, they closed their doors for good in 1917, thus ending an important but little discussed chapter in film history.

The Coliseum remained, however, first used as a venue for Wild Bill’s traveling Wild West show, and other large events. Eventually the interior was converted into a miniature golf course and pizzeria, which it remained until 1968, when it was razed after a young golfer fell through a crumbling windmill into the cages and inner workings of the interior. The child was fine, but the Coliseum was considered too dangerous for future use. One of the columns that supported the structure still exists at the Museum of Furniture and City History on Sycamore Street.
- M. Vermeulen

Folks often wonder whatever became of Wet-Foot Field, the stamping ground of the city’s first Ethnic-League baseball team, the Blue Stockings. Well, appropriately enough, it was excavated, lined with concrete and turned into the world-famous Swimporium public indoor swimming pools at Mabel Tripp Gardens in 1902.

But wait, you might ask, whatever became of the world-famous Swimporium? After a 1907 bacterial infection caused an epidemic of Queensland Fever among summertime patrons of the swimming pools, almost four thousand tons of bleached sand were used to fill the pool and bury the surrounding dressing tents – just in time to simulate snowy hills for the Mabel Tripp Gardens Christmas Gala the following year, in 1908.

A sand flea infestation required the removal of all forty tons of sand, and ended in the death of three immigrant workers. In 1910, the area was reopened briefly as an open-air, fenceless petting zoo, built along the theories of ardent conservationist Pastor Martin David Dodger, who believed that open spaces quelled animal aggression. The high cost associated with retrieving runaway animals and subsequent lawsuits saw the zoo closed in the first few weeks of Spring, 1911.

Over the next ninety-five years, the space has housed such disparate facilities as the city’s only all-wooden roller coaster, an asylum for children believed to be falsifying deafness, no less than three department stores and four minimalls over the course of as many decades, an aquarium composed entirely of plaster fish contained in blue-tinted blocks of Lucite, a recording facility operated by former Police-frontman Sting, several community theater groups and a pair of Shakespearean troupes, five competing Renaissance festivals, the Lowland Games, a miniature model of the city of Pompeii with working volcano (firing soap-flake ashes every three hours of the day, beginning at six in the morning and ending at nine at night), and the site of the first three and last two reunions of ground-breaking local improv comedy troupe Fork, Knife and Spoon (for the last of which a custom bandshell was built in 2003).

Most recently, the land has been converted into a multi-story, 4,000-car capacity parking facility. Whether this latest incarnation will stand the test of time is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure – drivers in the downtown shopping district are doing more than taking advantage of convenient and inexpensive parking when they make the short walk to any of the facility’s eight elevators or three stairwells – they’re taking part in history.

Fun Facts:
:: The Blue Stockings were largely Armenian, with three Greeks and one shortstop from Argentina.
:: The Swimporium broke all world records for deepest indoor swimming pool. Singapore has held that title since 1971.
:: Queensland Fever is typically only communicable through intimate contact with similarly infected farm animals.
:: The lease for the parking garage currently occupying the land runs until 2035.
:: Fork, Knife and Spoon co-founder Jones Murphy perished from Queensland Fever in 1981.
- J. Morris

:: Thanksgiving dinners served by St. Lauren’s shelter in 2005: 351

:: Thanksgiving dinners served by the Oak Room at the Ritz-Carlton in 2005: 138

:: Where both establishments have purchased their turkeys for the last 85 years: DiNardi’s Meats

:: Number of lights used in the Mabel Tripp Gardens annual Festival of Lights holiday event: 2.5 million

:: Total hours the lights will be lit November 19 - January 1, 6 pm to midnight: 258

:: Volunteer hours needed to hang the lights: 1200 (50 volunteers x 3 eight hour workdays)

:: Number of people who have portrayed Santa Claus in the city’s annual Thanksgiving Day Parade: 8

:: Number of these who actually claimed that they were, in fact, the real Santa Claus: 2

:: Number of women who have portrayed Santa in the parade: 1, longtime New York city councilwoman, Bella Abzug, in 1977, promoting a traveling exhibit of her hats at the Ragnot Museum of Art.

:: Number of calls in 2005 to the Community College home ec department’s “Thanksgiving Emergency Help-Line”: 22

:: Only subject in the city school system officially referred to by a British name: Maths
- R. White, C. Messick, L. Dinkins-White

:: Number of outdoor cafes in the Downtown & Central Corridor in 2006: 115

:: Number of outdoor cafes in the same area before the mysterious seven year mayfly “problem” ended, in 1990: 2

:: Of the thirty-five tests conducted by the City Elections Commission on new electronic voting machines delivered this week, the number failed: 30

:: Percenatage of city precincts which will be using the new machines next week: 78

:: While the city comes in twenty-third among American cities for the number of murders per capita, it comes in eighth among murders committed by people who are left-handed.

:: Number of alligators living in city’s sewer system: 14 (unofficial; by eyewitness accounts)

:: Attendance at this year’s Haunted Halloween at Mabel Tripp Gardens: 3,871

:: Record attendance at Haunted Halloween: 42,796 (1988)

:: Number of years that Haunted Halloween has been hosted at Tripp Gardens: 34

:: Winner of this year’s “Best Costume” prize: Young Obi-Wan Kenobi

:: Winner of the first “Best Costume” prize: Dirty Old Man from Laugh-In

:: Number of Canadian Pitchfork Geese in this year’s petting zoo: 50

:: Decibel level of fifty captive Canadian Pitchfork geese: 130
- R. White, B. Brockie, J. Morris