When Bill Crain, a West Side resident and father of three, gazes at these same fields, he sees a patch of park worn down by cleats but open to anyone with a bat and ball.
And they are ideal spaces where children can engage with nature, says author Melissa Harrison, whose novel Clay revolves around a young boy who finds sanctuary in a hidden wild corner of a city: "A patch of park or verge, crowded with weeds and minibeasts, may not look like much to you or me – but to a child it can be a magical world".
Stepping off the bus in Inari, I saw it: a white creature who, despite, tangled antlers that looked more like a massive hat rack than a product of evolution, grazed elegantly on a patch of green in the grocery store parking lot.
"Sliver of the park," Ms. Wedeles said, pointing north to a patch of green.
With their chessboards and time clocks, the crew took over a patch of the park by 141st Street from the purse-snatchers, holdup artists and addicts who smoked crack in the park restroom.
About 15 years ago, it settled into its present location, a patch of the park at the West 86th Street entrance.
Right at the center of town, where Main Street gave rise to a lofty hill, not one but three big white churches stood sentinel over a triangular patch of park dubbed God's Acre.
Then, by chance, he befriends a forceful Trinidadian called Chuck, who umpires the cricket games played by various ragbag teams composed of immigrants from the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent and England, who congregate weekly in a scrubby patch of park on Staten Island.
The protest all came about because of a patch of land called "Ipperwash Park," the site of a Native burial ground that Canada destroyed after stealing (or, wait, sorry, "expropriated") the land to build a military camp.
It's parked on the street outside a mosque across from a patch of grass masquerading as a park.
GÖRLITZER PARK, a patch of grass and concrete, has a seedy air.
