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Edge Walking on the Urban Fringe
ONE MAN'S UNCOMPELLING is another man’s biodiversity.
One recent January day, Michael Klemens was touring the grounds of Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital, about 100 km north of New York City. Closed and largely abandoned since 1994, the 340-ha site spanning a small valley flanked by wooded hills is slated for redevelopment into private housing and stores. Klemens, a biologist, has been hired to catalog its biodiversity — which at first glance looks unpromising.
The valley bottom is bisected by busy State Route 22 and the Metro-North commuter railroad. Along these sit dozens of big, decaying brick buildings — old dorms, offices, the power plant — many with barred windows. Uphill is what Klemens calls the “bad karma house,” where metal chairs with leather straps — shock treatment devices — have somehow ended up on the lawn. Nearby is the morgue, where many patients ended their journey. This monument to human misery is in sprawl country: a few miles south on Route 22, new Blockbusters, Burger Kings, and townhouses are closing in fast.
But Klemens is used to finding life where others perceive only wasteland.
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