NYC Frog Project on the Road

New Jersey State Fair
Sussex Co. Fairgrounds, NJ

I had some time to kill at the NJ State Fair while my family and friends were risking their lives on the ferris wheel, so I took some pictures of cheap stuffed frogs in their natural habitat.

NYC Frog Project On The Road

Sitka, AK
Sitka National Historical Park

Sitka National Historical Park has a wonderful display of totem poles.  Their web site tells the story of Alaska governor John Green Brady, who collected totem poles to exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904 and at the Louis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, in 1905.  According to the NPS: "Concerned that traditional art appeared to be disappearing from sparsely populated coastal villages, Brady conceived the idea of collecting totem poles and bringing them to a place where they could be preserved and people, including tourists, could view them."  The totem poles returned to Sitka, and by 1906 they were on display; the site was designated a National Monument in 1910.

NYC Frog Project On the Road

Juneau, AK

The mural on Juneau City Hall, painted by Bill C. Ray, Jr. in 1988, depicts the Tlingit creation story "Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clam Shell."  This is a detail of the frog.

You can see the whole mural here.

Frogs of the TImes

Frogs with a Venomous Head Butt

According to the article:  "A single gram of toxic secretion from A. brunoi is enough to kill 300,000 mice or about 80 people. . . . It's unlikely a small frog can deliver a gram of venom in a single jab, but the researchers are planning to err on the side of caution."

Photo credit:  New York Times

NYC Frog Project On The Road

Fernandina Beach, FL

Frogs of the Times

Finding a Toad with a New York Accent

"Finding a toad in New York City used to be easier. Fowler’s toad (Bufo fowleri) ranges through much of southeast New York State and has been the five boroughs’ familiar toad for centuries — at least it was through my Canarsie childhood. Both Fowler’s and American toads may still be city residents, but it is getting harder and harder to find either."

Photo credit:  New York Times

NYC Frog Project On The Road

Fountain of the Frogs
Seville, Spain

The Fuente de las Ranas (Fountain of the Frogs) is in Maria Luisa Park in Seville.  Originally palace gardens, they were rebuilt for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929.  There are eight frogs surrounding a duck and turtle, which sit in the middle of the fountain.  From what I gather from this Spanish blog, the fountain dates from around 1914 and has been restored several times since then (1970, 1992); it also seems to be the target of fairly frequent vandalism.

Frogs of the Times

A Frog that Can Change Skin Texture

"A new species of frog discovered in Ecuador is the first vertebrate known to change its skin texture from smooth to spiny, researchers say."  According to the article, the frog, discovered in 2006, is about the size of a marble.  

Photo from the New York Times

Playground Frogs

Dan Ross Playground
Bay Ridge Brooklyn

Winter storm Juno might not have been the snowmageddon they promised, but we got a snow day and finally took pictures of our local playground frog.

Christmas Visitor

We don't do it up quite like Dyker Heights, but folks in my neighborhood, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, really know how to decorate for Christmas.

Still, this was the best display I've seen all season.

NYC Frog Project On the Road

White Mountains National Forest, NH
Bear Notch Road

We were on our way to get ice cream when we saw this guy.  Wayne slammed on the brakes and I jumped out and snapped a few pictures.

NYC Frog Project on the Road

Live Frogs:  Maine Edition

While traveling through Acadia National Park on a rainy August day, we came across a pond with dozens of these guys hanging out on lily pads:

A couple of days later, in Baxter State Park, we found this guy in the woods around Daicey Pond, where we followed the Appalachian Trail for about a mile:

Frog Graffiti

Metropolitan Avenue
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

I'm not sure if this really counts as graffiti since someone was probably paid to paint it for Baked in Brooklyn--a sign of the times in Williamsburg.

Playground Frogs

Mother Cabrini Park
Red Hook, Brooklyn

According to the NYC Parks web site, Mother Cabrini Park was named for the first American citizen to be canonized:

This park honors Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), a Roman Catholic missionary, and the first American citizen to be canonized.  Cabrini was born in a small town near Lodi, Italy.  At the age of 30, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, dedicating the group to the ministrty of the poor.  In 1889, Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) sent Cabrini and her missionaries to the United States to aid Italian immigrants.  In Manhattan, Cabrini taught at St. Joachim's paris, the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, and the Transfiguration Catholic Church.  She also taught at St. Rita of Cascia in the Bronx as well as the Church of St. Stephen (now Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen's Church) in Brooklyn.

Public Art: 81st Street Subway, American Museum of Natural History

The 81st Street--Museum of Natural History stop on the IND Eighth Avenue Line features an installation called For Want of a Nail. It was commissioned in 2000 by the MTA, which describes it like this:

In For Want of a Nail, the artist team used a variety of materials to suggest the range and diversity at the American Museum of Natural History, directly above the subway station.  glass mosaic, glass tile, ceramic tile, granite, and bronze relief are combined in ways that highlight the ten key disciplines at the Museum.  The mosaics represent extinct and living animals, the former in grey and the latter in color.  The work assembles images from outer space to the earth's core and from the first organisms to emerge to mammals of today. The artwork was a collaboration between MTA Arts for Transit and the Museum.  For Want of a Nail, the title of an old proverb, asks the viewer to consider the way everything is connected.

There are good pictures of the installation here and here.

NYC Frog Project On the Road

Glenwood Gardens
Cincinnati, Ohio

A few years ago, I posted pictures of some of the frogs we found at Glenwood Gardens, one of the parks in Hamilton County.   This time, we found some real frogs.   The twelve-year-old boy who helped us find them could tell us what they were.  I don't remember now.

Playground Frogs

De Hostos Playground
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

We hit the jackpot!

Located on the edge of Williamsburg, as it turns into Bushwick, this playground was named for Eugenio Maria de Hostos (1839-1903), a Puerto Rican Reformer and Educator.  I'm not sure how the frogs connect, but there sure are a lot of them.

They leap across the fence:

There are spray showers (see my Tumblr blog for a series of these): 

Their lifecycle is embedded in the concrete:

And three of these little guys surround the flagpole: