Hike #1219; King's Park to Smithtown

Hike #1219; King’s Park to Smithtown

5/4/19 King's Park to Smithville Long Island with Jennifer Berndt, Brittany Audrey, and David Goldberg

It’s possible that this was the best Long Island hike to date, and that’s saying a lot. We’ve had some really fantastic times out there, but I didn’t want this one to end.

Long Island Greenbelt view

The Long Island series has changed a whole lot since we first started it. The beaches, the rail beds, and then the woods along the highways and pocket parks with little road walks between have all made it a diverse and always interesting series.

On the beach

Every time we’ve come to Long Island, it’s been a really pretty outstanding time.

Kings Park Station

This time though, was something that was so diverse, so constantly changing, and so fun, it was in a category of it’s own. Alex Gisser will be sad he skipped this for the Great Saunter when he reads into this particular journal entry!
I had planned to include a winery visit in this one, but we didn’t even get to it. There was so much other stuff to see and do that I don’t think anyone even minded in the least bit that we didn’t get to even one of them.
My plan was for a finishing point to the northeast near Stony Point where there’s a college, and the hike would start at the settlement of Kings Park.

Former Long Island Railroad

There was no one to shuttle however at the start point, so we just figured we would Uber back when we got done, or alternatively make our way to a train station to return. After all, our starting point was the Kings Park train station on the Long Island Railroad.
The Long Island Railroad here started out in 1872 as the Smithtown and Port Jefferson Railroad. The station at the time was known as St. Johnsland Station. It was changed to King’s Park station about 1890. It was named so for the Society of St. Johnsland established earlier by William Augustus Muhlenberg.

King's Park historic scene of the power plant

The original station is not the station building that stands there now. This one was rebuilt in 1948, and I’m not sure if any of it is from the original at all.

The power plant area now

When we got to the parking area, we of course headed to the restrooms after the long drive out. I was very impressed to see nice wooden paneling inside the place, which looked like the old authentic railroad stations.

Abandoned

I suppose some of this could be old, but the wood in this side, as well as the restrooms, looked quite new.

Building 93

As I went to go into the restroom, it started on a bad note when there was a Mexican man taking a shit inside and hadn’t locked the door.

1948 LIRR station at Kings Park

I bellowed out a shriek of horror and closed the door again, then retreated back to my van to wait for him to exit.

1933 photo by Richie Harrison of the Long Island Railroad spur that served King's Park Psychiatric Hospital

Dave showed up after a bit; I was going to carpool with him but we had a misunderstanding on the meeting time.We headed away from the station across the main street next to some ball fields. I figured we could get to the paved trail across the way there, but it was all fenced in on the one side. We instead had to turn around and walk back around to get out to it.
Once on the path, we were heading north with the ball fields on the left, and homes through trees on the right. The path follow on or very close to a former spur of the Long Island Railroad that once served the Kings Park State Hospital.

Train 4637 serving King's Park in 1965 by Dave Keller

The town of King’s Park was originally called Indian Head, but changed after the hospital was built nearby.
This place is absolutely amazing. King’s Park State Hospital started off in 1885 as the King’s County Asylum. It was named for King’s County, which was the location of Brooklyn prior to it becoming part of New York City. It was taken over by the state and renamed Kings Park State Hospital, and eventually King’s Park Psychiatric Center.
The original intention of the facility was high quality care of the mentally ill through programs and agriculture, as sort of a farm colony.

When the state took over after the first ten years, it grew into exactly what it was trying not to be. More buildings were erected, and the site eventually had over one hundred buildings.

Silliness

The facility was intended to be completely self-sufficient. It even had it’s own coal fired power plant served by the spur of the Long Island Railroad.
The 1930s saw construction of some of the nicer buildings including the best known one, the iconic Building 93, completed in 1939. It was designed by William E. Haugaard and funded through the Works Progress Administration. The building is thirteen stories high. The site continued to grow, and by 1954, a census showed that Kings Park State Hospital had 9,303 residents.

Building 93

The hospital began to decline after that time, and buildings were slowly closed up over the next forty or so years.

Old premises

In 1996, Kings Park Psychiatric closed after a 111 year run, and all residents were either released or transferred to Pilgrim Psychiatric Center.
In 2000, the waterfront sections of the property became Nissequogue River State Park, and some additional lands with some of the buildings were transferred to it a bit later.
18 of the former hospital buildings as well as the giant power plant smoke stack were demolished in 2013, and more were to follow. The future of many of the buildings, including the amazing Building 93, is still up in the air.

Abandoned

We followed the path to an intersection of paths, then continued to the right, which remained more on the old rail bed, closely parallel with Kings Park Blvd and across a crossover access road. The trail/rail bed went into a nice swath of woods after that, and we were on a bit of a shelf between the Old Dock Road to the left, and the Kings Park access road which moved further off to the east from this point.
This wasn’t my first time to King’s Park. I’d visited there once before with Jillane and Cupcake. I’d known the old asylums like Overbrook and Greystone and how popular they were with urban explorers.

Abandoned

Others like Marlboro were on their way out. 2009 seemed like the time to explore it, as Cupcake indicated that it wouldn’t be around for that much longer.
We went for the drive out, and at that time we had to go in through the old power plant. Underground tunnels lead between different buildings, and we had to climb over a high window with metal bars, carefully step over broken glass, and get into the area with the hoppers where coal was unloaded from trains on the railroad. We then put on asbestos masks and followed the tunnels to beneath Building 93.

Rail trail

Since that time, I’ve been told the tunnel from there was filled in.
In the building, we had to climb up an elevator shaft to get up, which was frightening as all hell because the elevator was still lodged there, and we had to climb through a tiny hole after a ladder.
Staircases led up both sides of Building 93, and there was an epic view of Long Island Sound from the top. I was glad we’d done it, but not in a hurry to go back after this time.
More recently, others friends have told me that the place is much more guarded not, and that people were giving out tickets for even walking on the trail because no one would ever bother to fight it.

Abandoned

My plan for this hike was not to really get into the complex at all, but just to follow the trails and have a relaxing time.

View of the power plant before the stack was demolished

As we moved on, one of the power plant buildings came closely into view to the right. I wasn’t even going to walk close at all, but there were no signs saying to stay away, and I wanted to get a couple of photos, so along we walked on the old pavement.

View of Long Island Sound

We walked all the way around the building, and I saw some steps that led down hill a bit further. I figured that would be the way after everyone got the photos they wanted.

Building 93

Jen found a way in to the thing, and we had a look, but I didn’t want to chance anything much more because of the stories I’d been told.

Abandoned

We walked down the steps and ended up at the main power plant building, which didn’t look like one much any more with the giant stack missing.
We continued from there through some woods and back onto the bike path, which I think by this point must have left the old railroad right of way.
There were great views of Building 93 all around the area, and the path soon crossed Orchard Street, which is the main drag heading directly to the front of it.
From there, the paved trail turned to the right. We passed through a very nice section of woods, and then crossed an access road to some ball fields.

Abandoned

The trail continued here parallel with the fields, and the behemoth Building 93 towered beyond. It was quite a site to see all of this activity with this monster of an abandoned building beyond.

Abandoned

I soon realized that we should have turned off by this point. The paved trail ends just a short distance ahead as I understand, but I wanted to cut off to the north. We headed down an informal path people had been following and crossed St. Johnland Road. On the other side, there was a set of at least three multiples of stairs going up hill and into the wooded property now part of the state park. It was obviously used by mountain bikers because it had things built to get over logs and such. This path weaved to the left a bit and then brought us out to an open grassy field.

Abandoned

We continued on the most worn section of grass up the middle, and headed toward what was shown as a building on my google aerial images to the north.
When we got to the site, we could see it had been demolished, certainly within the last month. There was disturbed ground with fresh track marks where it had all just been graded over.
We walked through the muddy mess of where the building was, and then cut into the woods to head north. We went off trail heading down hill, and soon reached Soundview Court. There were several more buildings on the north side of this. My plan was to go around them and end up at the trail head for Sunken Meadow State Park from here.
We followed the road to the right a bit. At it’s end, there was a chapel building, probably the original chapel for the complex, and several other buildings.

Power plant area

The chapel had wood over the upper windows, but the front door was wide open and there were cars parked out front. I didn’t want to look suspicious at all. Nothing we were walking along was gated, and so I tried not to be all paranoid.
We kept trying to go around buildings, but all of the inlets form the road led to dead ends because each one of the larger buildings appeared to be connected by a sort of breezeway between them. We ended up having to walk all the way to the east side of them to where there was an access road going out behind.

Building 93

On this route, Brittany noticed there was one that was open. There was in fact nothing saying not to go either in them or around them, so we had a look.

Old steps

I immediately had flashbacks of when I was in the facility before. The tunnels with the asbestos covered pipes, the dankness of the subterranean sections, the entire creepiness of it was further heightened by the thought of someone coming to the way we got in. I didn’t want any trouble, that’s for sure. I can run pretty fast, and there’s no way anyone would catch me....if I can get out. I don’t like not knowing an alternative way out of a place.
We exited after only looking around for a bit, and following one tunnel to a point where it went underground probably to another area.

Abandoned power plant

There were boards laid out to walk on through some water heading to the next area. I wasn’t ready to commit to that.

Old steps

We headed west from the building and to the roads.
Old Dock Road took us a short distance to the entrance to Sunken Meadow State Park where there was a trail entering the woods. It had that it was a dog walking trail on it, which surprised me because most places in Long Island don’t allow dogs.
We headed into the woods, and the trail had a pleasant, sandy surface. It was gently rolling atop the terminal moraines of the Wisconsin Glacier that make up Long Island.

St. Johnland Cemetery

The next point of interest we were to come across was the St. Johnland Cemetery, but we didn’t seem to see anything on the trail when I thought it’d be obvious.

Abandoned

I could see a thing on google maps when I zoomed in enough, but it was easy to miss. Nothing was on the trail.
There was a chain link fence on the south side of the trail that was a bit beaten down at two different points, and we figured it must be in this area. The first graves were in view of the fence.
The St. Johnland Hospital is still in use today, providing similar services it did upon it’s mid nineteenth century completion, caring for the elderly and enfeebled. Muhlenberg was assisted by Anne Ayres, a former teacher who became an Episcopalian nun.

St. Johnland Cemetery

Together, they built the haven from city life for those in need.
Muhlenberg was interred in the cemetery in 1877, and Ayres followed in 1896, but at some point the maintenance at the site fell off the table.
Today, the cemetery is at the mercy of nature. Many head stones were not even visible among the vegetation. It was barely recognizable as a grave yard until very close to it. On the further south side, there was a single sign which had the names of those buried.

Abandoned

We returned by the trail by scaling the fence and continued to head to the west over the gently rolling hills.

The bike path

More trails joined from the left and right, including the white blazed Long Island Greenbelt. I didn’t realize it came up this far, and I was slightly disappointed because it meant we’d be coming back to this point again. I kind of didn’t want there to be loops in the hike, but that’s okay.

The Long Island Greenbelt is another major trail for the Long Island series. Like the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail that was a previous aspect of our Long Island series, the Long Island Greenbelt too travels from the north to the south sides of the island.

Bike path

It is a total of thirty four miles, and follows pretty closely to he routes of the Nissequogue River to the north, and the Connetquot River to the south. It begins in Sunken Meadow State Park, and ends in Heckscher State Park.
We continued past more intersections, and kept to the right a bit to emerge into a large picnic grounds where the tables were mostly all stacked up and inside weird snow fencing.
We continued down hill, and then entered Lot #4.

Abandoned

I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do here yet, but I knew I wanted to get the most out of this park. It’d have been easy to just turn right and get to the start of Long Island Greenbelt, but I really wanted to do a section of beach walking, and finish the section of it that we didn’t do on the previous hike. I was really into it at the time, but no one else but Alex was, so we didn’t. My phone was also almost dead.
This time, it was earlier on and we were good. We headed out to Sunken Meadow Parkway, and turned right to cross the bridge to Lot #1.

Abandoned building 93

We turned right to go diagonal across that, and head toward the beach.

Old steps

There were tons of people in green shirts doing all sorts of volunteer work around. I at first thought they were employees, but then realized it was “Love Your Park Day”. We skirted the right side of the main building, and then cut out to the boardwalk. After a break, we headed direct out to the beach and turned right, heading east.
There were tons of people on the beach picking litter, wearing the same green shirts. We moved on to the east and got to where there were only fishermen left out at the end. We went past their pose, and the dunes on the right of us got higher.
Out across the Long Island Sound, we could see the land of Connecticut. It was quite a great view. We continued walking to where there was a rope fencing in place to protect the nesting habitats of the Piping Plovers.

Sunken Meadow SP

We saw some sand pipers looking quite cute running in the sand in front of us, but not back and forth in the waves, because the LI Sound doesn’t really create much in terms of waves.

Recent demolition site

The ropes got closer to the edge of the beach, but we were never barred from continued walking. We were able to follow this peninsula of sand right to the very end, where the Nissequogue River comes out to the sound ahead, and the Sunken Meadow Creek flows from the right and into the same confluence. This was an absolutely amazing spot.
From here, we turned to the right and skirted more of the rope fencing along the Sunken Meadow Creek.
My experience with these barrier island type of areas at confluences in New Jersey was that the beach side was clear, but following the inland side was usually a mess.

Sunken Meadow confluence area

Not so here. This was totally clear and even worn down from so many fishermen heading out through.
While walking this section, we passed a pole atop which was a nest for some sort of Raptor.

Sunken Meadow SP

I forget which kind it was, but it wasn’t bothered much by us. One, I assume the mother, remained in the nest as we walked by, while the other flew out and around the area.
We continued on this beach section until we got to the access near parking area 3 where there was a bridge leading across the Sunken Meadow Creek.
Immediately on the other side were no pets allowed signs. These are typical in most parks in Long Island, but were not on the first trail we were on in this park. Of course, on that trail we found the bagged dog shit left behind.

Sunken Meadow SP

It’s no wonder they keep banning them. It’s disgusting.
Once on the other side, we turned right. This was back to the west yet again.

Tunnels

We were not taking at all a direct route, but I did want to get to the northern terminus of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail. I didn’t want to miss any sections of it.
We continued on the wide trail to the next bridge over Sunken Meadow Creek, and that is where the Long Island Greenbelt originates. We followed the white blazes from the ridge and out to the picnic ground we had first come out to. It then went up hill on a wide old road trail, with busted up pavement.
The paved section of trail came to an end, and the greenbelt continued as a foot path. It gained height of land, and pretty quickly afforded us views of the Long Island Sound through the trees. The trail climbed up to reach the trail we were on before, turned left, then turned off of it again to the left to get down closer to the slopes with the good views.
This section was absolutely outstanding. It reminded me of the awesome sand slopes we visited when we did the hike everyone loved at Elk Neck State Park in Maryland.

Sunken Meadow SP

This was really something special.
I felt already at this point that there was no hike worth skipping this one for on this day. This was outstanding, and it was just getting better. It was still early.

View on trail

The trail passed several outlooks to the Long Island Sound, and then started to descend gradually. It came out to a parking area at Old Dock, at the mouth of the Nissequogue River. I thought we lost the blazes at first, but it turned out the proper way to go was to just follow the boardwalk to the east along the river toward the next parking area. We talked to some ladies with their dogs that we thought were going to get into a fight, but their animals were only acting aggressive apparently. It kind of reminded me of why people might want them banned; it seemed like a pretty big liability.

Old dock Inn

We soon approached the Old Dock Inn, a little restaurant that sits with a view over the Long Island Sound and the river.
I was apprehensive about making this a stop at first because there were a mix of both outstanding reviews and totally crappy reviews. It being a seafood restaurant, I take it with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because seafood restaurants have a lot of very finicky eaters in my experience.
We sat at the bar rather than the seating area, which proved to be a good idea, and got some drinks. There wasn’t any craft beer stuff, but we did have some other drinks.

Old Dock Inn

I actually forget what the first thing was that I had of the two, but one was a sort of fitting Long Island Iced Tea.
The bartender lived rather close by, near our destination in the Smithtown area she said. She was interested in where we were going and what we were doing.
I think we each had the Lobster bisque soup, which was outstanding. I didn’t think I needed much else, and I ended up eating Jen’s fries anyway, but we ended up chatting for a good while.

St. Johnland Cemetery

We talked about why the place might get crappy reviews regarding food and service, and our bartender let us in on the secret that the people leaving those reviews were he ones that they had cut off or had kicked out. Now it all made sense.

View at Sunken Meadow

It also reminded me to keep these things in mind when patronizing anywhere. It could just be some butt hurt entitled poop head.

At the bar

I’d had a couple of drinks, and then Brittany offered to buy everyone a round of shots of tequila. The bar tender taught us what “training wheels” were on this, which is some sort of lime thing or something with salt. I can’t remember exactly.
The cool part was that the shots were on the house. A great taste was left in our mouths literally and figuratively after this visit.

Long Island Greenbelt

Getting back on the trail was not as expected; it was great that it literally went by the door to this fine establishment, but it continued right on the beach. It was a beautiful walk along the tidal Nissequogue River for a little bit, and it eventually turned off to the right.

We went up a very nice series of wooden steps and onto the slopes overlooking the waterway, and soon re-entered the facility of the Kings Park State Hospital. We went right by a few more of the buildings, and by some ruins. We passed over some foundations and such, and were near a small frame building that I suspect might have been one of the oldest ones on the campus, but I’m not sure. I have not gone over the lists of each one with a map to be able to tell.
After another set of steps, we emerged on a road, Kings Park Blvd, next to a circle and the Veterans Memorial Hospital building. The trail turned left here, but with this building so close, and the front door obviously wide open, we could not give in to the curiosity.
It was in fact wide open; we were able to walk right in, and were expected to do so. It was a museum inside.
This museum was part of a Veterans Hospital constructed between 1923 and 27 for disable veterans of World War I and the Spanish American War. We checked out some of the maps and displays inside and headed out toward the north exit.

The building we could go in legally

Inside, there was an office with two guys in it. We stopped to say hello, and the guys seemed interested enough to talk to us. They gave us some of the history of what is now the park land and the institution.
We headed out from here, and continued into some more woods on what used to be an old road. We could see occasional pavement peaking through the leaves and layer of sediment on the trail. We weaved around along the near waterfront, and soon came close to a long abandoned greenhouse, probably also part of the old King’s Park complex. We couldn’t just go on without exploring that.

Greenhouse ruin

It was a pretty incredible ruin, which we walked from one side to the other before moving on along the trail.
From here, the trail weaved around and came out to St. Johnland Road where Harrison Pond Park was to the south, with a little foot bridge and a tributary making it’s way in. The trail turned to the left from this road pretty quickly on Riviera Drive. There were a couple of little paths off to the left to outlook areas shortly ahead on the road.
Although the trail followed along the road, we were often able to get off of it into little park areas immediately adjacent to it, which made it nice. There was great scenery out over the Nissequogue River which made it all worth it. I only wish there was another store on the route.
I checked out a playground slide which read “Mexico Forge PA” on the steps to it. Mexico PA is a town in the Juniata River valley I’d been looking at hiking to in he near future, so it was interesting to see the name of the place so far away.
When Riviera Drive came to an end and the road turned inland, the trail continued straight into the woods of Arthur A. Kunz County Park. We at first were along the waterfront, but then turned hard right up into the slopes. We passed on the trail a set of steps that would have led to the front of a long gone house along the way.
We passed through some lovely wetlands, rolling topography, glacial erratics, stone ruins, and a long abandoned car in the middle of these woods.
The trail made it’s way back down toward the Nissequogue River again where there was what appeared to be a giant White Oak with a swing hanging from it. There were two guys fishing down there, and they told us we should continue on and check out the golf course bar ahead.

Staten Island Greenbelt

We chatted with them a little bit, and apparently they knew of a way of continuing on where the trail goes out to a road, but we wouldn’t be able to get through that way from what I saw on the aerial images. My Long Island Greenbelt map that I’d ordered from Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference showed that the section along the golf course up ahead was a future relocation of the trail, but the section between was still a road walk. I didn’t see a way of using that future relocation and being able to get back to where we needed to be, so we just stuck with the blazed route.
The trail took us along the river some more, past some former dock areas and such, and then out at the parking lot for the golf course. We went up and onto the access road, Shore Road, which was alright, to Landing Ave. This part was the crappiest part of the hike. It was still the designated route, but it was just a busy road.
The trail turned to the left on Landing Meadow Road, which was far less busy, but still a development. At least it was relaxing walking on it. We continued through the development, and Landing Meadow Road turned to the right at one point, and we just followed that out to where it ended at Landing Ave again. We turned left on that, to the intersection with Eckernkamp Road, and the trail cut back into the woods of Sweet Briar Nature Center.

Sweet deer

The trails weaved around and went up hill a bit, joining with others, with lots of signage and such. There were some mowed field sections as well as woods sections.
In a well established section of trail, we came across a very friendly deer with a tag in her ear. She came up to us and let us pet her, and she had very beautiful eyes. She was most interested in eating the undergrowth of the area, but didn’t mind the attention either. She’s quite used to people.
This deer wasn’t quite as friendly as the one we came across at the Starrucca Viaduct in Pennsylvania recently, but still somewhat comparable.
Some kids were coming up behind us while we were spending some time with the deer, and they seemed shocked to see we were petting her and that she stayed put for it.

Beautiful creature

We continued out of Sweet Briar I think onto Summerset Drive briefly, and then back into the woods of a Suffolk County Park property that got us back down along the Nissequogue River.
This was an outstanding little section of trail. It had wooden steps, lots of little bridges, and some long sections of well built puncheons over the wet areas. It was a great last little section of the trail for us to do for the day.
I really wanted to continue on, but it would be dark before we’d be able to do the next section.

Staten Island Greenbelt

The trail took us out of the woods onto Rt 25A, Main Street. We turned right, and the trail turned right pretty quickly onto a dirt lane that connected over to Rt 25. There was a statue of “Wisper the Bull” which had to do with the history of Smithtown, through which we were about to walk.
Richard “Bull” Smith is a story not unlike Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed, although some of it has some truth to it.
Smith, then spelled Smythe, came from England and settled in nearby Southampton. He was charged with making negative comments about powerful people, and was exiled from the town to areas east. After some land disputes, Smith was pushy about it and secured the area known as Smithtown.
The more colorful story relating to the bull is that Smith had made a deal with local native Americans to secure a piece of land the size of which he could ride his bull around in a single day. The story states that Smith waited for June and the longest day of the year 1665 to cover the most distance, sent a cow out ahead to keep the bull, who’s name was Whisper, interested, and they rode some fifty five or so miles around the boundary of what is now Smithtown. The town chooses to embrace this folk lore as it’s a good story, but acknowledges that it’s probably not much fact.
At Rt 25, there was a trestle over the Nissequogue in plain view. The trail turned to the right on 25, but we had to go left. At this point, we could make it to the train station and save having to Uber back. Things were coming together very well.
We started following the Main Street to the east, and there was a county park on the right side, Paul T. Given County Park. I noted that there was an old looking pony truss bridge parallel with the current road bridge, probably it’s predecessor, so I turned back to try to walk across it.
It was a pretty little park. I was glad I went down there for the scenery. Everyone else got a bit ahead of me, but I really wanted to see some more stuff.
I was loving this hike so much, I just didn’t want it to end.
We considered getting something to eat at a restaurant right near the station after walking up hill a bit to it, but then we realized that the next trail was coming in about fifteen minutes, and if we missed it the next one would not be coming until 9 pm. We opted to hurry back over and get tickets.
There were stairs up to the station platform where the tracks crossed over Main Street, and we managed to get the tickets pretty quickly. I got Dave’s because he picked up the tab for lunch and I owed him some (and still do).
Strangely, we went across a foot bridge to the opposite side from where we bought the things, the way we would think that a westbound train would go (like the highway system using left and right), but it turned out to be the wrong side. It was a good thing we caught that early enough.
Not long after getting to the proper place, the train showed up and we boarded. It wasn’t long at all to get back to King’s Park, and we walked across the lot to Short Stop Pizzeria for some food before heading on out.
There was just so much to see on this hike. I didn’t want it to be over. We didn’t even reach the winery, but there was so much going on the entire time that no one really cared anyway.
It’s sad that so many people missed out on this one. Sure, it’s farther away than a lot of the places we go, but it’s so different and so interesting that it’s absolutely worth it.

Along Nissiquogue River

When I put a hike together I look at it almost as a piece of art that’s for everyone to experience, but without people to enjoy it, it loses a lot of it’s meaning. Life is art to me since I stopped creating visual art so much many years ago.
Part of the problem is that these hikes are not what people recognize as anything they’d want to do. I’m not trying very hard to sell the product. I’m just doing what I want to do with hopes that people will join in. It is easy to compete with the things I post when it comes to sounding enticing. I choose to go with passion rather than cast a net for more attention.

Along Long Island Greenbelt

Somewhere between talent and passion is art.
But, there's passionate art and more technical art.
Technical art is more marketable. "Draw me a such and such" and being able to produce upon request is economically valuable.
Some will enjoy that.
Creating based on passion, where talent extends only to the point of personal interest, is far less so.
Visual artists and musicians can find their audiences through display of their talents, but those of us who live our lives as a piece of art must find alternative media through which to share.
Doing what we love may not always be the most marketable thing. It might be a quite lonely thing. But, if we make it an experience that can be shared, hopefully someone will recognize value in it.
Stamina has an insatiable appetite for passion. Life's art cannot be fed through outside request or command.
Feel, create, share, appreciate.
This day was a personal success.

King's Park Station