You are currently browsing the stories about the “Central Park” neighborhood.
I’ve been spending some jobless time in Central Park during the pandemic with other New Yorkers, where we are, seemingly, at times–aimless–roaming the park’s eight hundred and forty-three acres. What are we doing here, I often want to blurt out. We should be in our offices, attending boring meetings, typing away at our computers, picking up our kids from flute [...]
[caption id="attachment_9664" align="alignleft" width="470"] (James Franciscus in Naked City, 1958)[/caption] For a time in the late 1980s, a local TV station in New York City aired late-night reruns of Naked City. The show, a black-and-white police drama set in New York, had originally aired from 1958 to 1963, the year of my birth. Those years were a critical period in [...]
Sitting in the sunset in the middle of Central Park, the unfamiliar boy and I huddled together in the growing chill of late October, using the excuse of needing bodily warmth to search for some other, more abstract warmth of feeling. We had spent the whole day exploring the Met Museum, and afterwards walked around the park trying to tell [...]
As the wheels hit the ground and the pilot stopped the airplane at Newark airport, I felt right at home. I was landing in the city that was going to be my new home, at least for a couple of years. People had always told me that I should live in New York once, but leave before the city made me [...]
The day before my birthday was beautiful. It was one of those clear summer days in New York that somehow evades the typical humidity and the sun’s unbearable heat. Instead of roasting everything beneath it, the sun proudly showcased New York’s beauty. The pink and purple flowers on the High Line unfurled themselves towards the sky in euphoria and their [...]
The rare April sun has sucked hundreds of New Yorkers from their homes and offices, spilling them across Sheep’s Meadow in various states of undress. At the north end of the field next to the fence and a small grove of spindly trees sits an observer. Her hair is a dusty sunset of pink and orange and peach, until you [...]
Long lines at Whole Foods in Union Square again. It feels like the Russian bread lines, but no, it’s another snowstorm shopping spree. I’m not the only one anxious about running out of food—even though the streets are always plowed before my stomach growls uncomfortably. Everyone is complaining. Too cold, windy, snowy, sleety, Too much lashing out about de Blasio’s [...]
"Henry, why must you be such a baby?" I say to Mr. Henry Longfellow, my piebald dachshund, as I carry him in my arms across Central Park West on our way into the Park next to Tavern on the Green. I am not young or especially strong. Carrying an overweight dachshund is not easy. Henry is shaking. The sounds of [...]
"THE first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving somebody a buzz. I left my bags right outside the booth so I could watch them, but as soon as I was inside, I couldn't think of anybody to call up.'' So begins the New York adventure of [...]
Have you ever had a great experience or adventure and you want to share it with every one you know, but you just don't know where to begin? Well, that seems to be my particular problem right now. I've been staring at my laptop for at least an hour and I still can't seem to figure out where to start. [...]
The model boat pond in Central Park is often the scene of fierce competition, but on a recent sunny afternoon I witnessed a real life-or-death struggle. A yellow retriever named Sam bounded away from his owners and plunged into the water to chase the pond’s resident ducks. At first only a few passersby noticed what was going on, but the [...]
Central Park exists because of two writers who cared about the well-being of New York City, including all its people: the poet William Cullen ("Thanatopsis") Bryant, who proposed his idea for the park when he was still studying at Yale and also editing a periodical called the "Evening Post," and to the landscaper and editor of "The Horticulturalist," Andrew Jackson [...]
There was a time, not long ago, when turtles enjoyed a brief vogue in New York City. Turtles whose shells weren't much bigger than a silver dollar were sold on street corners all over Manhattan, and people crowded around to buy them. In the midst of this turtle trend, my friend Kip moved back to New York, after two years [...]
Michael had long used us as a test audience for his trendy nihilism, togging up in punk, new wave and goth to suit his status as a Parsons grad student. We, his undergrad pals from Syracuse, continued to feign shock, through ten shades of hair color, safety pins inserted in various extremities, kilts, bondage pants and all-black wardrobes. But there [...]
I was a New York City Urban Park Ranger usually stationed in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, but for this day I was detailed out to Central Park, the park of my childhood. In Van Cortlandt Park I knew where the hophornbeam trees lived in a valley of white oaks and tulip poplars. I knew where the skunks made [...]
I found a man in Central park. I’d been running around the reservoir on a weekend and needed to get home and shower. I wiped my T-shirt on my face, and bent down to tie a lace, and I heard a man telling a joke. I heard him telling the back-story about how this certain celebrity and his boring wife [...]
The New York City Marathon is fun to watch for several reasons. The leaves in Central Park are beautiful--still on the trees but fragile and colorful. It's moving to see the look of physical pain on the runner's faces. It's moving to see that zoned out, exultant look on the runner's faces. It's interesting to watch everyone watching these looks [...]
Our protagonist, Skunk, in action. Dan a.k.a Skunk and his girlfriend, Erin, pick me up on the corner of Broadway and 116th Street. Skunk briefly reminisces about his days at Columbia University: after a few years of "getting stoned and sitting on the couch" he dropped out and found what could be said to be his calling. Skunk aspires to [...]
When I was a kid we visited New York once or twice a year. I usually went with one of my folks and one or two of my brothers but we almost never went as a complete family. Back then we lived in rural New England, so it was always a big thrill to board the series of buses and [...]
I'm not much of a TV person. I am completely unfaithful to any one show or annual event, certainly anything like the Academy Awards. My theory has always been, why watch a three-hour awards show when I can watch E!, or some other all-celebrity network, and get the highlights in thirty minutes? But this year was different. Still suffering from [...]
On January 25 at 7:30 in the morning, two raccoons were found dead by Central Park personnel. One was found just below the reservoir and the other in the tangled stems of Shakespeare garden. Instead of just cleaning them up, as they might have done in different circumstances, they called the Urban Park Rangers. The Rangers too had been primed [...]
A little before 2 a.m. on Saturday, December 1, 2001, I decided to check out the George Harrison memorial that fans were spontaneously holding at Strawberry Fields in Central Park. On my way I stopped by a deli on the southwest corner of 72nd and Broadway first for a coffee. Chun Kim, 43, a friendly balding man who'd emigrated from [...]
Growing up, there were certain inarguable rules Mom set forth to ensure her kids' safety: don't take candy from strangers, power tools are off-limits unless your Father is present, avoid the yellow snow, and never, under any circumstance, spend the night in Central Park. But over Labor Day weekend, my girlfriend, Kim, and I threw caution to the Ramble and [...]
