The Power Park (Central Park in general)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Central Park in general
Date:	22/06/01 (248 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots to see, No admission fee, An opportunity to relax in the "city that never sleeps"

Disadvantages: Areas aren't safe after dark, Some parts get crowded in the Summer

"Lookin' down on Central Park, where they say you should not wander after dark" sang Simon and Garfunkel in a famous live concert in the park back in 1981. Even nowadays, following Mayor Guiliani's extensive, and clean up of the city, you would still be ill advised to walk through the park after the sun's gone down, as areas of it are still unsafe. By day, however, the park is perfectly safe to walk through, and is enjoyed by both tourists and locals alike.

SO, WHATS WITH THE TITLE?

Well, for my money, no tourist attraction in the city of New York gives a better introduction to the ethos of the city than Central Park. It's here that visitors can see New Yorkers work, rest and play. Or, more accurately, to judge that the attitude that they bring to everything they do, work, work and work some more.

New Yorkers don't come to Central Park to jog, they come to power-jog. You see them jogging around the park with a hands-free mobile phone kit stuck in one ear, a portable radio stuck in the other, with weights and sweat bands round their wrists and ankles, sweating profusely and yelling into the phone to change their 2.30. People don't play baseball, they play power baseball, taking the game so seriously that a casual observer might surmise that their life depended on it. Even power picnickers have gone to a lot of trouble to bring an extensive collection of chilled wines, sandwiches and good crockery.

If you think that the massive green space of Central Park will be associated with a let up in the heady pace of New York life, you'll be surprised.

However, having said that, if you do wander off from the larger, more popular paths through the park, you can find tiny oases of calm, within which you can escape the hordes, and finally relax in the city that never sleeps.

HISTORY

The park was created in 1858 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on a shambolic region of the
city that was then a mess of quarries, pig farms and swampland. The park was designed simply for scenic enjoyment, and to create a pleasant place for New Yorkers to relax. In the light of the city's development, it is incredible that this huge green space located in the heart of some of the world's most expensive real estate has been tolerated as much as it has.

GEOGRAPHY

The area of the park is truly astonishing - a mammoth 843 acres; about one and a half times the size of London's Hyde Park. While this may not seem like such a great size, in the concrete surroundings of New York City, flanked by lines of skyscrapers, it seems considerably larger than its dimensions would lead you to expect.

The Park extends from 5th Avenue in the East to Central Park West (8th Avenue) in the West, and from 59th Street in the South to 110th Street in the North. The A, B, C and D Subway lines run along the Western side of the Park, and the N and R lines both stop near the South-eastern corner of the Park.

Most of the main tourist attractions in the Park are located in the Southern area, and are just a short walk from the shops of 5th Avenue. To the East of the Park, further up 5th Avenue (which is titled 'Museum Mile' along the stretch next to Central Park) are a series of New York's major museums - the Frick Collection, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and others.

Probably the best views looking out over Central Park are to be had from the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where you can buy overpriced drinks, and look across the Park towards Dana Barrett's apartment building from 'Ghostbusters', the celebrity-filled San Remo apartments, and the Dakota apartments (where 'Rosemary's Baby' was filmed, and in front of which John Lennon was killed).

WOOLMAN RINK

The southmost tourist attraction in Central Park is the Woolman Rink -
a skating rink restored in the 1980s by the seemingly inexhaustible coffers of Donald Trump. In the Summer, the rink is closed, and is just a massive concrete slab in the park. However, in Winter, the rink is iced over, and becomes a terrifically popular skating venue. The scenery is more impressive than that surrounding the Rockefeller Center skating rink, and the queue is a great deal shorter.

The view from the area to the Northwest of the Woolman Rink, looking over it and beyond to the trees of Central Park, then beyond that to the skyscrapers, is one of my favourite views in the city of New York.

THE DAIRY

The Dairy is most visitors' first port of call upon visiting Central Park. It's an ornate Victorian Gothic building built on a small rise, and now serves as the park information centre. Personally, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to go there. Most tourists just visit to pick up a map of Central Park - which you can pick up from any of the information points around the park anyway, and to find out whether any events are happening in the park that day. If there is an event happening there, it'll usually be advertised on posters in all of the park's information points anyway.

In addition to offering armfuls of leaflets, the Dairy provides an insight into the Park's cultural history, i.e. a collection of photographs of how the park used to look - much the same, but black and white, and with fewer joggers. If you haven't brought your own (and why would you have?), you can hire chess sets from here, to go and play on the boards set into the stone tables of the nearby "children's hill". If you do play chess, however, be prepared for an audience of locals keen to offer a running commentary of your perfomance!

THE ZOO

Just a little way north up the park (about level with 63rd Street), on the East side, is the Central Park Wildlife Conservation Center. This is well worth a visi
t, for the surreality of the surroundings. The Center is divided into two sections - the main part, featuring animals from around the world, and the Tisch childrens' zoo, with a collection of farm animals.

I was certainly impressed by the presentation of the main part of the zoo, which had a great Tropical area, recreating the feel of a rain forest, complete snakes, crocodiles, monkeys, and a 20-foot waterfall! In the Polar Circle part of the zoo, visitors go into a room to see the penguins in an Antarctic recreation, complete with a large pool. In the central temperate region, baboons stomp around on an island surrounded by water, in front of a background of trees and buildings. In the Tisch children's zoo, visitors can buy food to feed to the zoo's collection of goats and pigs.

Admission to both parts of the zoo is pretty good value at just $3.50 for adults, and $1.25 for senior citizens.

STRAWBERRY FIELDS

An obligatory pilgrimage must be made by Beatles' fans to the 'Imagine' mosaic in the western Strawberry Fields area of Central Park (about level with 72nd Street). The simple black and white mosaic, bearing just the single central word, 'IMAGINE' was installed in this once peaceful area of the park in memory of John Lennon, who lived in the Dakota apartments just across Central Park West from this area of the Park.

This teardrop-shaped area of the park still retains something of a sombre atmosphere, with visitors leaving photographs, written messages, flowers, or lighted candles around the mosaic. The area itself is now an international peace garden, with 161 species of plant (one representing each country of the world at the time of the garden's establishment).

BETHESDA FOUNTAIN AND THE MALL

Moving East from Strawberry Fields can be found the enormous Bethesda Fountain. The terrace surrounding the fountain is the venue for many of the park's major events. Whe
n I first visited the park in 1999, it was the venue for an impromptu show by Tori Amos, for example. It's a very lively place, with a lot of street vendors selling drinks and ice cream, and a lively place to kick back and watch the world go by.

The statue atop the fountain, the Angel of the Waters, was installed to mark the opening of an aqueduct system in the city in 1842, which brought the city a supply of pure water. This aqueduct system was also responsible for the adoption of the name Bethesda for the fountain - which refers to the Bethesda pool in Jerusalem, which was visited by a "healing angel" in the Bible.

Leading South from the Bethesda Fountain is the Mall, a tree-lined boulevard invariably filled with in-line skaters and musicians. The Mall also seems to be a popular venue for fashion photographers - on one occasion when I walked down the Mall, two separate teams of photographers were snapping posing models.

BELVEDERE CASTLE AND THE GREAT LAWN

A little further North (level with 79th Street) is the austere looking Belvedere Castle, with its stark grey stone walls, looking out from a rocky outcrop towards the Great Lawn of Central Park. I haven't actually been into the Castle, but it is open from Wednesday to Sunday, and contains the Central Park Learning Center, where young folk can learn about the park's wildlife. Beside the castle is the Delacorte open air theatre, which puts on shows in the Summer.

The Great Lawn to the North of the Castle is a popular location for New Yorkers to play games in the Summer months - particularly the ever-popular baseball.

RESERVOIR

Between 86th Street and 96th Street, Central Park is dominated by an enormous reservoir, which is surrounded by a 10-foot high mesh fence, and a popular jogging path, named after one of its most famous runners - Jackie Onassis. This is also one of the few places in Central Park which is safe to visit after da
rk, thanks to the large numbers of people jogging along it, and the heavy police presence.

FAMOUS STATUES

There are several famous statues in Central Park, which every tourist is semi-obligated to come home with pictures of.

A bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland, accompanied by the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse can be found on the East side of the park, at the north end of a lake called Conservatory Water, about level with 75th Street. A statue of a seated Hans Christian Andersen can also be found near Conservatory Water, to the West side of it.

A large obelisk stands in Central Park to the West of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, approximately level with 82nd Street. This was presented to the United States by the Khedive of Egypt in 1881.

CAB RIDES

I've never actually been on one of Central Parks famous horse-drawn carriages, but they remain a favourite with tourists visiting the city. Cabs can be picked up from the Southwest (Columbus Circle) and Southeast (corner of 5th Avenue and Central Park South) entrances to the park.

CONCLUSIONS

Central Park is a must-visit tourist attraction in New York City. Being a park, admission is free, so you can wander about to your heart's content, without adding to the cost of your visit - which will probably be great enough anyway, given how tempting the shops are in New York! There's a lot to see and do here and, of course, the opportunity to watch native New Yorkers power relaxing.

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