Sleepless In Central Park

"I spent the whole day and evening wandering all over Central Park," I said to my wife upon my return from the New York City. "By yourself, in the evening?" she said. "Sure, I´m at greater risk going through security at Dulles," I said, " luckily, I wasn´t mistaken for a terrorist or put on a no-fly list or rendered off somewhere."

I´m not a tough guy, but I´ve been through some of the world´s worst neighborhoods without incident and as far as I´m concerned Central Park is still a wonderful oasis in the heart of Manhattan. Central Park, which attracts around 16 million visitors each year, has always had a reputation as a crime scene. And it´s true, to a point, but there´s more crime in the city outside of the park.

Before migrating to Europe, I used to wander frequently through Central Park. Today, it hasn´t changed much. The usual place to enter this 843-acre park, for those who don´t live here, is at its southeast corner, where fancy hotels and Fifth avenue shops make this part the most glamorous. A few minutes after entering, you can see why this park attracts so many. Winding trails wrap around a pond. Trees sprout at the top of huge rocks and pedestrian tunnels frame landscapes like works of art. Every curve and each successive space draws you further.

William H. Whyte, a sociologist, who has studied how New Yorkers behave in public says, "The genius of Central Park is that it is a big place that is intimate in the workings of its small pieces." From the skating rink I hear music, brisk and gay, and in the summer, rowboats fill the lake. Children climb a bronze statue of Alice in Wonderland. Young toughs in oversized clothing and shoes are sliding off a large rock on sheets of cardboard. Now, there is an argument between two of them, one of them picking up a large rock. It looks like it´s going to be ugly for a moment and I´m reminded that this is also a rough city. But overall, people seem to be having fun. One woman told me she comes here because it feels like her second home.

On schooldays teachers lead classes to the park. Many children do not have the opportunity to see Nature´s rhythms and so have a chance to see and learn about the variety of plants there and about history. In earlier times, the native American was able to pick black walnuts, cherries, hickory nuts, wild onions, acorns and dozens of other foods in Central Park. During the Revolutionary War, British troops chased George Washington´s army and almost caught him in its northeast corner.

In 1844, editor for the "Evening Post", William Cullen Byrant called for "a new park." Finally, in 1853 the city decided on a location that was filled with quarries, swamps, and slaughterhouses, mostly because the waterfront property had too much commercial value.

The principal designers of Central Park were American writer Frederick Law Olmsted and British-born architect Calvert Vaux, who had won the city´s global competition for the park´s design in 1857. Except for the rocks formed more than 400 million years ago, everything in Central Park is of human design, even the bottom of its lakes. After the park proved so popular, by 1860, many cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Detroit quickly copied it.

You can see and hear Central Park´s past which comes alive in the horse-drawn carriages that clip-clop throughout the lower park among the colors and textures . To a degree, these horse-drawn carriages seem to symbolize romance because of the many couples who become engaged on them, according to driver Tom O´Gara. A ride cost anywhere between $40 and $60 for an hour and drivers expect a tip. It is where most of their profit comes from.

William H. Whyte made another observation about Central Park, that it is not one large park, but a series of small spaces. In each and every space, people claim these spaces and learn what lines not to cross. One space may be for kids playing baseball and another for a wedding, each respecting each other´s unmarked borders. People are also asked to respect borders they may not like, such as the heavily wooded 37-acre tract called the Ramble which has been a gathering place for homosexuals for 60 years. Even though Central Park is considered safe today by New York City standards, entering certain spaces like this make me uneasy when alone. But in 2005, according to the NYPD report for the Central Park Precinct, there were zero murders and only 2 rapes.

However, this month the New York Post reported that gun-wielding thugs were staging robberies at popular Central Park locations. A newly released police statistic revealed that robbery in the park is rising. Nevertheless, I still hold to my belief that Central Park is still a wonderful oasis in the heart of Manhatten, especially on a sunny day filled with people. There is always the fear of mugging. Of course, bad things happen in other precincts but somehow it´s not covered as much or as well. Maybe it is because crime works well in Central Park. Films (over 200 of them) and television, and even comedians, have often depicted Central Park as a crime scene. One line goes, "It was so quiet out in Central Park this evening, you could have heard a knife drop."

The image Central Park portrays is important to New York City as well as to America. Image is king in the Big Apple. Yet, homelessness seems to be tolerated here. At any given time there are about 500 homeless people living in Central Park competing for food with rats, which are among the most common wildlife here. Now and then you see destitute-looking people sifting through trash for food and aluminum cans. There are hundreds of tons of garbage that parkgoers toss away each year.

In a way, the imagery is fitting considering the widening gap between the poor and the rich in America. This is their "home", whether it´s a park bench or a large rock. During the Depression the U.S. Post Office delivered mail to squatters´ shacks in Central Park, and a federal court ruled in 1984 that a park bench can be an address for voter registration.

Certain kinds of geography does something to you. I remember ages ago spending 30 days on the American road, paying only for the bare necessities, washing up in hotel restrooms and sleeping in an battered VW van. But I had the advantage of knowing I was only slumming and with traveler´s checks hidden away in case I needed them. Even at that level, you undergo a change. In small ways, a degree of self-esteem drains away and stress and fear compounds when someone attempts to break into your vehicle in the middle of the night. This park can be much more dangerous.

On my walk, the closest I got to one homeless man was when I paused at a waterfountain. He smelled of garbage and urine and I had to breath through my mouth as I passed him. Even in winter the homeless reside here with a pathos I´m not used to seeing. Besides one park bench was a cardboard constructed shelter and in its "doorway" were fresh flowers in a glass jar. The homeless cry out for a John Steinbeck to capture their humanity.

In the 1920´s and 30´s, before the age of air-conditioning, my father once told me that New Yorkers used to leave their apartments to sleep in the park on summer nights. Was America any safer then, or did people take more care of one another during those days? Strolling through the park in the evening, I am surprised by how many people I find. Men and women joggers who seem oblivious to the myth. When asking two women who were warming up if they were scared of running in the evening, they talked about the importance of jogging on right paths, and besides, they both had a cell-phones, mace, and looked capable.

Central Park is a perpetually unfinished portrait, inhabited by around 26,000 trees, the largest concentration being in the 132-arce woodland that dominates the upper park. It is perpetually unfinished because it is a managed park needing constant attention from professionals and constant gardeners. Trees are always being removed and replaced.

It is early evening in the upper woodland. Joggers are still on the trails but there are less of them. Most of the people I have met here have told me that walking in the park is safe but I still worry about walking alone in the woods by myself. But walking alone in any part of the city requires good judgment. So I decide to go ahead for principle. I head past an old stone arch and toward a hilly area where rock formations rise with a primeval power and then I cross into aloneness faster than I expected. The only sounds are my footstep and waterfalls. The city has disappeared and I feel as if I could be in rural Pennsylvania because not even the skyscrapers are visible above the hills. Half an hour later, and a little worried at seeing less and less people and a darkening sky, I decide to exit the woods across from the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West. Feeling hungry, I head toward Columbus Circle in search of a pizzeria. On the way, I pass Tavern on the Green, a grand café overlooking Central Park with a 1500-seat, six dining room restaurant.

My first experience at the Tavern on the Green was in 1992 and also my last. Once, a "quainter" tavern and home to Central Park's flock of sheep and its shepherd, the building was converted into a restaurant in the 1930s. But after a $10 million work-over in 1976, it was no longer quaint or inviting, unless you like tacky interiors. In the darkened sky, tiny white and blue lights outline every twig, branch, and trunk of its surrounding trees — a substitute for stars in the city. The only thing I remember wrong with this restaurant then was its rude staff and the nostalgic smell a high school cafeteria.

The Tavern on the Green has at least one area that partially redeems itself. The outdoor terrace, where you can sit surrounded by trees and butterflies on a summery day and enjoy a drink. And Tavern on the Green can consider itself fortunate to be a part of this wonderful park designed by true 19th century romantics who trusted the power of nature to lift man´s spirit above the drudgery of city life. The design itself is part of the American grain: a master plan for the first park intended for public use, to make the American dream, or at least a little part of it accessible to the common man. This is probably a reason why many people come here.