{stories and snapshots from my new york city life.}

10.26.2010

Central Park

When you move to New York City from somewhere else, you tend to live as a tourist for a good bit. After my first three years as a New Yorker, I could have easily written a Zagat guide. I was a perennial tourist (sans fanny pack), always off to new restaurants, museums, and historical landmarks. I saw at least 25 plays, even the crummy ones like Footloose. I was completely enamored with this new place I was lucky enough to call home, and figured my time here was limited so I better soak it all up while I could.

Eleven years later, I still have the same love for the city, but live a lot more like a local than a tourist (ie: spending Sunday morning on my couch rather than brunching and shopping). I'm trying to get my snap back, so I've committed myself to exploring this great city again. Starting with Central Park. 

I always enter at 59th Street, right where the Gapstow Bridge curves over the neck of the pond. It's the best place to enter the park, in my opinion. Of course, I'm biased, as it's the one closest to my subway exit.

The park is full of amazing architecture, like the Bethesda Terrace.

And sculptures like Hans Christian Anderson

and Alice in Wonderland. The park is also full of children...

and dogs...

and mysteriously hairy gnomes.

In the spring, the Great Lawn is one big plush green blanket, and the trees look like they're growing cotton.

In the fall, the sun streaks through the trees' empty gaps and casts cool shadows on the ground.

This is where people stretch. 

And take wedding pictures. 

And remind me why I love living here so much.

6 comments:

  1. Oh wow, you certainly capture the magic of NYC for sure... I love seeing these kind a pics - including the hairy gnome dude!! Ha!

    I also went through a phase of doing tourist Athens, but that's usually when i have guests over... there's still a lot to discover though!
    x.o.x.o

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  2. We are taking our students to central park zoo today. Many of them haven't been there before. They are all native New Yorkers! I can't wait!

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  3. I lived down at South Street Seaport and never made it much past Union Square or the villages. I would love to live there again and make Central Park a reg. Sunday picnic spot!

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  4. i love spending my weekends at the park lots of nice memories... my sister recently got proposed at the park..very romantic.

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  5. What a wonderful post. I visited Central Park for the first time in May, and I'm smitten. I have truly fallen in love with the city, and Ryan and i want to move there sometime in the near future. Thank you for reminding me of one of the many reasons I love NYC!

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  6. Awesome pics! Somehow whenever I come to NYC, it's always for just a day and I'm rushing around. I've never even been to central park, the shame! It's so close too, I need to stop slacking. But I'll totally be calling you up to be tour guide extroidinaire when I finally drag my ass up there.

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