view from central park

Yes, it’s Central Park

Posted

This column started as View From Jerusalem. After I moved to the Upper West Side, it was switched to View From Central Park, a geographic marker of the move, from Jerusalem to New York. When I returned to Denver, the title remained. I was teased a lot; when friends or readers would bump into me, with a wicked sparkle in their eye, they’d cheekily comment, “so, how is Central Park?” and we’d both chuckle.

Well, I have repaired and made up for those misleading years. Not only did I relocate to New York City last year, but I am really and truly actually living on Central Park West. I see the park from my front window. It’s a room with a partial view, but not just any view; dare I say, it’s one of the prettiest parts of the park. There is a perfect pond, weeping willows and a bridge. It is so idyllic and fairytale-ish that sometimes when I am walking through it I feel like Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island.

As any New Yorker can attest, Central Park is more than a gorgeously landscaped geographic location. It is the heartbeat of the city.

Walking through that park is like happening upon a fairytale.

Because Manhattanites live in apartments, Central Park is the common space for us all. Whereas in Denver you seek respite in the privacy of your own backyard, Central Park is like one big collective front or back yard, depending on what side of town you live in.

Even more than that, Central Park serves as a contrast. Manhattan is so pressured. So rushed. So suspicious. When you walk into Central Park it’s almost as if you have entered a different place. The formal fashion and edge are peeled away. People look you in the eye. Perhaps even strike up a conversation. You are still in the midst of central Manhattan, yet you are in a different place all its own.

It’s taken me years to get to know the park. Each round of New York living has introduced me to another layer, and then another. Within each iteration, I feel like I have found my newest favorite part of the park. The sweet zoo. The canopied trees of that famous and so-reminiscent-of-Paris walking path. The Mall. The shimmering Reservoir, Manhattan’s skyline a silhouetted circle encompassing it. The secluded and rustic Ramble, and the wide Bridle Path. The vintage carousel and charming boathouse. Romantic Bethesda fountain, and the magical, curved Bow Bridge. Ice skating rinks and the Alice in Wonderland sculpture.

The endless spots in this gem of a park can go on and on.

It was pretty special to be living in this room with a view as the park transitioned from winter to spring. The snow had melted, the sun was out; but the trees and the park were still bare. You keep gazing at it, you keep passing it, and it’s in that state of in between-ness, when suddenly one day, poof! you can literally see and point to the moment when it went from bare to bloom. From gray to pink. The weeping willows’ bare branches now flowering in jades and emeralds that kiss the ponds they hover over.

But even that pleasure can’t compare, with Central Park in autumn.

Last Sunday I had planned to go to Rhinebeck in the Hudson Valley; it was my attempt to catch the beautiful hues of fall foliage before it takes its last gasp of the season. Last minute, plans had to be cancelled. For a second I was disappointed, but then I said to myself, calm down. You are in Central Park. It’s like you are living in a fall foliage portrait.

Indeed, that is what it is like.

Or like stitched scenes of many different portraits. With the golden light of fall softer, more muted and amber than usual, the different scenes you pass glow with an added dimension of nostalgia, or perhaps a dream still to be fulfilled.

With the vast and endless soft and hazy backdrop of blurred wines and golds, crimsons and pinks, shades of apricot and jade, and leaves carpeting the ground, it is the perfect canvas tinged with muted color.

The portraits abound. Two bikes leaning against a tree, a couple floating on the Boathouse Lake, a family picnicking, people jogging, an elderly couple conversing on a long wooden bench … the mosaic of these sweet moments enfolded by breathtaking beauty and a dreamy dimension, complete.

It’s almost like taking a peek into different, lit up evening living rooms, but instead they are snapshots in time right here, right now, when Manhattanites add more mythical memories to Central Park.

Copyright Intermountain Jewish News