Welcome to my Blog! I’m very excited to have you on board! Central Park Story is a young adult adventure series whose main character is a sixteen-year-old boy named Christopher Middleton. It’s also a treasure hunt/romance/historical adventure/fantasy/humorous tale all rolled into one! I put a lot of time researching the backdrop to the series which […]
The eight-foot bronze statue that stands on top of the fountain in the Bethesda Terrace, also known as the Angel of the Waters, shows a female winged angel walking on water, after which the water cascades into an upper basin and into the surrounding pool. It is a striking and exquisitely beautiful piece of art. […]
One of the reasons I deliberately avoided mentioning the Central Park Zoo, both in my young adult adventure series, Central Park Story, and thus far in my blog, is that it wasn’t a part of Olmsted and Vaux’s original design. Like the sculptures in the Mall and the baseball fields scattered throughout the rest of […]
Crime in Central Park started out modestly and then spiraled out of control into the 1970s, over a century later. With the establishment of the Conservancy in the early 1980s, however, the crime rate took a sudden and dramatic nosedive, perhaps for the first time ever. I happened to be walking through the Mall toward […]
No blog on Central Park would be complete without mentioning the buskers that frequent the Promenade, the Terrace, and the Castle. Their talent, virtuosity, and, on occasion, genius, add a new dimension to the cultural milieu of the park. Though Olmsted and Vaux never would have imagined such performances taking place beyond the confines of […]
Though the majority of the construction of Central Park was completed during the time that ‘Boss’ Tweed was in control of the city government, few people did more damage to it in such a short period of time. He handed out thousand of unnecessary jobs in park maintenance in return for political favors, resulting in […]
How many different free cultural activities can you fit inside a city park? If you want to know the answer, you needn’t look any further than Central Park in Manhattan. First, you have all of the free performing arts festivals such as Central Park Summerstage and the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, which take place every […]
I always felt a close affinity to the Carnegie Mansion at 91st and Fifth, now known as the Cooper Hewitt Museum. My mother’s apartment was a few blocks uptown, and we would walk past it on our way to church or whenever I went for a jog around the reservoir. Now that I’m several decades […]
It was sometimes difficult for nineteenth century baseball players to enjoy their newfangled game in Central Park due to competition from cricket players, but by the 1930s, when recreation became a top priority of the Parks Commission, the game was finally embraced. In 1934, it was formally announced that the informal playing fields in Central […]
Bow Bridge, named for its graceful shape, is reminiscent of the bow of an archer or violinist. This handsomely designed bridge spans the Ramble Lake, linking Cherry Hill with the woodlands beyond. When the park was in its initial planning stages, the commissioners requested a suspension bridge (yikes!). Calvert Vaux, the designer of the 36 […]
The Frick is one of the pre-eminent art museums in the United States, with a high-quality collection of old master paintings and fine furniture housed within the former residence of Mr. Frick himself. It also happens to be my favorite museum in the city because of its delightful blend of a spacious home with a […]
