We bite "The Big Apple"



Picture perfect day in NYC today. 50 degrees, sunny and still, kind of spooky quiet. This is the day for a run in Central Park. 


On my way out of the hotel I run into Hunter who has a grin a mile wide on his face. He has just bought a new guitar and can’t wait to get to his room for a test drive. I can almost hear a new song on the way.

Now this park is a miracle of sorts. Nestled smack dab in the middle of the economic center; the heart of the world, lies this jewel of nature.

The park just sparkles today. It reminds me of some magical island. The sun-kissed sycamores, maples, and weeping cedars are in their fall splendor…all shades and hues. Guys climbing rocks, bikers tooling along with no-hands piping directives into hand held cell phones. Joggers of all ages and sizes. Old men and women being pushed through this glory in wheel chairs. The park is teaming with life. On the outskirts of the park new construction is everywhere, but it is outside the park. The paths gently twist and turn as I breathe this deep breath of horse manure. A wide variety of steeds pull the carriages through the park. Some are the draft horse size, slow sure and sad. Others are the spirited kind, high steppers showing off their fine gates. It is all quite a show. But back to the park itself. This is one of man’s greatest achievements. How could the city fathers have kept this out of the hands of the developers bulldozers?

They tell me that New York's Central Park is the first urban landscaped park in the United States. I go to Google for this lowdown on the park… It was originally conceived in the salons of wealthy New Yorkers in the early 1850's. The purpose was to refute the European view that Americans lacked a sense of civic duty and appreciation for cultural refinement. The bruised egos of New York high society no doubt envisioned a sweeping pastoral landscape, where the wealthy could parade in their carriages, socialize, and "be seen”, and in where the poor could benefit from clean air and uplifting recreation.

Construction finally began in 1857, based on the winner of a park design contest, the "Greensward Plan” of Frederick Law Olmsted, the park Superintendent, and Calvert Vaux, an architect. Using the power of eminent domain, the city acquired 840 acres located in the center of Manhattan, spanning two and a half miles from 59th Street to 106th Street (in 1863 the park was extended north to 110th Street) and half a mile from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue. In the process, a population of about 1,600 people who had been living in the rocky, swampy terrain--some as legitimate renters and others as squatters--were evicted; included in this sweep were a convent and school, bone-boiling plants, and the residents of Seneca Village, an African-American settlement of about 270 people which boasted a school and three churches. 

Chosen by the city and the park planners because its terrain was unsuitable for commercial building, the site for the new park offered rocky vistas, swamps which would be converted into lakes, and the old city reservoir. These varied elements would be refined, enhanced, diminished, and eradicated to create a park in the style of European public grounds, with an uncorrupted countryside appearance. To this end, Olmsted and Vaux's plan included four transverse roads to carry crosstown traffic below the park level. Architectural structures were to be kept to a minimum--only four buildings existed in the original plans for the park--and the design and building material of the bridges were chosen to assure that they were integrated as naturally as possible into their surrounding landscapes.

Thousands of Irish, German, and New England-area laborers toiled ten-hour days under the direction of architect-in-chief and head foreman Olmsted for between a dollar and a dollar fifty per day. In the winter of 1858, the park's first area was opened to the public; December of that same year saw New Yorkers skating on the twenty-acre lake south of the Ramble. The final stages of the park's construction began in 1863, with the landscaping and building of the newly acquired area from 106th to 110th Streets. 

In the first decade of the park's completion, it became clear for whom it was built. Located too far uptown to be within walking distance for the city's working class population, the park was a distant oasis to them. Train fare represented a greater expenditure than most of the workers could afford, and in the 1860s the park remained the playground of the wealthy. The afternoons saw the park's paths crowded with the luxurious carriages that were the status symbol of the day. Women socialized there in the afternoons and on weekends their husbands would join them for concerts or carriage rides. Saturday afternoon concerts attracted middle-class audiences as well, but the six-day work week precluded attendance by the working class population of the city. As a result, workers comprised but a fraction of the visitors to the park until the late nineteenth century, when they launched a successful campaign to hold concerts on Sundays as well.

As the city and the park moved into the twentieth century, the lower reservoir was drained and turned into the Great Lawn. The first playground, complete with jungle gyms and slides, was installed in the park in 1926, despite opposition by conservationists, who argued that the park was intended as a countryside escape for urban dwellers. The playground, used mostly by the children of middle and working class parents, was a great success; by the1940s, under the direction of parks commissioner Robert Moses, Central Park was home to more than twenty playgrounds. As the park became less and less an elite oasis and escape, and was shaped more and more by the needs of the growing population of New York City, its uses evolved and expanded; by the middle of the century, ball clubs were allowed to play in the park, and the "Please Keep of the Grass" signs which had dotted the lush meadows of the park were a thing of the past.

Getting back to New Jersey and the night ahead of me. Big,big place this arena. The music tonight was spirited and sensitive. A great Strawberry Fields and Scarlet Begonias. Susan sang the choruses on Fire on the Mountain. On King Bee she moved on over to Jimmy and put her arms around his body to play his guitar. Jimmy had the funniest look on his face, I guess these folks know each other pretty well. She can play the blues all right, and she sings great.

We tried something new in the drum suite tonight. Bill and I had Sally(Jeff) and Rob sit in at the beginning of the sequenced part of our solo. As I pulled the sequence away to go intro hyper-drive, they left the stage to the Rhythm Devils, who were up to no good tonight. Rob’s face was lit up like a Roman candle. Mike Gordon from Phish stopped by for the second set and had a great time. We went out for a snack at the Carnegie Deli after the show. Never met him before. He seems like a real nice guy.