Walking Central Park
A milestone on my NYC bucket list.
I’ve been working on a “leaving New York” bucket list, even though it makes me sad to think about, and even though there are (gladly) not that many things that I want to do and haven’t done yet. Most of the things on my bucket list are, rather, wishes for more of: more solo movies at Nitehawk, more sprawling dinner dates with friends, more costume exhibits at the Met. There was one thing I really needed to do, though, and Mandy agreed to do it with me. We were going to walk the perimeter of Central Park.
I polled friends on how long they imagined this distance to be. I got answers between two and thirty miles, which, I love you all but oh my god. The real length is just under seven miles, a distance long enough to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something but short enough to manage in an afternoon. We chose the date, a Saturday in May, weeks in advance. Google calendar invites were sent. We ended up having to push back a day after the weather forecast threatened thunderstorms and high humidity, and by then, my backpack was already packed: a portable phone charger. Sunscreen. A book to read on the train journey. Many little snacks, just in case. We were urban hikers, exchanging a flutter of texts about the best outfit to wear: athleisure? Cute little rompers? Linen shorts? (For the record, I went full athleisure and Mandy went linen shorts plus t-shirt.)
We met at the southeast corner of the park, in that hectic little corner near the Plaza hotel and the giant glass dome of the Apple store. We started our walk heading up the east side, working our way slowly through crowds of tourists and food vendors in what felt like a bit of an anticlimactic start. Many blocks passed. The world around us shifted, as it would over and over again throughout the walk, and suddenly we saw less tourists and more well-kempt Upper East Side families walking their fancy little dogs. I made enemies with a dad who let his small children harass us on their scooters. He didn’t care, obviously. We passed the Met. It was sunny and warm and every tourist in the world was basking on the steps, so we stopped, too, for the first of many photos.
We started craving a fun little beverage after about forty blocks. Google Maps told us there was a bakery just past 103rd street, and as we came closer, we realized it was inside the Museum of the City of New York. The building was gorgeous, fronted with marble columns, a place neither of us had visited before. The museum attendant let us in without paying anything, saying the bakery was upstairs, gesturing at a huge spiral staircase behind her. We were sweaty and felt more than a bit like trespassers as we climbed the impossibly fancy steps. The bakery was run by an extremely old man who took one million years to make drinks for each person in line. We sat down, me with a cortado, Mandy with a seltzer, lulled by the feel of air conditioning on damp skin.
After we finished our drinks, we wandered into a gallery with a huge gilded-age dollhouse, open on all sides, a perfect miniaturized world behind glass. We bent down and examined it, the painted floors, the real electric lights hanging in some rooms, tiny loaves of bread on tiny tables. Suddenly we looked at our phones and saw we’d been in the museum for an hour and a half. The place had become a siren’s call away from our proverbial quest, and we needed to get the hell out of there.
We kept going. Here are some things we saw: a magical conservatory garden with an enforced quiet rule, overflowing with white azaleas. A park entrance labeled “Girl’s Gate,” and later on, one called “Stranger’s Gate” (per Mandy: The Two Genders). The gorgeous north side of the park, a totally different world than the south end, complete with sprawling lake views. People barbecuing corn on the cob on miniature grills on the sidewalk. A huge promenade of birches on Adam Clayton Powell Jr boulevard in Harlem. So many Rigby-type dogs that made me want to cry, just a little bit. Mandy patting the tiniest amount of sunscreen onto her face in order to avoid looking oilier than we inevitably already did. Many hideous selfies, glimpsed on each other’s phone screens.
We turned at the north corner and began walking down the long west side of the park, where the architecture suddenly shifted in the most beautiful way. We were walking in shade and everything felt good and easy. We stopped at an ice cream truck, parked precariously in the middle of a bike lane, and I ordered soft serve in a waffle cone with sprinkles. We made sure not to linger too long this time as we sat down to eat our treats, very aware that we’d completed the majority of the walk and were close to the end. But there was still so much to talk about, so many new jokes to riff on.
We did see some of the park: the great lawn, spotted when we stopped to use the bathroom at Tavern on the Green. Various bodies of water, glimpsed through stands of trees. A huge precipice of rock near Cathedral Parkway on the Upper West Side. But mostly we were watching the world around the park, looking at a city ecosystem as it shifted and changed. We gossiped and people-watched and got sweaty and then cooled down again.
As we neared Columbus Circle and the final leg of our journey - the jam-packed south side of the park - I was already trying to make meaning from the experience. I asked Mandy what she thought, if she could summarize what we’d just done. She kept saying, “we aren’t done yet.” She kept saying, “I love walking and gossiping with you.” Not to get sappy, but maybe this bucket list item had been another wish for more of the same all along.