We took a family trip up to Central Park today. It being a beautiful fall morning, we boarded a 6 train and rode it all the way up to 103rd and Lexington, then walked west over to the Conservatory Gardens, just across from the Museum of the City of New York. In due course, my two little children started happily running around the lush green space, pretending to be Peter Rabbit running amok in Mr. McGregor's garden. If you haven't visited this pristine little plot of land, you really ought to. It's nothing short of spectacular, like a little slice of Versailles plunked down on the border of East Harlem. From there, we ambled north, finding ourselves in the verdant, winding footpaths of what they call the North Woods.
Walking around these seemingly tranquil environs always reminds me of favorite films like "Blow-Up" and "Picnic at Hanging Rock," wherein something indefinably sinister seems interwoven into the pastoral serenity of the surface. Peggy commented whilst deep within the North Woods how striking it was that here we were in the heart of Manhattan, yet were surrounded on all sides by nothing but wild, overgrowing forrest. I felt a bit cynical pointing out that it was in the very spot that we were strolling -- right in the dense, leafy ravine -- where the infamous "Central Park Jogger" met with a harrowing, unspeakable ordeal one late, late night in April of 1989. Today, while the park was still teeming with people, there remains a strange feeling of lonely isolation in that busy cluster of trees. That disquieting revelation out the way, we pressed on and out into the grass and sunshine of the North Meadow to re-discover early autumn in the rest of the park.
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