My kids had the day off from school today (it being Veteran’s Day), so I took them both uptown to run amok around Central Park with their grandmother, my mom.
The great thing about Central Park is that it’s ultimately an activity unto itself. You don’t need a particular destination therein. You can just walk around it and it can be an entirely rewarding, refreshing experience. Today was just such a day.
In any case, whilst tooling around on the `net this evening, I came across this curious clip below, and I got excited in the way all NYC bloggers feel when they uncover some new film clip or cache of arcane photographs.
Below is a clip of a (somewhat frenetic) walk around Central Park in 1977. Here’s the official description…
Experimental stop-action Super 8mm movie filmed in February 1977. A walk in Manhattan NYC. The route as follows:
Starts at 88th St on the east side of Broadway
Then south on Broadway to 86th St
Then east on the north side of 86th St to Central Park West
Then south on Central Park West to Columbus Circle
Then east on Central Park South to 5th Ave
Then north on 5th Ave to 86th St and 5th Ave, where the movie ends.
Technically, this movie covers a distance of 3.71 miles in 3 minutes 16 seconds. Which calculates to a walk speed of about 68 miles per hour.
As a native Manhattanite, it’s a revelation to see some of the locales in their 1977 incarnations.
When this footage was filmed, I was a 9-year-old living on the Upper East Side, not too far from where the film ends. Granted, Central Park was a very different place in the late `70s (and into the early `80s, as I recently discussed), but even in those comparatively grittier days, it was still an absolute joy.
Enjoy the stroll.
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