(the thing you aren't supposed to do)
with Mark Allen and Trucker John
New York City's Central Park after dark is a very bizarre, dream like experience. It's an interesting combination of fear/exhileration and calm that is hard to describe. On 6/16/01, after a Macaulay Culkin play and some uptown sushi, my friend Trucker John and I ventured into the black, sparkly night-time park. "Tourist Lore" tells us that we aren't supposed to enter the park after dark because of crime. Yes this can be true ... but most of it is exagerated. The real amazing truth known by those that actually LIVE in the place that everyone dreams of visiting "one day" always makes "Tourist Lore" look like the joke it is. I have been in the park after dark with friends before on bicycle - the best way to do it. This was the first time I ever did it on foot. Officially you can get a ticket for being in the park after midnight - but I find this is enforced sporadically - if at all. The park at night, all lit up, creates this very serene, cool, mind-cleansing atmosphere. The lights are all on, the fountains are all running, the playgrounds and immense open areas are all working - but NO ONE is around! It's like you're the last person on earth. If you've been to Central Park you know how immense it is. Well - at night - with the glowing city buildings far off in the distance - it's size seems limitless. Like an alien landscape. The energy created by the park at night is truly unique and I do recommend it - with some caution. Don't go alone, and go on bike preferably. You won't forget it.
Many of these photos
are a little blurry because my new digital camera uses a longer, auto-exposure
to catch low-light situations and I did my best to hold the camera steady.
Or maybe I was just shaking with exciting fear.
Me on a fire
hydrant on edge of Sheep's Meadow.
Boo! Give me
your wallet! Haha just kidding. No...really, give me your wallet.
I put these three
photos together. That's Sheep's Meadow with 59th Street (C.P.S.) way in
the distance on the edge of the park.
Here's
Trucker John in front of Sheep's Meadow.
Doesn't this
look like something out of Disney?
One of the immense
walkways, near one of the band shells - camera was placed on ground.
Shadow-y walkway.
Same location/angle as above but holding camera.
See me waaaay
in the distance?
There I am with
my hands outstretched... in the center.
Here's
another shot Trucker John took - see me sitting down in the center?
The famous fountain
(one of them)
Again... camera
placed on ground.
Mark gets in
the fountain... what a cliché.
Knee-deep in
pond scum and pennies.
My wet knees
Here's that underpass
near the fountain...
Here's Trucker
John in that underpass...
Here's this bridge
we found...
Trucker John
blurry-ly walking on the bridge...
More...
Bridge in the
distance... see the three people coming in the distance? Run!!!
View from the
bridge - I put these photos together. That's C.P.W. in the distance.
From the other
side of that lake... C. P. S. in the distance.
Ohhhh...
This expanse
had a really serene weirdness to it...
Here it is again...
"...the
wind rustles through the trees... la la la..."
Trucker John
loves to be blurry...
Doesn't he?
Here's Trucker
John by another lake with a boathouse in the distance. There was a lot
of scum near the edge - it stunk! Those are little white flowers stuck
in the smelly scum.
EEEAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!! Don't creep up on me like that!!!
The sneakers
that are glowing eyes...
Back out onto
C. P. W. and home.