After a few weeks of impassioned, and enlightening, comments on my Horse Controversy post I must say that my position has changed. While I still like the idea of the horses being confined to giving rides in a carless Central Park, I admit that finding them viable lodging near the park would be challenging, if not impossible. And if they still had to travel to work through traffic, they would still be in jeopardy. However I do think that if the Mayor seriously wants this industry to continue he should find a way for acceptable stabling to be created. What if the horses were transported back and forth from the park in vans, instead of travelling through traffic? The City of New York must find a way for these horses to work safely, otherwise he practice should definitely be banned.
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In an effort to while away the post-holiday humdrum I’m putting together a list of the top ten movies shot in Central Park over the last century. We’ve had a poll running on CentralPark.com for the past month to see what you think, and the results have been enlightening. Here are some of my favorites, and the reason I think they belong on the list. The earliest cinematic portrayals of Central Park were almost always romantic in nature. Whether it was the backdrop for joyous singing and dancing, as in “On the Town”, or the setting for sentimental love stories, such as “Portrait of Jennie”, the park was seen as either a place of populist energy or quiet romance. It is interesting to note that before the war, and for the first few years after, there are no movies that use Central Park as anything but a positive locale, one that resonates with the energy and romance of Manhattan. It’s not really until the early seventies that movies, usually comedies, dramatize the darker aspects of the park. It seems that in the middle sixties the park developed several different personalities, especially in the eyes of movie makers. Since then the Park has been generally characterized in movies in one of three ways. First it is seen as a romantic place, almost magical, a metaphor for all the beautiful, creative, fantastic things the city represents to so many people who love it. Secondly it is portrayed as a dark, dangerous and . . . → Read More: Central Park In The Movies |
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Central Park, at the very heart (if not the very heart) of New York City, is one of the most inspiring combinations of architecture, landscape design and urban planning to be found anywhere on the face of the earth. It ranks as a symbol of New York City only behind the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Unlike these two, however, Central Park is dynamic, vibrant; a perpetually changing counterpoint to the brilliant, but static, architectural achievements that surround it.
Central Park breathes. It provides a respite from the struggles that have produced the amazing city that surrounds it. It is a place to reflect, to sigh deeply and feel good about it, to let the tension ebb and allow the strictures and pressures of metropolitan enterprise loosen and unwind.
The park also satisfies that need that resides in so many city dwellers, in an environment that requires dusting plants as often as watering them, that causes us to lavish our attentions upon wallet-sized window boxes and fret over ficus plants that have seen more near death drama than a revival of “Camille”. A need to be near something living, something growing; a need to be near something green that isn’t attached to our cheese.
Central Park is all of these things, and much more.
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