A Spring Day in Manhattan

I have spent quite a bit of time in New York City over the years. Slowly, despite my lack of a navigation gene, I have developed a general sense of the geography, from the Upper Eastside where my husband’s sister and her family live, to the East Village where my son attended college. I am familiar enough to no longer feel intimidated, but still tourist enough to get a thrill out of experiencing Manhattan.

Arriving by train as I did last week, I am thrown right into the melee. Emerging from Penn Station, the assault on the senses is immediate: the clang of horns, cars, people shouting. I always feel off-center here, as if those tall skyscrapers are crooked, towering over me at crazy angles. You have to know where you are going before stepping onto the packed sidewalk: no time to get your bearings, just move. This time I glance quickly up at the street signs at the 7^th Ave exit and walk towards 31^st St, where my son will be picking me up by car. I tuck myself safely out of the flow, between a mailbox and a bus stop, to wait for him. Ninety percent of the cars on 7^th Ave are yellow cabs, and my goodness! I have never felt so attractive in my life. Taxi after taxi swerves over to stop for me but for once I don’t need them.

After that cacophonous welcome, the calm of the Upper Eastside of Manhattan seems practically pastoral. There is a calmer, less aggressive feel to this neighborhood. Everything you could possibly need is available within a block or two: restaurants, nail salons, groceries. Chicken soup from the diner on the corner can be delivered at the first sniffle of a cold. The tall buildings here have doormen to greet you, and can house a hundred or more apartments each. Think of that: that is a lot of people in concrete towers. Not exactly pastoral after all.

There is finally, finally, a taste of spring. It is not truly warm yet, but the air is fresh and the sun is shining, so we decide to take a walk, and of the course the dogs are ecstatic.

In a city so full of people, it seems there is a greater than average desire for canine company. Perhaps it is the unconditional love they offer, or the companionship, or perhaps just the need for an excuse to take a walk outside regularly: a chance to slow down and smell the roses, while your dog is sniffing the sidewalk. My sister-in-law’s dogs are a Mutt’n’Jeff combination: Zelda,  a large, sweet Labradoodle and Duke, a diminutive, bossy Bichon Frise. (I am breaking my rule about not using family member names, because as my sister-in-law says,”These guys don’t mind. They are publicity hounds!”) Their personalities are pronounced, and they are easy to love, and quick to love back.

Luckily for Zelda and Duke, and for us, the apartment is half a block from Carl Schurz Park, a gem of a place tucked between East End Ave and the East River. Carl Schurz Park provides a well-designed kind of city wilderness. There is a wide promenade along the river with walkers, runners, and dogs straining at their leashes, but there are also crisscrossing paths up and down to the different levels of the park. There is circular seating around a pretty little statue below a stone bridge, a hillside with dry tufts of winter grass awaiting new spring shoots. There is a huge playground for little children and downhill from it one for big kids: a basketball and kickball court. Likewise, there is a small-dog park (No dogs without people, no people without dogs, says the sign), and a big, dusty fenced in big-dog park. Duke and Zelda can hardly contain themselves, so many smells and other dogs to check out.

On this barely spring day Carl Schurz Park is like a magnet, drawing people out of their towers and into the sunlight. There are old couples huddled together on benches, and a few people in wheelchairs. Someone sits on the ground picking out a tune on his guitar. A group of cyclists stops for a photo with a view of the river behind them. Men jostle each other on the basketball court and squeals of joy come from the children’s playground.

I am struck by how our faces look in the clear sunlight, skin papery and brittle, pale as chalk, our eyes blinking after this long winter we have had. This day has come not a moment too soon. We are ready: ready for spring, ready for warmth, ready to come to life again.  I am used to the wide open skies of Oregon, but today I am loving this New York version of open space, the tall buildings visible through the trees, and how people, and their dogs, are drawn to it to revel, to relax and to recharge.

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