Horseback Riding and Canoeing in NYC? You bet!

A day in Central Park

Tourists traditionally associate New York with skyscrapers, Broadway shows, and Fifth Avenue shopping rather than horseback riding, rock climbing, or canoeing. Yet all of these seemingly unlikely NYC activities are available in the middle of Manhattan – in Central Park, the first urban landscaped park in the United States.

Originally conceived in the early 1850s by the wealthy Gothamists as an answer to Europe’s belief that Americans lacked appreciation for cultural refinement, the project spanned more than a decade and cost more than ten million dollars. The New York high society embraced the idea of a charming, perfectly manicured Euro-style public ground where they could “be seen,” socialize, and enjoy their carriage rides. Thus, the city acquired about 800 acres of land in the middle of Manhattan deemed unsuitable for commercial building.



Bike Rentals in Central Park



Back then it was a rocky, swampy, yet quite inhabited piece of land with a population of over 1,500 people, including renters, squatters, an African-American settlement, a school, a convent, and three churches. But the city authorities had spoken and so all of the residents were evicted to make room for the common good. While the homeowners were paid for their property, many believed their compensation was far below the actual cost of their homes.

Commenced in 1857, the park’s construction was led by the superintendent Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux. Bridges were constructed to integrate into the surrounding landscape, swamps were drained and converted into lakes, and four roads were built to carry the cross-town traffic below park level. Built by Irish, German, and English laborers who were paid about a dollar a day (talk about cheap!), the park was opened to public in 1858 – that winter, wealthy New Yorkers went ice-skating on its 20-acre lake.

Park entrance at Columbus Circle



Located too far uptown for the working class, the park remained the destination of the wealthy during its first few years. Although Saturday concerts attracted the middle-class, taking the subway was too much of an expense for blue collar workers who didn’t benefit from the park until years later.

In the beginning of the twentieth century and following Calvert Vaux’s death, the park slipped into decline due to lack of dedicated maintenance effort. The authorities did little to replace dead trees or prevent littering – until Fiorello La Guardia was elected the mayor in 1934 and charged Robert Moses, the master builder of New York, with the task of cleaning out the decaying relic.

Within a year, Central Park underwent a major facelift: flowers were replanted, dying plants replaced, and bridges repaired. It also made a kid-friendly shift – despite the heavy opposition that insisted that the park was to provide a countryside escape rather than a child-rearing facility, the first playground equipped with jungle gyms and slides was installed. Moses envisioned the park as a great place for recreational activities, so he constructed 19 playgrounds, 12 ball fields and handball courts, and one of the largest merry-go-rounds in the country. He also drained the obsolete Croton Lower Reservoir, turning it into the Great Lawn, which later hosted performances by Diana Ross, Bon Jovi, and Garth Brooks as well as annual concerts by the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. The Public Theater's annual Shakespeare in the Park festival commenced in 1961 and summer performances took place on the Sheep Meadow.



Pedicabs are illegal in Central Park - according to the latest
NYC legislature, but continue to be a thriving business!



In the 1970s, the park became a venue for events of unprecedented scale, including political rallies and demonstrations. Coincidently, it also suffered another decline. Due to budgetary constraints, gardens were left unattended, statues were covered by graffiti, and the homeless moved in, bringing along petty and sometimes not so petty crimes. People began to avoid the park, especially after dusk. Luckily, a renaissance ensued: in 1980, The Central Park Conservancy, a private, not-for-profit organization was founded with the mission to restore, manage, and preserve this urban gem. As of 2007, the conservancy had invested approximately $450 million for park restoration and management. 

Going with the traffic

Nowadays, Central Park provides a nature escape in the midst of the urban metropolis as well as a recreational oasis. Couples, sunbathers, and yoga enthusiasts sprawl on the park meadows with their pets, carriages, and mats. The park's rock outcroppings attract climbers. The Loeb Boathouse rents out rowboats and kayaks. The horse carriages, which can be found all around the area, offer historical rides. Horseback riding is permitted year-round - the recently rebuilt Central Park bridle path is more than six miles long and the Bronx Riverdale Equestrian Centre rents out horses.

Going against the traffic

In winter the park boasts two ice skating rinks, one of which converts into an outdoor swimming pool once it gets warm. In summer it hosts free chess sessions with local grandmasters who play on 30 boards at a time. Much beloved by both children and adults is the Central Park Zoo, which features daily sea lion feedings and hosts a chilled penguin house, a Polar Bear pool, and an indoor rainforest where tropical birds walk over to visitors to be petted. And, of course, there is “street theater,” practically never mentioned in official guidebooks but happening all over the park. It ranges from musicians to mimes and from magicians to the “New York neighborhood acrobats” who twirl on their heads, dance on their hands, and prove to their spectators that “white men can’t jump.”



Parked at the park



New York City: Skip The Clichés

Boy, oh boy, where do I begin? Every New York corner hides a culture adventure of some sort. Some of them are well-known, some really aren’t. So I decided to share a few that a typical New York City travel guide may not list.

Skip the Empire State Building – all the hype around it is not worth the thirty bucks and a dozen lines you’d have to stand in to get onto its observation deck (or fifty dollars, if you want the express elevator). You can leisurely observe that same Manhattan skyline from the 42nd floor of Marriott Marquis Lounge with a Manhattan in your hand. And if you long for that speed-elevator experience, the Marriott's glass elevators will whisk you 48 stories above the city in seconds, literally and physically taking your breath away. The lounge is revolving so if you pick out a spot by the window, you will be taken on a 360-degree, one-hour city tour, floating by such famed landmarks as the Chrysler Building, Carnegie Tower, MetLife, or The Intrepid. And by the flocks of the unhappy tourists shielding themselves from the wind on the Empire State Building deck.

If you love art and fashion and are torn between going to a museum and attending a fashion show, kill two birds with one stone and visit The Fashion Institute of Technology Museum – the most fashionable art collection in New York City and perhaps on the planet. It may not compare in size and grandeur to the Metropolitan, but it owns the largest collection of costumes, textiles, and apparel in the world, dating from the 18th century to present times and counting more than 50,000 objects that include garments, shoes, and accessories. The costume collection features Christian Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood. Its millinery medley boasts 3,000 hats, and its handbag collection includes purses, pouches, clutch bags, and portemonnaies by Gucci, Coach, and Roberta di Camerino. However, because the museum is small, the exhibits keep revolving. There are also special exhibitions. The latest one covered eco-fashion, featuring clothing items made from bio-degradable fabrics such as organic cotton as opposed to polyester. The show also explored the challenges of sustainable fashion delving into issues such as natural leather, which requires disposing of salts in the process, versus its synthetic, oil-made cousin, revealing that neither approach was particularly planet-friendly. The admission is free, but there are no fitting rooms. And no sales!

Horseback riding is certainly not the first activity that comes to mind when you are planning a trip to New York City, but you may be surprised to know that every borough maintains stables and bridle paths. Out-of-town visitors are often amazed to see equestrians in Central Park, where horseback riding is actually permitted year round. The recently rebuilt Central Park bridle path is more than six miles long and goes around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as well as the North Meadow. In Brooklyn. One can rent a horse or take lessons at Kensington Stables, which was built in 1930 as the last extension of the Brooklyn Riding Academy. A part of it was torn down to build the foot bridge over Ocean Parkway, but the rest survived. Bronx offers the Pelham Bay Park Trail with its beautiful vistas of marshland and woods, as well as the Riverdale Equestrian Center in Van Cortlandt Park.

Forest Park in Queens boasts a four-mile equestrian path that meanders through 600 acres of magnificent oak woods, up and down the hills. The path was opened to horse lovers in December 2002 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony as a gorgeous gray horse pulled a surrey through blankets of sparkling snow – New York had just been hit with its first winter storm of the season, but horse enthusiasts made it through the drifts to show their support for the project.

The time when New York City was nothing but horses pulling coaches, milk wagons, and carts is long gone, but city horsemanship is far from dead. So when you visit the Big Apple the next time, you can skip the cliché carriage ride around Central Park, get yourself on a real horse, and gallop through its woods instead.

Speakers' Corner: The Place Where Everyone Gets Heard

I watched as Gavin White, an independent filmmaker, explored the past and present of London’s Speakers' Corner, dubbed “the single best known place for free speech on the planet,” and wondered why we don’t have one in Central Park in New York. I had walked by the Speakers' Corner in London, and more than once. While the concept probably wouldn’t survive in the stricter, more prohibitive cultures, the Gotham city should’ve been able to handle it. For now, I bow to the Brits.

White’s documentary takes us through an engaging and thought-provoking series of clips shot at Speakers' Corner over a few years, ranging from criticism of every political system known to man to a heated debate about the Islamic marriage practice, and from modern gay and lesbian issues to Christianity and atheism. Yet, some speakers stand out of the crowd even in this eclectic sea of humanity. “I preach love,” declares a speaker whose platform seems to be completely apolitical and religion-neutral. He shares a few bits of his wisdom. “There was a Swedish girl here last week. She listened to a nutcase on the left, to a psycho on the right, and came to me. And we had an absolutely wonderful evening together!”

“You have the right to remain vocal,” says the civil right activist and revolutionary, Heiko Khoo, featured in the documentary. A son of a Chinese mother and a German father, he was interviewed about the history of Speakers’ Corner as well as taped during his political and cultural debates. As the film progresses, we learn that Speakers' Corner was frequented by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell, C.L.R. James, Ben Tillett, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, and William Morris. Interestingly enough, this symbol of free speech started as a place for public execution – it was home of the notorious Tyburn hanging tree. Later the tree was replaced by triangular-shaped gallows with each beam able to hold eight people at once. When a convicted person was about to be hung, he was allowed to speak to the crowd, which often gathered hundreds of people, and say anything he wanted. For the first time in his life, he was about to be truly heard.

A native Australian, White had just moved from Melbourne to London to work as a producer on “The Media Report,” a show for European Business News, when he discovered the Speakers’ Corner phenomena. “I was broke and discovering London, looking for a film project that wouldn’t take me away from my day job,” White recalled.
One Sunday, while walking through Hyde Park with his sister, he saw a crowd at the Speakers’ Corner and was hooked. As it was only held on Sundays and didn’t interfere with his work schedule, White explained, “It was the perfect subject for a documentary!”

The Speakers’ Corner project took close to 11 years of White’s life, during which he filmed every Sunday for 3-4 years through every season. “It was quite a labor of love,” he reveals. “The project languished for a while due to lack of funds, but eventually I convinced enough people to assist and make it a reality.”

Gavin White currently resides in San Francisco where he runs a company that provides text-based media to poor communities around the world using an online platform called Mobilize. His documentary Speaker’s Corner was recently screened at the Astoria/Long Island City Film Festival in New York.