Pictures from the Park

Notice everyone and their umbrellas. Notice the haziness of the picture. That is from rain, not my camera.

This is Bethesda Fountain aka "The Angel of the Waters." This fountain is the only sculpture commissioned as part of the original Central Park design and the artist, Emma Stebbins, was the first woman to be commissioned for a major piece of art in New York City.

Underneath the larger angel are four figures representing Temperance, Purity, Health and Peace.

This is a picture of the gorgeous buildings on 5th Avenue from Conservatory Water.

The original plans for Central Park called for a conservatory. But thanks to budget cuts (over a hundred years later and nothing has changed), the builders were forced to scrap those plans and come up with a design based on model boat ponds in Paris.


Right next to Conservatory Water is a sculpture that I'm sure many of you are familiar with: Alice in Wonderland.

The statue was commissioned in 1959 by philanthropist George Delacorte for his wife Margarita. Not only does she have a delicious name, her husband is such a stud.

There are also lines from her favorite poem, "The Jabberwocky," engraved in granite around the statue.

This is a picture of the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. The Reservoir is encircled by a running path that Jackie O used to run on. It was beneath the windows of her 5th Avenue apartment. Must be nice.

It was decommissioned in 1993 because of contamination and named after Jackie O in 1994. I don't know whether that was to actually "commemorate her contributions to the city," as Wikipedia states, or if it was a comment to how the Kennedy bloodline has been contaminated by the peasants who have married in.

I wish I was the peasant that caught the eye of a charming Kennedy. Except I really don't want to end up in a car at the bottom of a body of water.

This is the last picture and it is of nothing important. Except that table in the back. Some poor kid was having a birthday party. I tried to secretly take a picture of how sad the scene was. The paper table cloth was soaked and the balloons had been popped/blown around and it was just this one girl and her family. For some reason, I found the whole situation hilarious (read: I have no soul).

As I was taking this picture, the mother ran over. I thought she was going to punch me in the eye, so I started to take off. She asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said, "Un poco." Because I had taken 3 years. In high school. Like six decades ago.

She had to call the food place to cancel the stuff coming for the party. No one was coming. I tried to talk to the little girl. She was crying. I asked if I could have a balloon. They said no.