The Big Question

Park Life

In the past few weeks, two Canadian girls took a dip in the reservoir, and a boy and a pre-op trans-sexual cavorted naked in a tree. What’s your ideal afternoon in Central Park?

By Jada Yuan

Justin Bond, Kiki of Kiki & Herb: “I think more public sex is in order. Could we re-create Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights? Pass me a daisy.”

Henry Stern, former Parks commissioner: “What gets ignored in this whole mess is the damage those freaks did to that beautiful, innocent larch. I’ve never had the urge to climb a tree, but I’d like to swim on a beach we’d build at the west end of the reservoir. I’d wear an orange Speedo with green stripes, which is what the Parks lifeguards used to wear before they switched to knee-length boxers. They slow you down!”

Peaches, singer-provocateur: “Wearing a Neoprene long-sleeve water-ski outfit and getting someone’s Range Rover to tow me like I’m waterskiing, but in the park.”

Hal Espen, editor, Outside: “Most of my really memorable times were running around Central Park at night. The whole ‘It’s a scary place where you’re going to get killed’ was never my experience, maybe because other people thought that I was the serial killer.”

Jonathan Safran Foer, novelist: “I’d create the world’s largest tin-can phone, which would span east to west across the reservoir. I would talk to all of my friends, and my family, and perfect strangers, across the water. And Philippe Petit would walk the wire, as conversation passed under his feet.”