1. Wake up to bagels and all the fixin’s stocked up from the night before. Pumpernickle bagels from Eat. Red Onions. Tomatoes. Capers. Avocado. Smoked salmon (the non stringy kind).2. Go to Heschker playground, Central park.
This is the water fortress, play castle fantasy dream of anyone, with any sliver of child left in them. I’m trying to find out more about the architect responsible for it, though from what I can gather, it took on its present incarnation in 1996. I have been dreaming about this kind of space (for us, mind you, for grown-ups, too) for years now, inspired by other physically involving spaces/structures from the Tactile Dome in San Francisco’s Exploratorium many years ago and Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely’s fountain at Place Igor Stravinsky near the pompidou center in Paris, http://www.bluffton.edu/%7Esullivanm/pompfnt/pompfnt.html , to the Stone Forest in China. These places speak to your physicality. They are transformative in that make your physical self open out into other possibilities.
No, but yeah, I mean, it’s for the kids, but it has towers and slides and ramps and fountains and crawl-under parts and a whole network of water paths to walk through. How can it possibly be? It even had that irresistible, bouncy cork stuff that you just kinda want to trot around on. A barefooter’s heaven. And that’s not including the great little fenced toddler park with sand and gentle fountains coming from an inviting curved wall that all sit next to the fortress. And-it all backs up against a giant rock that you can access from atop the fortress-Cool! Rider had a great time, too.
3. To the Central Park carousel-This is a giddy experience, like loping almost-really fast. There are cherubs hunting and killing rabbits at the top of the carousel. Don’t think you’d see that on a carousel designed today. Oddly dark and funny. Terrific sculpted pieces on the inside. Funny modern carousel interpretations of eighties music mixed in with the classics. Rider couldn’t stop gazing at the center. We each rode with him once than all rode together in the sled because Rider kept pointing at it and saying, “I wanna ride that one.”
4. Continue through the park, just showing the early signs of Autumn, to The Natural History Museum. See Mermaids and other Mythical Creatures exhibit. (Feegee mermaid!) See teeny tiny primate sculpture that looks like an teensy-weensy person. And the grandfather of all stags. A dinosaur Stag!
5. Walk out at closing in time to go to Maxilla and Mandible where despite the sign that prohibits strollers (mostly for crowded times, we find out, it is a cabinet of curiosities, not a Pottery Barn), the guy there is just wonderful, effusive even with our two year old. Turns out he was a science teacher for many years. Really knew his _____ O-Saurs. Buy a long wax block with teeth crowns in their proper mouth position from 1923. (Only $19)
6. Head out further west-not sure where you are going, just looking for two-year old friendly restaurant and hit H&H bagels (which we hadn’t gotten around to and I didn’t think we ever would) and-Zabars! I had completely forgotten about Zabars- I can’t even begin. They have the best everything-fish, cheese, breads, coffees, kitchen gadgets. This is my soul food. Better than any food stop in New York. If you want to eat New York up, this would be the place to do it. http://www.zabars.com/?gclid=CMK1jb39lo8CFRKzhgodgjs1Gg The H and H Bagels we got were great, particularly the poppy seed. What great, chewy texture, but they were out of Pumpernickel, my favorite. The best bagels we had there were from E.A.T., they were Pumpernickel. I wish I had bought more.
7. Figure out a fabulous two Toddlerific dinner solution. . .which we did not do. Dinner sucked. We never found a restaurant we felt could handle Rider (or visa-versa), so we ended up hunkered over a crowded counter at Whole Foods.
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