Parks: A Great Cheap Date

At first glance, NYC seems like a really expensive place to explore. I’m not saying that it isn’t. However, I’m learning that there are some really inexpensive ways of seeing an enjoying the city, the parks. I finally made it to Central Park, yes nearly a year after being here, it’s really an incredible place. I’ll always have an affinity for my beloved Mill Creek Park in Youngstown (http://www.millcreekmetroparks.com/) that is also an incredible oasis in the middle of a very urban city. Mill Creek will always be my favorite park in the world, but Central Park is some unbelievable place. I went to the park to see a FREE Alvin Ailey show, a part of Summerstage, a fantastic free concert series around the city: (http://www.summerstage.org/mainstage.html). Obviously something like this is high demand so when I got there about 30 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin; it was well over capacity with a couple hundred people outside the gate trying to get in. The great thing is that park is so big you could spend days just exploring the park itself and it’s huge of course. Since we couldn’t get in, we just hung around, enjoyed the cool breeze, listened to the music, watched the scenes and strolled the park. The thing that constantly overwhelms me about NYC, is the number of people here. Everywhere you go, people. That night in the park there were literally thousands of people and we were there well past dark. There were folks playing the drums, dancing, lovebirds strolling, kids playing and all in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. It was amazing to walk through the park and look through the trees and see the lights of CNN building.
Monday I visited another park that one of my pal tells me is actually a school field. The Martin Luther King Jr. Free Concert Series — Wingate Field, Brooklyn (http://www.brooklyn.com/modules.php?name=Wingate_Field) also holds free concerts. This Monday was Chrisette Michele and Musiq Soulchild, FREE. The concert was packed and the performances were great. They’ve scheduled acts for all ages, Toni Braxton, Salt-N-Pepa, Naughty By Nature, Aretha Franklin and Sean Paul to name a few. Get there early though and pack a snack because there’s no food in the park. I definitely won’t be missing Salt-N-Pepa this Monday for a little Ooh baby baby!
I can’t wait to visit another park called the High Line (http://www.thehighline.org/). The High Line is on Manhattan's West Side in the Meatpacking. “The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930s, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets. Section 1 of the High Line is open as a public park, owned by the City of New York and operated under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. When all sections are complete, the High Line will be a mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, running through the West Side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Clinton/Hell's Kitchen. It features an integrated landscape, designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, combining meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings. Fixed and movable seating, lighting, and special features are also included in the park.
Access points from street level will be located every two to three blocks. Many of these access points will include elevators, and all will include stairs.” I’m especially excited to visit this park because The City of Cleveland is looking at similar models to repurpose abandoned spaces around the city particularly in my old neighborhood the Warehouse District. Also, the designers of the High Line may be doing some work in Cleveland’s Public Square.
We often forget what a great cheap date a park is, regardless of the city. So remember, while the weather is still nice, get out and enjoy your local park’s beauty, grandeur and freeness! Enjoy some pics from the park
Cleveland or NYC; You Decide…