First stop, just inside the 93rd Street entrance, was the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. Sadly, joggers rule here and strollers are not allowed on the path ringing the reservoir:
Kemper and Daddy find a nice quiet spot just above the North Meadows for Kemper to take a nap and Daddy to have a picnic lunch:
Kemper takes in the views over Harlem Meer from the remains of Fort Clinton, a redoubt originally used during the Revolutionary War (by both sides), then expanded and fortified during the War of 1812 as a guard post against invasions from the north, both by land and by water (before the skyscrapers, you could see all the rivers from here):
Kemper debates whether or not to grab a free pole and bait from the Dana Discovery Center and drop a line in the Harlem Meer, an artificial pond up against the northeast corner of the park and named for a nearby (but long-gone) swamp in what was once the separate Dutch city of Harlem.
Kemper helps daddy pick a knish from the Knish Nosh hut, a new Central Park outpost of the Forest Hills, Queens institution since 1952. (Daddy went with the classic: potato.)
Where are the waterfalls in Central Park? Kemper knows! In the secret North Woods Ravine:
Kemper follow the hidden narrow trail along the Ravine of the North Woods, 90 acres of deciduous forest shaded by oak, hickory, maple, and ash and cocooned in silence save for birdsong and the babbling brook known, for some reason, as the Loch:
The Glen Span Arch marks the south end of the North Woods Ravine trail. Every bridge in the park is different by design, and this 1865 span of light gray gneiss has a grotto hidden inside on the right:
Kemper pauses by the side of The Pool to enjoy the shade of willow trees and have his lunch while watching Great White Egrets flap by, their necks all folded up in flight:
Since the Reservoir extends almost the full width of the park, there's no way to avoid it as you head south, so Kemper gets a second look at this 106-acre pool of water, which measures up to 40 feet deep and was once the main water supply for the city (now it's just an emergency backup reservoir--and important pit-stop for migrating birds).
With the Great Lawn closed for pesticides, Kemper had to get in his sunbathing with everyone else along the narrow strip of grass between the path and the Turtle Pond:
Kemper decides to investigate the flowers on a tree by the Turtle Pond:
Kemper takes his proper place among the sunbathing beauties by the Turtle Pond under Belvedere Castle:
Most people miss the Shakespeare Garden on the north slope of Vista Rock below Belvedere Castle, but Kemper knows where to go to see all the plants and flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's plays:
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
(from The Tempest)
Atop the second tallest peak of Central Park (a dizzying 135 feet) sits the fanciful schist castle of Belvedere, home since 1919 to the United States Weather Bureau (now the Henry Luce Nature Observatory)--when they say "...the weather in Central Park is…" this is where they've measured it:
Kemper, showing remarkable intelligence, fell asleep while Daddy was dragging him up all the steps to Belvedere Castle, and continues his nap despite the great views over the Turtle Pond and Great Lawn (a former reservoir which was filled with rubble during the expansion of New York, home to a shanty town during the Great Depression, and a vast dustbowl for decades thereafter; rehabilitated in the 1990s, with grass and everything, it now host to concerts and shows):
Kemper and Daddy get comfortably lost in the Ramble, Frederick Law Olmsted's 38-acre masterpiece of "wild garden" landscaping and one of the first parts of the park to be built:
Kemper's stylish new Baby Jogger chariot barely fits through the rock-face ashlar Ramble Arch, narrowest arch in the park at five feet wide:
Kemper poses--just like every New York bride and the romantic couples in, oh, easily a dozen movies set in NYC--on the lithe Bow Bridge, one of only three remaining Vaux-designed cast-iron bridges in the park (of an original seven), spanning sixty feet over The Lake teeming with waterfowl and boaters:
Kemper is still on the search for his Central Park Rock (every native New Yorker gets to adopt their own Central Park Rock), sizing up this splendid example near Cherry Hill while Daddy rambles on about how the rocks are all Manhattan Schist of mica layered with quartz and feldspar:
Kemper decides he's too tired to take a boat out for a ride on the Lake today--another of the parks' first features, created from a natural swamp and, until 1951, the park's main skating rink in winter--so he just basks in the Grande Jatte atmosphere of its banks:
The Angel of the Waters (better known as the Bethesda Fountain) was the only sculpture commission for the park in the original design, form the artist Emma Stebbins (the first woman to receive a public art work commission New York City). It shows the angel blessing the waters of the Bethesa pool in Jerusalem, which were said to have healing powers, in honor of the opening the Croton Aqueduct, which brought sweet, fresh water into the city:
Kemper needs to get home, so he heads out of the park at 72nd Street, pausing to pay homage at Strawberry Fields. Jostled by Italian and Spanish tourists, Kemper stops under the shade of towering elms by a mosaic donated by Neapolitan craftsmen. It is scattered with flowers and offerings for John Lennon, who was shot not 100 yards away in front of his apartment building, the Dakota. The mosaic faithfully reproduces an original from the ruins of Pompeii with one exception. In the center is Lennon's simplest, most provocative lyric: Imagine:
