by Shilpa Agrawal
To my mother, Riverside Park is a beautiful walk at the edge of the city.
To my father, it’s a great place for pick-up basketball.
I like to think that getting lost within the park is what helps you find yourself.
They say that New York City never sleeps and yet it wakes up when the sunrise paints purple above the skyscrapers on the other side of the river. Hundreds of middle-aged men and women, who have read many articles about how to Lose 35 in just 5 days! stream out of their apartments, decked head to toe in Under Armour athletic gear. An iPod attached to one arm and an aerodynamic water bottle attached to the other, they head uptown, downtown, and breathe the crisp morning air.
But they are not the only ones who populate the park before hung-over teenagers desperately search for lost wallets only to find their littered cigarette stubs from the night before.
Goddamn.
Young man, don’t say the Lord’s name in vain!
Senior citizens stream out of The Esplanade with their aides at their sides to sit on park benches and observe as people walk by, breaking off breadcrumbs as they place their walkers in front of the “DON’T FEED THE PIGEONS” sign.
Morning turns to afternoon as the runs get shorter and the Boat Basin turns on its grill. Little children in Elmo-themed pull-ups and rainbow striped bikinis flock under the sprinklers that are shot out of a concrete elephant’s trunk. Their parents, clad in white sundresses and khaki shorts, sit on the park benches and mingle. My, look how much little Johnny has grown! On the bike path, a child stares down and violently pedals his blue and red bicycle with training wheels, while a man with padded biking shorts hunches over his Trek 4200 and glides past him. Armies of blonde-haired children, drinking snack-sized Gatorades and wearing polyester West Side soccer league uniforms, come out of the fields, begging their parents to let them have play dates with one another.
The path along the river is filled with American, Chinese, Indian families, all of whom have come to watch the river. The children experiment, jumping down from higher steps on the pier while the grandparents sit on the benches, resting their legs and enjoying the view. One bench stands alone; on it is a girl in faded skinny jeans sitting atop a boy who caresses her leg and whispers delicate Spanish into her ear. Just ten feet behind them, a girl sits perched against a tree, eyes red from crying but tears blown away by the late afternoon wind. Tennis balls whiz above her head but she is in her own world in the middle of another.
The sun slowly goes down and teenagers come out of their homes, decked in their high schools’ sweatshirts, to work off the extra pounds a whole day’s worth of eating has made them feel guilty of. Tourists return their Ride-and-Roll bicycles to the 68th street location under the train tracks. At the adjacent basketball courts, players take a break to put on their sweatshirts. Kids slowly get tired and are lured home by the promise of grilled cheese sandwiches and apple juice for dinner. No one mentions the broccoli.
High tide slowly makes its way in and the water ripples along the edge of the bike path. The homeless man brings his shopping cart of soda cans and Salvation Army clothing to the underpass and begins to spread his bed of trash bags and a single woolen blanket. People avoid his gaze as they walk through the underpass but he doesn’t ask for anything from them. Soon he falls asleep, and he doesn’t know that people hold their breath as they walk past him.
Lovers sit at the edge of the pier holding each other in their arms as they watch New Jersey become engulfed by the imminent darkness. Streetlamps begin to flicker on and mosquitoes circle the heads of the lights. She sinks more deeply into his arms and the lights in the windows across the river gradually turn off. They keep sitting, watching, shining under the fluorescent glow of the lamp above them.
It begins to rain and the lovers huddle under an umbrella and head back to their apartment. Late-night walkers take refuge under the underpass, hoping that the downpour will slowly subside. It doesn’t. I grab his hand and we leave the apartment to make our way down to the seesaws, past the homeless man soundly sheltered from the rain, down the big hill on which my dad lost control of his bike and broke his finger. Let’s stop here for a second? He agrees. I look up into the pitch black and taste the rain. Salty. We sit on the seesaws and rock up and down, listening to the pitter-patter of the drops.
You haven’t experienced Riverside Park unless you’ve had wind ruffle your hair, unless you’ve seen the river ripple in the daylight or seen the reflection of lights at night, unless you’ve come out with a clear mind. Up and down the seesaw, hidden by the nighttime, we were both smiling about different things. Riverside Park just brought us together.
Shilpa Agrawal was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but spent her K-12 years growing up in the heart of New York City. Her piece, “Riverside Park”, reflects her love for the city and her different experiences in a park that she has grown up with. Shilpa is a sophomore at MIT majoring in computer science and minoring in creative writing.