//boroughing//
Fall 2017
Secret Gardens in New York City
Yaira Kobrin
Conservatory Garden in Central Park. Photo courtesy of gigi_flickr.
Central Park opened its gates in 1857, emerging as a quiet refuge from the bustle of a sleepless city. While the park has since transformed, becoming an important landmark and tourist-trap, it is still possible to find some quiet oases hidden within the park’s 843 acres of greenery. Searching for an escape from the noise of campus (and the equally stress-inducing silence of Butler Library), I set off to explore one of these hidden haunts, the Conservatory Garden. After three sleepless weeks spent taking four midterms and fueled only by power naps and copious amounts of coffee, I fled campus, desperate for peace.
My walk was distinctly metropolitan; fellow pedestrians rushed past me with their heads down as they took purposeful strides. The air filled with a cacophony of car horns and bike bells. After passing three Starbuckses in six blocks, my head pounded from the noise and from my sleep deprivation. I wondered if it was possible to find a quiet place in the middle of the city.
But finally, I spotted the park, and as I crossed the border from pedestrian sidewalk to the park pathway, the air around me changed. The sounds of the city subsided; the park became hushed— unusually quiet. The music that reverberated through my headphones suddenly seemed sacrilegious, so I hit pause, and listened instead to the silence of the park. Soon, though, this quiet became deafening. Compared to the palpably tense silence of the reference room in Butler, this natural stillness seemed hallowed—so I again blasted Beyoncé, unwilling to commit to the introspection that the silence demanded.
Central Park is beautiful in the fall, and as I walked I continuously stopped to admire the foliage. Like any good millennial, I sought to document the scenery on social media, editing my experience through the appropriate Snapchat filters. I meandered past East Drive, around the Harlem Meer (which, according to a placard, is Dutch for “lake”), and up a steep hill, until, out of breath, I spotted the Conservatory Garden.
As the park’s only “formal garden,” the Conservatory Garden is also one of its best kept secrets. It wasn’t always a garden; its name derives from the conservatory that stood on the property from 1898 until 1934, when the building was torn down and the site was remade into a garden. I only discovered the garden when my grandma, a New Yorker whose love for the city is rivaled only by her love for her grandchildren, dragged me to visit one of her “all time favorite” city spots.
The Conservatory Garden is technically three gardens, each hushed and otherworldly. The first garden, filled with flower beds still in full bloom in early November, was the busiest. One old man sat alone reading and several couples also sat on benches in companionable silence. A middle-aged couple circled the garden, the woman looking bored as the man extolled the virtues of the flowerbeds, suggesting they plant similar ones in “the Hamptons’ estate.”
His comment reminded me of one of my Lit Hum classmates, who had remarked the week before that he had a better grasp on Homer’s Iliad than the rest of us because he had read the epic in Greece. I had come to the park to escape Columbia’s pretension, but the park itself is inherently pompous. Frederick Law Olmsted created Central Park primarily for New York City’s wealthy elite, as an exclusive escape from grimy city life. Yet the park has become a refuge for New Yorkers from all walks of life; it has maintained its magic while opening its gates to everyone.
The park’s universality was on display in the second garden, where I went to avoid listening to more “Hamptons’ estate” conversation. The second garden is a long lawn with a raised trellis, covered in wisteria. I stood in the center and surveyed the view: the garden, in its autumnal glory, and in the distance I spotted the Museum of the City of New York, home to exhibits as eclectic as New Yorkers themselves.
Looking down, I noticed the diverse names etched on the benches surrounding me. The inscriptions and dedications stood in stark contrast to one another. “Mike, Fox and Gus—True New Yorkers” rubbed elbows with “Caroline Smithton, Proud Benefactor of These Gardens,” while next to them, Norman asked Jessica if she would marry him, and their neighbor mourned the death of her beloved husband. Like the park-benches, Central Park had blended a clash of cultures together, creating harmony out of dissonance.
Finally, I peeked into the third garden. I decided I would return here with a book. The long rows of benches, shaded by drooping trees, seemed more inviting than Low Library’s infamous steps. I was reminded, again, of why I had come to the park: to escape the occasionally toxic environment of a stress-filled campus, to gain fresh perspective, and to clear my head. The Conservatory Garden is a place to breathe. It is a place to listen to quiet conversations on shady benches instead of rasping coughs in dimly-lit library rooms. Although Columbia can often feel inescapable, its gates are always open, and just beyond them lies the entirety of New York City, waiting to be explored.
My walk was distinctly metropolitan; fellow pedestrians rushed past me with their heads down as they took purposeful strides. The air filled with a cacophony of car horns and bike bells. After passing three Starbuckses in six blocks, my head pounded from the noise and from my sleep deprivation. I wondered if it was possible to find a quiet place in the middle of the city.
But finally, I spotted the park, and as I crossed the border from pedestrian sidewalk to the park pathway, the air around me changed. The sounds of the city subsided; the park became hushed— unusually quiet. The music that reverberated through my headphones suddenly seemed sacrilegious, so I hit pause, and listened instead to the silence of the park. Soon, though, this quiet became deafening. Compared to the palpably tense silence of the reference room in Butler, this natural stillness seemed hallowed—so I again blasted Beyoncé, unwilling to commit to the introspection that the silence demanded.
Central Park is beautiful in the fall, and as I walked I continuously stopped to admire the foliage. Like any good millennial, I sought to document the scenery on social media, editing my experience through the appropriate Snapchat filters. I meandered past East Drive, around the Harlem Meer (which, according to a placard, is Dutch for “lake”), and up a steep hill, until, out of breath, I spotted the Conservatory Garden.
As the park’s only “formal garden,” the Conservatory Garden is also one of its best kept secrets. It wasn’t always a garden; its name derives from the conservatory that stood on the property from 1898 until 1934, when the building was torn down and the site was remade into a garden. I only discovered the garden when my grandma, a New Yorker whose love for the city is rivaled only by her love for her grandchildren, dragged me to visit one of her “all time favorite” city spots.
The Conservatory Garden is technically three gardens, each hushed and otherworldly. The first garden, filled with flower beds still in full bloom in early November, was the busiest. One old man sat alone reading and several couples also sat on benches in companionable silence. A middle-aged couple circled the garden, the woman looking bored as the man extolled the virtues of the flowerbeds, suggesting they plant similar ones in “the Hamptons’ estate.”
His comment reminded me of one of my Lit Hum classmates, who had remarked the week before that he had a better grasp on Homer’s Iliad than the rest of us because he had read the epic in Greece. I had come to the park to escape Columbia’s pretension, but the park itself is inherently pompous. Frederick Law Olmsted created Central Park primarily for New York City’s wealthy elite, as an exclusive escape from grimy city life. Yet the park has become a refuge for New Yorkers from all walks of life; it has maintained its magic while opening its gates to everyone.
The park’s universality was on display in the second garden, where I went to avoid listening to more “Hamptons’ estate” conversation. The second garden is a long lawn with a raised trellis, covered in wisteria. I stood in the center and surveyed the view: the garden, in its autumnal glory, and in the distance I spotted the Museum of the City of New York, home to exhibits as eclectic as New Yorkers themselves.
Looking down, I noticed the diverse names etched on the benches surrounding me. The inscriptions and dedications stood in stark contrast to one another. “Mike, Fox and Gus—True New Yorkers” rubbed elbows with “Caroline Smithton, Proud Benefactor of These Gardens,” while next to them, Norman asked Jessica if she would marry him, and their neighbor mourned the death of her beloved husband. Like the park-benches, Central Park had blended a clash of cultures together, creating harmony out of dissonance.
Finally, I peeked into the third garden. I decided I would return here with a book. The long rows of benches, shaded by drooping trees, seemed more inviting than Low Library’s infamous steps. I was reminded, again, of why I had come to the park: to escape the occasionally toxic environment of a stress-filled campus, to gain fresh perspective, and to clear my head. The Conservatory Garden is a place to breathe. It is a place to listen to quiet conversations on shady benches instead of rasping coughs in dimly-lit library rooms. Although Columbia can often feel inescapable, its gates are always open, and just beyond them lies the entirety of New York City, waiting to be explored.
//Yaira Kobrin is a first-year in Columbia College. She can be reached at [email protected].