Some parks

Gramercy Park is the city's only private park. It has a high, wrought-iron fence on all sides, and all and only the residents of the stately old apartment buildings that ring the park get a key. I both hate this for heaping yet another elitism onto an already elitist city, and love it for being inconsistent with the rest of the parks.

Madison Square Park has a "Shake Shack" in the southeast corner. I both hate this as an instance of privatization and love this because MILKSHAKES. When I walked through a squirrel ran up to me - I mean right up to me - and blocked my path and sniffed at me and held out his hands and looked at me incredulously for not having anything to offer. Everything shy of punching me in the face and taking my wallet. A propos of which, further on, I saw a few guys walk over to a sleeping hobo and just take his umbrella. Normally, like any good New Yorker, I would say something to that shit, but these guys looked serious.

Battery Park I oddly enough never frequent, even though it is close to my house. I also don't normally take walks in the evening because I have been walking all day and I am home now. But the other day I went, and shortly after I crossed the threshold, the lawns came alive with thousands of tiny neon send-offs into the crepuscular air. Fireflies in action, what I had never seen before, and all the couples on all the benches kissed.