March Central Park 1956

On the afternoon of the first day of spring, when the gutters were still heaped high with Monday’s snow but the sky itself was swept clean, we put on our galoshes and walked up the sunny side of Fifth Avenue to Central Park.  There we saw:

A pigeon on the half-frozen pond strutting to the edge of the ice and looking a duck in the face.

A policeman getting his shoe wet testing the ice.

Three elderly relatives trying to coax a little boy to accompany his father on a sled ride down a short but steep slope.  After much balking, the boy did, and sure enough, the sled tipped over and the father got his collar full of snow.  Everybody laughed except the boy, who sniffled.

Four boys in black leather jackets throwing snowballs at each other.  (The snow was ideally soggy, and packed hard with one squeeze.)

Seven men without hats.

Twelve snowmen, none of them intact.

Two men listening to the radio in a car parked outside the zoo; Mel Allen was broadcasting the Yanks-Cardinals game from St. Petersburg.

A yak with its back turned.

Empty cages labeled “Coati.”  “Orang-outang.”  “Ocelot.”

A father saying to his little boy, who was annoyed almost to tears by the inactivity of the seals, “Father (Father Seal, we assumed) is very tired; he worked hard all day.”

Most of the cafeteria’s out-of-doors tables occupied.

A pretty girl in black pants falling on them at the Wolman Memorial Rink.

“Bill and Doris” carved on a tree.  “REX & RITA” written in the snow.

Two old men playing, and six supervising, a checkers game.

A man on a bench near the carousel, reading through sunglasses, a book on economics.

Crews of shinglers repairing the roof of Tavern-on-the-Green.

A woman dropping a camera she was trying to load, the film unrolling in the slush and exposing itself.

Things like brown sticks nosing through a plot of cleared soil.

A tire track in a piece of mud far removed from where any automobiles could be.

Footprints around a KEEP OFF sign.

Two pigeons feeding each other.

A plump old man saying “Chick, chick” and feeding peanuts to squirrels.

One red mitten lying lost under a poplar tree.

An airplane, very bright and distant, slowly moving through the branches of a sycamore.

By John Updike, from The New Yorker magazine    

      1.     What sense or senses is John Updike using in this description?

The author uses a wide variety of senses to capture the essence of Central Park on the first day of spring.  The author describes the sensation of cold and wet in several instances to make the reader feel the subtle details of the end of winter in New York City. For example, the author cites, “A policeman getting his shoe wet” and  “soggy” snow ideal for packing and throwing.

The narrator also describes people and other objects with noises and emotions.

      2.     For whom is this written?  Who is the audience for which is he writing this description?

This piece was written by John Updike from The New Yorker magazine

The audience for which this piece was written was for the readership of the New Yorker Magazine in 1956.  Presumably the author was trying to reach an audience that could quickly indentify the almost photography descriptions of familial settings and sounds in Central Park. 

3.     What was the writer’s goal in creating this description?

The author wanted to describe the joyous energy of the New Yorkers during the first day of spring in Central Park.

4. Is this an effective description of Central Park? Explain why or why not?

Yes, this piece describe a detailed walk trough 5th Avenue to Central Park in New York City, using a narrative of joyous energy appreciation of the environment described.