Good morning. It's Monday. Today we'll look at a construction site in Central Park that is next to a favorite hunting ground of Flaco, the celebrity Eurasian eagle-owl who died last week.
As the Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci noted over the weekend, Flaco was "resilient, stubborn and scrappy" and had taken up residence in the North Woods of Central Park. In his comings and goings, he would have seen the construction site next to the North Woods. Some social media posts showed Flaco taking in the view from excavation machinery or sitting regally on a stack of wooden wedges. Before we look at the construction project, here's what else you need to know about Flaco.
A $160 million construction projectThe construction in Central Park involves remaking a part of the park that serves as a backyard for nearby blocks in East Harlem that don't have much green space. A monolithic aboveground structure from the 1960s has already been demolished. It was topped by the Lasker Pool, which doubled as a skating rink in cold weather. "This is righting a wrong," Elizabeth Smith, the president of the Central Park Conservancy, said on a recent morning. "What was here divided the park and kept East Harlem residents from enjoying the rest of the park. It's going to feel like you're in the park now." The Lasker Pool's demolition was one of many perspective-altering changes in the project that will open the way to the park south of 110th Street. The project costs $160 million; the city is putting up $60 million, and the conservancy has raised the rest. The new complex, which will feature a swimming pool that can also be used as a skating rink, is expected to open next winter, several months later than originally planned. "Covid sent us back a bit," Smith said. The differences between the old Lasker layout and what will take its place are already clear. The new building — with restrooms, changing rooms and a snack area — is tucked into a hillside, and the path from the north end of the park runs over the green roof on top. Hidden inside is the equipment to pump water for swimming and chill it for skating. Outside, the new pool-and-rink will have an artificial-turf cover, creating an open green space that parkgoers can walk across. Or lounge on, if they feel like lying down and stretching out in the "shoulder seasons," as the conservancy calls the times when the weather is too chilly for swimming and too warm for skating. 'Olmstedian'Christopher Nolan, a landscape architect who helped conceive the project, said that it was all very "Olmstedian" — as in Frederick Law Olmsted, who with Calvert Vaux designed Central Park. Nolan said that the new structure had been carefully "integrated into the landscape" in a way that Olmsted would have liked, in contrast to the old design, "where in the 20th century the idea was to put buildings on top of the landscape." Another Olmstedian touch involved rerouting a stream that courses through the area. It had been diverted underground through a culvert since the 1960s. Now it will again be visible. And it will once again feed into the Harlem Meer, the little lake created by Olmsted and Vaux.
Smith, the conservancy's leader, said that the new building would be open year-round. The Lasker site, which was run by the Trump Organization until 2021, used to close for almost half the year, between swimming and skating seasons. Also, conservancy officials said, everyone who entered during the skating season had been required to pay, even if they were merely spectators with no plans to lace up and go out on the ice. Admission to the new building will be free, although there will still be fees to rent skates and get on the ice. After the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Mayor Bill de Blasio moved to end contracts with the Trump Organization for four concession operations in the city, including the ones at the Lasker Rink and the Wollman Rink at the south end of the park. The Trump contract for the Lasker concession was to expire in March of that year, and, with the construction project already scheduled, the contract was not renewed. The conservancy will take over the concessions year-round when the new center opens, with pool operations handled by the parks department. WEATHER Expect a partly sunny day with temperatures in the low 50s. At night it will be partly cloudy, with temperatures dropping to the low 40s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until March 24 (Purim). The latest New York news
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The judge, a tall, dark-haired, middle-aged man with a booming voice, had a real New York accent that was impressive to this former Ohio resident who was bent on obliterating her own Midwestern accent. After the plaintiff had testified to her extreme distress at discovering the worm, the judge ordered that "Exhibit A, to wit, da woim," be circulated among the jurors. Then he paused and, with a smile and nod at me, said: "Except for da lady." I tried to protest by shaking my head, but the clerk carrying the worm passed me by. Back in the jury room, no one doubted that the plaintiff had indeed found a worm in her salad, but we were unimpressed by the suffering she claimed it had caused her. Had she not willingly, perhaps eagerly, extracted, wrapped in napkins, transported home and preserved in her freezer the offending worm? After deliberating, we unanimously found in favor of the plaintiff, enabling her to collect her legal costs from Horn & Hardart, but we awarded her damages of only $1. — Alix Kates Shulman Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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N.Y. Today: Near Flaco’s turf, a regreening of Central Park
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