By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Meeting Places.
Bethesda Terrace and Fountain in NYC’s Central Park—
where you can blow bubbles
get married
have a conversation
row on the lake
and dance discreetly
or not so discreetly
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.
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| Johna Till Johnson on The First Leg! |
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| CurlsnSkirls on The First Leg! |
| Johna Till Johnson on Looks Like They Made It! |
 | Pit on Looks Like They Made It! |
| Johna Till Johnson on More Scenes From the Nort… |
| CurlsnSkirls on Halfway There! |
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| Johna Till Johnson on R2AK: Scenes From the Northern… |
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| Johna Till Johnson on Halfway There! |
| CurlsnSkirls on Halfway There! |
| Johna Till Johnson on And They’re Off! |
Wind Against Current 
you don’t have to pay for he conversation and you can sit on a sofa
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Exactly! ;-)
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Great insights, looks like a wonderful place to be. Almost like die Domplatte in Cologne, in fron the iconic cathedral.
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Yes, almost any pedestrian area in the middle of a big city will come to be like this sooner or later :-)
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a beautiful place too…
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Not only beautiful, but lively—always something going on :-)
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ok…on bucket list…Central Park in NYC
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Great! The more the merrier :-)
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How fun! This is wonderful–something for everyone. Love it.
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:-) Thanks!!
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What a marvelous series! And so illustrative for me of how the world has changed in 60 years.
We grew up in New York in a world that was black and white by comparison. Not one of your photos would have been a possibility in these colorful and free ways!
What immediately flashed for me was our 50’s meeting place in Manhattan, Under the Clock at the Biltmore. The hotel has long been demolished, and the Clock in the lobb went with it, and that whole scene of prim and proper, suited and gloved college students is gone with the snows of yesteryear.
Yours is a lot more fun!
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Yes, many things are gone, but new things are always replacing them. NYC, in particular, turns over so rapidly. And it always strikes me how the new thing always seems so unquestioningly modern—just the way that thing, whatever it is, simply is—while the old things, and the new things after just a few years, seem so dated and fixed in a particular past time :-)
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I particularly like the blowing bubbles!
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That particular form of entertainment seems to be everywhere in NYC these days :-)
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Like all the shots but ‘dance discreetly’ rather fires my imagination. It seems a little schoolchildishly naughty.
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I hate to spoil it, but that, too, was a photoshoot—albeit a discreet one. I didn’t pay that much attention, but I am pretty sure the dancing couple had a photographer, quite far away with a long lens, and were striking various poses for the camera. The violinist was working independently :-)
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….forgot to say….especially love it!
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Thanks, Pamela!!
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I’m sticking with my imaginatiion :-) As today is August 1st I wish you all a Happy Yorkshire (Ridings) Day. Ee by gum but it’s champion!
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Thank you, Pamela! And happy National Raspberry Cream Pie Day to you in return!! (The US has some such silly “official” designation for every day of the year, it seems—some even established by acts of Congress. I knew I would find something if I just Googled it… :-) )
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absolute meeting place! lovely gallery of events!
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Thanks!!
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Beautiful shots, love visiting New York but would not want to live there! :)
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Why not? :-)
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Love how the bubbles and the bride’s veil fan out in the wind!
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Can’t leave something like that up to the wind on such an important occasion! They had a couple of guys along to stretch out the veil and hold it up high for the photographer… ;-)
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Another great post. I live in such a quiet Australian town it’s hard to imagine being in Central Park with so many people doing so many things. All side by side. If I danced with abandon in my local park I think our policeman ‘Coops’ would come down to see if I was OK!
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The crowd makes all the difference. If you were doing it among a hundred (or a thousand) other people, you wouldn’t think twice about it. Of course, New York is full of people who don’t think twice, or possibly even once, about it even when they are doing it all by themselves in the middle of Times Square :-)
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Haha! Beautiful captures. I love that idea of “free conversation”. And that discreetly dancing couple is so cute :-)
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It’s all a performance. The free conversation guys have, of course, a website, a Facebook page, etc., and I bet the discreetly dancing couple has too ;-)
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Very nice! There’s always something happening in Central Park. You could probably stay there one day, on the same spot, watch things change all around you, activities switching from one to the other :)
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… or all going on simultaneously around you… Exactly! I’ve come close to doing that several times :-)
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Every time I visit your blog I’m reminded how much i miss nyc! We used to pop down all the time from Worcester..theatre/shopping/rock shows and sometimes just to spend a few days eating great food! Love your choice of meeting place..free conversation indeed…ONLY in NYC would you see something like that! (Try it down here in conservative Vero Beach and they’d haul you to the slammer for loitering!)
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It’s free speech, and probably protected by the First Amendment ;-)
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