Central Park South is one of the most of expensive locations in town, and it reeks of horse piss. Blame the tourists - or, rather, blame the horse-and-buggy owners who cater to them.
I played hooky from today's performance of Siegfried, having sold my ticket after arriving at Lincoln Center. I listened to a part of the performance on the live radio broadcast - which isn't, of course, the same thing - but the weather seemed too inviting for the afternoon to be spent inside, so I decided to go walking instead. The journey quickly took me through horse piss central.
If you take away the sense of smell, the notion of a horse drawn carriage is fairly picturesque, maybe even quaint. There are scenes of people riding these carriages in some of my favorite movies (The Lady from Shanghai and Manhattan among them), and for someone as invested in nostalgia as I am, it would be improper for me to question the value of the experience, a complex fantasy no doubt involving an equal mix of east side Gilded Age wealth, a pastoral renunciation of the subway, and Eloise at the Plaza. But return smell to the picture, and you can't escape the piss. Literally. And, let's be honest, in addition to piss, you can occasionally spot clumps of discarded hay - if you get my meaning - but while these clumps seem to be collected on a semi-regular basis, there's nothing you can really do about the piss. Dog owners may pull out the plastic bag when taking Fido for a walk, but what can you do when he opens up his right leg against a tree? Even on snowy days in winter, the smell persists. A friend argues that horses may not be to blame and suggests a human origin, but I disagree; not even the public pissoir that the San Francisco Civic Center has become approaches this level of smell. So the stretch of Central Park South from Columbus Circle to Grand Army Plaza remains a minor paradox for me: a very desirable location, but I can't imagine ever wanting to live there.
Posted by gminter at April 17, 2004 08:03 PM