New York Landmark Turns 150

New York City threw a 150th birthday party for Central Park on Saturday, and thousands of people celebrated by doing exactly the same thing they do every summer day: jogging, biking, walking their dogs, practicing the guitar, playing volleyball and sunbathing.

If officials needed proof of the park’s place in the hearts of New Yorkers, they couldn’t have asked for better.

Nanny Junee Reyes took her charges, 4-year-old Gus Lange and his sister Alice, 2, to their regular stop -- the statue of the hero sled dog Balto. Gus, wearing his Spiderman costume, clambered onto the dog’s back. “Everyone loves the park; you can have a break here,” Reyes said.

Nearby, a hopeful saxophonist played in a stone underpass, his case open for monetary contributions even though he performed nothing but scales for the better part of an hour. At the north end of the park, nearly 50 members of the Rantin family gathered from all over the country for a reunion, one of many groups picnicking throughout the 843 acres under a bright blue sky.

For those who wanted a more structured celebration, there were official festivities as well, part of a yearlong commemoration of the date that officials set aside land in the middle of Manhattan for what would become America’s first major landscaped public park. The massive undertaking, which now includes 51 sculptures, 36 bridges and arches and 58 miles of pedestrian paths, took 16 years and $14 million (about $260 million by today’s standards) to build.

Hundreds of children gathered Saturday to take in “Sleeping Beauty” at the Marionette Theatre, while others headed off to storytelling at the Hans Christian Andersen statue. Runners and bikers raced. Dogs paraded in festive birthday hats, although some were outdone by people, such as the in-line skater who sported a stuffed chicken on his head. A game of croquet drew a small group of participants, but with nearly one news photographer for every youngster playing.

In the North Meadow, the stands were full for the 42nd World Archery Championships, an Olympic qualifying event.

And over on the Great Hill, Gabrielle Wright -- a certified nurse practitioner-midwife from Mohegan Lake, N.Y. -- stood in the blazing sun wearing a multilayered Revolutionary War costume as she ladled out beef stew hot off a smoldering fire. Wright was part of a Revolutionary War encampment reenactment that also featured a George Washington impersonator on a white horse and demonstrations of blacksmithing and wool spinning.

On the Great Lawn, early birds camped out for the night’s outdoor concert, by tenors Marcelo Alvarez and Salvatore Licitra, performing together for the first time in the United States. Earlier in the day, the duo sang “Happy Birthday” at the official cutting of an elaborate birthday cake shaped like Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain and decorated in its unusual (for a cake) dark green-black color.

The park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and opened in part by 1861, wasn’t always such a success story. At the cake-cutting, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe recalled its days as a “municipal embarrassment, a national symbol of decline.” It was revived in the last two decades thanks to a public-private partnership between the Parks Department and the Central Park Conservancy.

In an acknowledgment of the new reality of budget-strapped cities, Benepe thanked the numerous corporate sponsors of the day’s events, noting: “The city doesn’t have the money to pay for birthday parties.”

Thanks to its revival, the park now draws about 25 million visitors each year, many from beyond the city’s borders.

The Tayag family drove in from Bogota, N.J., just to spend the day at the party, said Edgar Tayag, adding: “We love the park.” His children Francis and Elizabeth, ages 7 and 5 respectively, stood on a rock outcropping next to the Balto statue as their mother, Maria, recounted the story of the dog to a passerby who couldn’t understand why the animal had its own statue. Balto was an Alaskan malamute who in 1925 led his team on the final leg of a dogsled relay through an Alaskan blizzard to deliver medicine needed to stop a diphtheria outbreak. The relay serves as the inspiration for the annual Iditarod Trail sled dog race.

Even though he has no official connection to New York, Balto -- his fame boosted by a 1995 animated movie -- is one of the park’s most-visited attractions, so popular that his bronze coating is wearing off from all the petting. Saturday, a group of seven Spanish-speaking children shrieked his name in delight as they saw the statue, before racing off in a whirlwind in the direction of the Central Park Zoo.

At the park’s other end, 5-year-old Onnie Coles was oblivious to the party, but very impressed with the real-life “sausage dog” she had seen as her Rantin family relatives held their reunion. Grandmother Alberta Rantin, from Philadelphia, was in the park for the first time Saturday, and she celebrated by taking a nap.

“At least I can say I ate in Central Park,” she said.