Friday, May 9, 2008

Park peeve

I think that I shall scream if I read one more travel article that refers to my fair city's beautiful Forest Park as "a smaller version of New York City's Central Park" or "like Central Park in miniature" or "in many ways comparable to giants such as New York's Central Park". Let's get this straight once and for all:

• Central Park, New York City, NY: 843 acres
• Forest Park, St. Louis, MO: 1,293 acres

Now, please do not misunderstand: Central Park is lovely, and I have passed many a happy hour there. And I am aware that size isn't everything; certainly in terms of the sheer number of things crammed into it, Central Park would take the biscuit for its variety of activities. Both, of course, are beautiful and free for the use of the public, as it should be.

But Forest Park is neither an upstart (opened just three years after Central Park, during a period in the late 19th century that saw many cities develop massive urban parklands) nor a pipsqueak (approximately 50 percent more spacious than its East Coast cousin). So please, travel writers, spend a few seconds with Google or a decent encyclopedia and get it right.

And since you asked, some of my very favorite spring and summer activities are centered in the Park: strolling through our (free!) Zoo to visit the fauna at lunch time, taking a picnic to the Shakespeare Festival (presenting Richard III later this month), seeing a show at The Muny or having drinks by Post-Dispatch Lake at The Boathouse. Care to join me?

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Do you know what it means…?

I'm stuck at work and keeping track with increasing horror and worry of the reports on Hurricane Katrina. Good friends, including the two most beautiful men in Louisiana, are in my thoughts.

And to all you circuit kids out there, hang on to whatever you were gonna spend on Decadence this year and give it to the Red Cross instead. NOLA's gonna need it.