I have walked through the lower part of Central Park in Manhattan many times, and every time I do, it seems I've never done it before. This Sunday we were trying to cut through the park West to East, to cross 5th Ave at 72nd Street, but we couldn't. It was the Puerto Rican Day parade, and the park had become a staging area for the NYPD. There were barriers that paralleled the parade route, and police everywhere. I assume it was a security arrangement, to prevent bad people from sneaking into the parade, but I don't know that for sure. In any case, we ended up following the barriers and then cutting back to the West Side at 86th Street or thereabouts. We saw, among other things, a foot path that followed the shore of one of the lakes where people row, a private children's party being held at a Marionette Theatre, and a beautiful couple in full wedding regalia being photographed in a small gazebo on the lake shore.  The path home also led us through tunnels that must have been blasted out of the bedrock of the island.  Eerie, cool and primitive. It could have been 200 hundred years ago.