Winterregnum

The winter months are a slow time for Park Odyssey, but scenes still catch my eye in and around parks. Here are a few Manhattan snapshots from the end of 2015 and the start of 2016.

The first is the tip of Pier 45 in Hudson River Park, where on some days, in the late afternoon and early evening, dancers gather to tango, waltz, and otherwise while away the time in each others' arms. I see them sometimes when I'm out running. In the winter I go running only on unseasonably warm days, and on one of those, to my surprise, there were the dancers – unseasonably dancing.

Dancers at Pier 45, Hudson River Park, December 2015

My perambulations through some of the parks in the interior of the great island revealed scenes of restfulness, community, and frosty beauty.

Madison Square Park, December 2015

Ice skaters in Bryant Park, January 2016

Sunset over Union Square Park, December 2015

Union Square Park after the snow, January 2016

I'll be back with newly explored parks well before the winter's out. Stay tuned!

Worth Square

Squeezed into a small space between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, and just across Fifth from Madison Square Park, lies Worth Square. Its raison d'être: the final resting place of General William Jenkins Worth (1794-1849) and the 51-foot monument honoring him.

Worth's body was interred here in 1857 after a temporary stop at Green-Wood Cemetery. A hero of the War of 1812, Worth later fought in the Second Seminole War in the early 1840s, was promoted to General, then campaigned in the Mexican War.

He's largely forgotten today, and thousands of people walk by his mausoleum every day without looking up. But they should look up . Aside from Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park, it's the tallest obelisk in the city.

James Goodwin Batterson designed the obelisk. The founder of Travelers Insurance Company, Batterson also had a hand in designing the United States Capitol, the Library of Congress, and the New York State Capitol in Albany. It's New York City's second oldest monument, too, the oldest being the 1856 George Washington equestrian monument at Union Square just half a mile south.

And as I just learned from a Bowery Boys podcast, the Worth Monument is the central object in a straight line of three New York City obelisks, with Cleopatra's Needle to the north and the Thomas Addis Emmett Obelisk in St. Paul's Chapel's churchyard to the south, near City Hall and the World Trade Center.

So next time you're near Madison Square Park, or if you're thinking of going to the outdoor springtime culinary war zone known as Madison Square Park Eats, think on this: That food festival actually takes place at Worth Square, in the shadow of the Worth Monument honoring a man who fought in the wars we forget about.

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