Tag Archives: Indoor Park

Live in New York long enough and sign up for enough newsletters, and you develop a skill for reading between the lines of breathless coverage of new, weird, gimmicky, bizarre, inventive openings.

Consider the invitation I received for New Years Eve from a new friend that I actually quite like. It was to a $125-a-ticket event (this somehow is a reasonable price for a New Years Eve event in the strange world we live in) which the earnest website billed as “Rated #1 NewYear’sEveTopPartyValueatNewYork’sMostExquisitePrivateEvent SpaceFor2012!”

I’m sorry. This isn’t Germany. You can’t just shove a bunch of words together to make a new thing. Specifically, an award that doesn’t exist. The website goes on to hype the wonderfulness of this event, saying, “Prince George offers the stunning, vibrant, thrill-seeking crowd room to frisk, frolic, mix and mingle the night away ‘til the wee hours of 2012 surrounded by pizzazz rarely found in today’s party environs.” Oh. The excitement.

What do you get for $125?
“* Festive NYE party favors
* Live DJ NYE 2012 countdown
* Midnight champagne toast”
Luckily there is also an open bar so you can get blackout and forget you’re at a glorified prom.

The night is yours so throw your hands in the ‘ayer’ and party like you just don’t care – but always know you are doing it in supreme style at New York’s timeless masterpiece, Prince George Ballroom (PGB, for those in the know). Treat yourself to a magical New Year’s Eve experience….you deserve it!

Who writes this bullshit? Even as much as I love the girl who invited me, I most thankfully have other options that include a DJ I’ve heard of (Avicii). Being new to NYC, I don’t think she’s developed critical-reading-of-event skills yet. I declined and told her we should catch up over drinks instead.

Along the same vein of overhyped write ups, the opening of an indoor park in Nolita was hailed in publications from Urban Daddy to Gothamist as the most amazing thing ever. A park! Indoors! How could you go wrong? Well, I’m pretty sure that 95% of the coverage written of new, fun, amazing things is just artfully reworked press releases by overworked bloggers who have never even visited these places.

Well, I did visit this park, now in its second winter of operation, and I can tell you that it is utterly depressing. It’s about what you would expect from two rooms carpeted in lurid green astroturf, lined with fake bushes and flowers with the overbearing sound of falling water piped in. This past Sunday afternoon it was fairly deserted, with only some families who looked like they had given up on finding anything better to do with their time.

My friend said it best when he described it as the set of Wizard the Oz. It was too bright, too fake, and the best parts of being in a park are not even there! I go to parks for the sunshine, the fresh air and the smell of grass and trees and flowers. This park had none of them, and made me feel empty inside.

I would rather just dress warmly and go for a walk through a real park. Which we did.