I have been trying to tally the effects of the storm that wasted a 15 block section of Central Park last week. They include:

1. An enormous pile of woodchips from the dozens of trees that work crews have been cutting down. In the forest, the measure of survival is access to light. In Central Park, it is the relative likelihood that a tree will drop something heavy on a Pekinese, or a toddler. Standards of regeneration also differ. Forest trees compete for water, space in the canopy, soil nutrients, etc. Central Park trees hopefuls compete for the attention of East Side doyens and dowagers. For the former, speed of growth is key. For the latter, it is helpful to be mentioned frequently in nineteenth-century poetry.

2. The light in this section of park is no longer the diffuse clarity of the understory, but rather the annoying August glare that pervades most of Manhattan. If you walk there in the mornings, I recommend a hat.

3. A playground that opened three weeks ago is now shuttered. The new fence has buckled under the weight of now absent trees, and the jungle gym/fort that was originally built to encircle two gorgeous oaks now simply has two odd doughnut holes in its middle. This particular playground also was a handy spot for augustlein; she could be taken there without a stroller for a half hour so that one parent or the other could cook dinner in peace (we have a dangerously low-lying oven).

4. The park is no longer confusing. If you wish to walk from one side to the other, you just follow the gash that resembles a stretch of Sherman's march. Central Park is designed for the flaneur rather than the commuter, the person on a stroll rather than the one late for lunch. If somebody asks for directions, normally the only sure solution is to say "follow me" and lead the tourist to the desired bathroom, fountain, theater, or statue. It is an ideal place for dogs, as the best way to get, for example, from Cleopatra's Needle to the best chocolate chip cookies in the city is to sniff your way. This makes the park beautiful: it is a painting rather than a map, a novel rather than a newspaper article. Clarity is overrated.

None of these rank as tragedies. The considerable charitable resources of the Central Park Conservancy are in full swing -- probably individual plantings will be endowed ("The Horatio and Eugenie Constance Hornblower Shrubbery"), and trees will eventually return. Most of the park was unscathed. My kid has noticed none of it, except the bits of bark and twig scattered everywhere. She finds these delicious.

Still, it is not what Die Familie august needed at the moment, as we calculate how much longer we can afford our mortgage while mrs. august, previously our primary breadwinner, remains unemployed. Much of the park is beneath street level, and with the trees it sheltered me and das augustlein in the mornings as I collected and reassured myself, and she kept an eye peeled for dogs. I suspect "dog" will be her first word, as the entry of one into her field of vision prompts immediate and unparalled ecstacy.

I would think a little.

I've been taking Moon Pie, the surviving dog, for walks here lately when the weather's been fine. You were right.

I remember walking through not Central Park but, rather, Morning Side Park very late at night with a friend, drunk. This was the late 80s. You didn't walk through Morning Side Park during the day let alone late at night. We got home fine.

How many "The Trees Of Central Park And Their History" guides will have to be rewritten, do you wonder?

They say it wasn't a twister, but, rather, what did they call it?

Anyways, I've told you this before: Only in New York City could the weather have an attitude.

Your lovely post also put me in mind of this ... and the various treasures that were discovered. While I don't think the seven cities of America's Troy will be revealed, perhaps it will allow some of those musings of yours to surface and be categorized.

My youngest daughter will turn 21 in less than a month. I cannot tell you how fast they go from 2 to 21. It is a ride that is unbelievable in all it's glory. I wish you all the best.

Here, it's well on it's way to day 66 of triple-digit heat. We'll break the record for hottest summer, set last year, by almost two degrees. About an inch and a half of rain since June. In places south of here, rainfall totals for the year are somewhat less than you would find in the Sahara Desert.

Yet, in my Hyde Park neighborhood, one of the priciest in Austin, few seem concerned about watering their lawns. Yards that aren't already xeriscaped are now as much bare soil as dead grass. When you do come across a homeowner so gauche as tend to a perfectly green yard in this climate, you only think "They must not be from here."

Gash location. Degree of research dependent on initiative.

<link>

You know, I've never been to Central Park, my impressions of it come exclusively from any number of well-framed photographed. This took me closer than anything else I've come across. We had a huge ice storm last winter that left huge swaths of trees topless--ragged hillsides like shark's teeth right up until mid-June--and one dangerous limb still dangles by the bark over the treehouse I built for the kids. I look at it a lot, waiting it to fall already. I can see that these things connect to my overall outlook on the place I live in some personal and complicated way, but I'd have had a hard time trying to paint it. Nicely done.

Sorry to read that last paragraph, of course.

My understanding is that it's called a "microburst" and the number of felled trees is now over 500.

Morningside Park is very pleasant now. I once got the shit kicked out of me in a Seattle park. Long story -- I'll leave it for now.

Thanks.

Walls of Windy Troy made me want to be an archaeologist. Sometimes I kind of feel like one of texts. Not sure if that makes sense. Thanks.

Thanks for that. Yeah, I'm trying to get my head around small disturbances, not the kind that make you rent your clothes, but the sort that unsettle you. Blocks of brown lawns definitely in that category.

High praise -- thanks.

I try to stop in at your blog. My google news reader (the way I used to follow all of you) is totally clogged. I clean it out and within two or three days it's back up over 1000 posts. So I need to make some modifications. I'm putting it on the list of things to do...honest.

I love the way you write, august. It always gives me deep pleasure to read you.

A December 2006 storm damaged 3000 trees in Stanley Park. 1000 of them had to be taken down. Bicycling around the park the following summer, I was stunned. It was like looking at holes in the firmament.

Ah, impermanence.

You should talk to switters.

That's very kind, thank you. I love Stanley Park -- that place feels much more like real forest than anywhere in Central Park. You are also making me miss Vancouver food.

Lately I've been trying to tone down my prose a little. I'm feeling like I might have a couple of possibly interesting things to say, and have been trying to settle into a language where I can say them. Don't know if it will happen, and am a bit doubtful it will happen here, but maybe. Good to know that you're reading.