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Good Park, Bad Park.
Abingdon Square Park
Take a "Sex and the City" tour and you'll know Abingdon Square as the place you're meant to sit while eating a Magnolia Cupcake. Live in the West Village, and you'll know it as home to the off-kilter cobblestones that snapped your favorite heels, to the rare and inconveniencing college film shoot, and to an inexcusable population of pigeons.
It is evident to me now, after reading Kunstler's “The Geography of Nowhere,” that Abingdon Square and its accompanying park were once meant to be a place of refuge from the "deadening uniformity" (33) of Manhattan's Gridiron structure. Now, the place is one of the rare few where junkies still congregate openly.
Bryant Park, on the other hand, sits surrounded on all sides by beacons of American capitalism—the glassy HBO building, the New York Public Library, fashion showrooms stacked mile-high—glistening amongst the boulevards of Au Bon Pain, Prêt a Manger, and Chipotle. But the park itself is positively lovely, a long stretch of grass encompassed by benches and picnic tables. The park is venue to film screenings every summer Monday, and to Fashion Week—two of New York's proudest artistic ventures. It only makes sense that while a public square in the middle of a calming neighborhood would be a place of squalor, a public square in the middle of a bustling business-centric neighborhood would be a calming place.
New Yorkers are fickle beasts—as Kunstler duly notes, our "yearning to escape industrialism" (37), is inevitably and endlessly counteracted by our efforts to rationalize our choice to live in a metropolitan center. On summer days, when (misfortune of misfortunes) I am usually employed somewhere in Midtown, I bolt to Bryant or Central Park as soon as work lets out. But after a mere hour or two with my book, accompanied by birds, trees, and the occasional jogger, I find I must rush downtown to frolic and chain-smoke on the hot concrete. I am loathe to be such an archetypal city-dweller, but I'll be damned if I'm decisive. Just like every American you've ever known.
the relationship to new
the relationship to new yorkers and their parks is indeed a fascinating one. and it's even funnier that no matter what we continue to choose to love here, work here, go to school here, but at every chance we get we want to escape to the country. and if not the country, the next best thing is... the park.
although, i'd disagree with you on bryant park. it's way too "hustle and bustle" for me. there's something about a lack of separation. when i sit there i still feel like i'm in the middle of midtown and there's no wall (physical or metaphorical) that separates me from the traffic and noise. i'd say my favorite park is prospect park in brooklyn. when i'm there i swear to god, sometimes i actually forget i'm in a city at all.
The public-ness of public
The public-ness of public parks is a topic that fascinates me to no end, and while Bryant Park may be 'calming,' it's also one of the least public parks in the entire city. There's some pretty extensive writing on Bryant Park and what's referred to as 'pacification by cappuccino.' Those socially accepted in the park are the upwardly mobile office workers (and others like them) that surround the park.
Abingdon Square Park, as you mentioned, however, is one of the few places frequented by junkies. (On a side note, Bryant Park was known as 'Needle Park' in the 1970s). The presence of junkies, though, discourages 'normal users.'
I'm not making any kind of a point. I just find your observations interesting in comparison to one another.