Central Park is huge. Unless one takes the time to wonder through slowly, or unless one is lucky enough to have a knowledgeable guide, there are many smaller sections of the park that may get missed. One such section of the garden is the Shakespeare Garden, known to be one of the best spots in the city to stop and literally smell the roses. One of the things about New York that so surprised me the first time I visited, was the gardens. The gardens located in the abandoned spaces between the high rise skyscrapers, and the gardens that hung off of the fire escapes throughout the city.
This was not the concrete jungle I was expecting, it was a bunch of people living in a very small area, who valued beauty, even if was just a pot of geraniums outside the kitchen window. Many of the parks in New York went through times of neglect and disrepair, be it whether the country was consumed with the happenings of the Second World War, or whether the people were to distracted trying to survive during the Great Depression. By the middle of the 1970′s however, many parks got renovated, such as Washington Square Park in the East Village, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
So too, did the Shakespeare Garden of Central Park, start to be tended and cleaned up. William Shakespeare wrote about many aspects of life in his prose and his plays, and this garden in the park, is dedicated to him. Only plants and flowers that he had made mention of in his writings, are located within the garden. Hotels are plentiful on the Upper East side, and if you are traveling to the city in the spring time, look here for those that will ensure you close access to the park, as this is a blooming time that you really do not want to miss. Who knows, you may be able to time it in order to see a play, Shakespeare in the Park, in Shakespeare’s Garden…what a better way to celebrate the life of the beloved Bard?
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