I was born in The Greenwich village in St. Vincent’s hospital – a hospital that no longer exists. For the first three years of my life I lived across the street from Washington Square Park and I essentially grew up in that park, going there every day with my father, even after we moved to another neighborhood. Some of my earliest memories are of climbing trees and licking melting ice pops bought from street vendors. I remember the entertainers: my simple childish delight at the man who had trained his bulldog to catch a rubber ball and throw it back, silent fascination at the bearded neo-hippie college guy, sitting cross-legged and softly playing his guitar for dollar bills. On hot days, I would wade onto the plumes of the water fountain which, a few years and several million dollars later, would be moved ten feet to the left so that it was centered perfectly underneath the arch. There is still a steak of dripping gold lacquer adorning the playground monkey bars from when a six-year-old version of myself dropped a bottle of nail polish over a decade ago. To put it simply, this park and I… we have history.
