We were visited by my niece, her husband, and their adorable 2.5-year-old son on Sunday for a late-afternoon tour of the neighborhood and an early dinner. She’s pregnant and due in a few months, and they are wondering if they can create a more affordable and convenient family life in our slice of the Upper East Side, as opposed to their slice of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, which offers an urban mix of quiet and quaint that they love. Touring them around in my car, I fell easily into my enthusiasms for why the area worked for us—my two are now 15 and 11—and I suppose I could have been mistaken for a real estate agent or someone with a bad case of needing justify his life. Who knows? They seemed to appreciate it. But later, after driving them home to Brooklyn, I saw something—let’s call it a sign—that made me feel like it’s going to be nearly impossible to dislodge them.
They live a few blocks from Carroll Park, which is the very model of a neighborhood park that has something for everyone. As I drove by on Sunday night, there, amid the modestly cooling effect of dusk, was a small group of actors performing Shakespeare (I assume) and a sizable local audience, with lots of children, who had turned out to enjoy the show.
I was tempted to pull over, and I’m not sure why I didn’t because it’s just the kind of spontaneous call to fun that I like to respond to. But I drove on, thinking who wouldn’t want to live in an area like this, among neighbors like these. The play in the park reminded me that, at any time, and especially on early summer nights when New York feels a bit decompressed by all who have left for the weekend and haven’t come back yet, there are just so many ways to enjoy the city and so many people enjoying it.
Meanwhile I’m thinking that I should alert my niece to a bit of family culture in my neighborhood: The free screening of “Frozen” (with free sno-cones) planned at Carl Schurz Park this coming Tuesday night.
(“You see, the UES, brings it too—and Carl has much more flower power than Carroll.”)
Eric Messinger is the editor of New York Family. He can be reached at [email protected]
