Park reading can breathe for the first time

Park: Bryant Park
Books: THE BASEBALL CODES and a little of Elif Batuman's THE POSSESSED: ADVENTURES WITH RUSSIAN BOOKS AND THE PEOPLE WHO READ THEM
Notes: New York's fever finally broke this weekend, so I spent most of Saturday and some of Sunday outside. I haven't appreciated Bryant Park recently; if I'm in the neighborhood I'm usually rushing through it, to somewhere else. Added to the Bryant Park Grill there is now a second bar, the Southwest Porch (inexplicably run sponsored [see correction] by Southwest Airlines ) where you can get a not-overpriced-given-the-neighborhood beer and sit on a swing, and keep reading until that errand you vaguely remember wanting to get done pops up in your mind, and then you go.

I could just stay home to read, but there's something clubby and comforting about being around a lot of people in their own solitudes. It's like going to your college library early in the morning and hearing pages ruffle from a few cubes down. It reassures you that you're doing the right thing. I thought to compare Bryant Park to my big-city backyard, but when I visit my parents I don't sit in the backyard reading because no one else will be out there. I'll read where everyone else is. If I went to the public park in my small town, I might see another loner like myself out reading with a tote bag... but probably not. She'd be at her complex's pool, or on her balcony. I don't have either of those, but I have Bryant Park.

Correction: According to a commenter the Southwest Porch is run by the Bryant Park corporation and 'Wichcraft, although maybe they could make that a little clearer on their site. Still, if Southwest would be going into the concessions business, they picked the right partners.

Photo: sketchyrecord