Park Views: Writers on Their Love Affair with Central Park 

Central Park has long served as an antidote to urban chaos, providing inspiration for 38 million visitors a year—among them, naturally, a diverse array of writers.

Former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and three-term Mayor Ed Koch join two literary greats who share their passions for and stories about the world’s most famous park. This talk coincides with the release of Central Park: An Anthology, edited by Andrew Blauner, published by Bloomsbury. Adrian Benepe wrote the introduction, and Thomas Beller and Buzz Bissinger are key contributors. Former Mayor Ed Koch was a seminal figure in the formation of the Central Park Conservancy, the organization critically important in the park’s history. A portion of the editor proceeds from the book will be donated to the Central Park Conservancy.”

Central Park is now a dazzling reincarnation of the Edenic landscape Olmsted and Vaux envisioned more than a century and a half ago. No matter how much the park has changed, for good or ill, it radiates for many of the writers here a sense of timelessness and constancy: It remains a kind of memory portal to the past, a Proustian time machine.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times