Central Park will welcome Spring on Monday morning at 8 a.m. as comedian Aziz Ansari (Parks & Rec) hops on a lawnmower and mows Sheep Meadow. He will be the first “Ambassador of Spring” ever to help the Central Park Conservancy usher in the season.
It’s a media event and sadly the public isn’t invited, unless one of you wants to trek out there and take a picture for us as our media rep at 8 a.m. (If so, email info at westsiderag dot com.)
But the publicity stunt doesn’t mean the park is actually opening the gates and letting people lounge on all that gorgeous grass. When the weather was gorgeous a couple of weeks ago, I saw dozens of people (above) lying in the scraggly grass nearby peering longingly at Sheep Meadow. A groundskeeper told me they’ve been hustling to get the park ready after the freakish weather over the past couple of months. The park’s fields and lawns are expected to open to the public next Saturday.
Photos by Avi, and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas via flickr.