The Upper West Side clearly needs its own plant detective, because there have been several recent crimes against flora.
Building on last month’s tree-stripping on West End Avenue, thieves have now purloined prized roses from the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park around 80th street.
Judy sent the following account:
“It’s not easy to photograph a hole, but there are 3 holes which appeared at Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden sometime last weekend. The culprit was apparently an informed gardener with good taste because the scented rose bushes were David Austin “Sharifa asma”, recently pruned and full of buds. They were positioned around at the curve of the entrance to the interior paths and enjoyed by hoards of people.
Unfortunately this is not an unusual occurrence in this beautiful and unpatrolled hillside garden. Whole swaths of tulips have been cut to provide pleasure to one selfish person while denying pleasure to many. Sometimes out of necessity these incidents are dealt with by planting less tempting blooms, a loss for everyone who walks these paths.”
Here’s a photo of the Shakespeare Garden when it’s in full bloom:
Small correction: that would be “hordes,” not “hoards.” The person who stole the roses may indeed be hoarding them, thereby depriving hordes of park visitors from enjoying the blooms.
How many boards would the mongols hoard if the mongol hordes got bored?
Well, we could start with the family who had given their little girls Easter baskets on Saturday afternoon to go picking all the fresh buds in Central Park. Maybe the thieves are related?
Isn’t Central Park itself considered neither the “West Side” nor the “East Side” but the divider between the two?
If so, as I am fairly certain is the case, then this would be no more an “Upper West Side” story than an “Upper East Side” story.
Really just a Central Park story.
Technically, the dividing line between the UES and the UWS runs down the middle of Fifth Avenue. Ergo, Central Park is on the UWS.
Actually, it is not that simple and subject to dispute, as a StartPage search for “‘central park’ dividing line east west” reveals.
From the first hit:
Along 5th Ave. in Manhattan, a Dispute Over Where East and West Begin
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/nyregion/23fifth.html
We cover Central and Riverside Parks too. WSR
Okay, that certainly seems reasonable.
But your opening paragraph clearly did imply that this snatching of roses, which occurred fully within Central Park, was,
a) somehow specific to the UWS,
and,
b) one of “several recent crimes against flora” that have occurred here (Yet you cited only one other such crime).
stealing flowers from a public park? tackyness knows no bounds.