Adopt A Bench
On Central Park Benches, Inscriptions Remember the Dead and Celebrate Life
In this city, known for its writers, even Central Park’s benches have stories to tell. From marriage proposals and deaths to cast members celebrating a Broadway success, each adopted bench is maintained for life and engraved with a personal message. “Michelle, will you marry me? Love, John,” reads a brass plaque on a bench near the zoo. She said yes.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesrnOne of the dedication plaques. rn“I love you very much and look forward to marrying you ... but if we have a fight you can always sleep here,” are the words inscribed on the bench Leelee Brown Jaffe gave her husband as a wedding present.
The personalized messages are part of an adopt-a-bench program started in 1986 by the volunteer women’s committee of the Central Park Conservancy, a nonprofit group that manages the park under a contract with the city. The program finances the maintenance and care of the park’s roughly 9,000 benches. So far, 2,000 benches have been adopted, most for $7,500 each, depending on the model.
Besides the women who love the park, two men named Lou are central to the operation. Lou Young, 50, is a big man with a shaved head, resembling a thinner Mr. T, with a gold tooth engraved with the number 13. He has worked for the city’s parks department for 25 years and is responsible for installing the message-bearing plaques on the benches. The other Lou, Lou Urruttia-Orme, builds one type of bench, the Rustic Bench, which sells for $25,000. Other styles include the Central Park Settee and the World’s Fair Bench.
While many benches are still awaiting adoption, some areas of the park no longer have any available. These popular areas include any space next to water, as well as spots near the Literary Walk, the Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen statues, and Strawberry Fields.
Not too long ago, Naomi Bishop, 21, arrived at the conservancy’s offices on East 60th Street, with a gold Godiva chocolate box filled with crumpled bills and checks that she had collected from friends and relatives. She started to cry as she told Laura Hall, the associate vice president of development of the women’s committee, about her father’s dying wish for a bench.
“I promise I’m going to get it for you,” she had assured her father. Her father was nicknamed Joyo, the name of a Javanese magician, after whom he named his online news service. Ms. Bishop said her father was a poet and a political activist who raised her by himself on West 56th Street after her mother was killed in a car accident.
On a frigid December afternoon, Ms. Bishop admired the plaque in her father’s memory on a bench on Cherry Hill, off West 72nd Street. “1946-Gordon ‘Joyo’ Bishop-2007, ode to his poetry, revolution & magic, love from cherished family & friends ‘Eons passed a multitude of miracles.’” “Central Park was his getaway,” Ms. Bishop said.
Farther south and on the park’s eastern side, the message to be inscribed on a bench near Scholars’ Gate at East 60th Street will read, “59th wedding anniversary 2008 on June ’43 Lt. Nathan Polsky and his love Janet sat here from dusk to dawn before he left to serve overseas.”rnThe bench was recently adopted by Janet Polsky, who is now 84. “Every time I walk past that bench, I remember,” she said. “We were only 19. I recall looking behind me and seeing the light coming up through the trees. We sat without fear. We always seemed to have a world of things to say to each other, what we were studying, what we wanted to do, who we wanted to become.”
Mr. and Mrs. Polsky had gone to high school and prom together in Brooklyn. Nathan had just started college when he was sent to be a cadet in the Army Air Corps. It was a warm June night. She was lightly dressed. He wore his uniform, his suitcase packed. Laughing softly, Ms. Polsky remembered, “We kissed lightly. We were rather young and innocent.”
For years she had her eye on the bench. This year, when she finally decided to officially adopt it, all of the surrounding benches were taken, except for that one. “It was waiting for me,” said Ms. Polsky, a retired social worker, who will share the bench and the memories with her husband, who is also 84.
Sara Cedar Miller, the conservancy’s Central Park historian, has a bench. Annie Leibovitz recently bought one for her aunt. The Helmsleys bought many benches. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gives them out as gifts. Many are inscribed in code, “To my knight in shining armor; the love of my life,” reads one, signed at the bottom, “Mouse.”
On a recent day, Paul and Shirley Harrison, bundled-up visitors from York, England, were sitting on one of four benches near the model boat pond, honoring “H.B.P. 1889-1984.” Read together, the four benches spell out a love poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. “It’s a little too deep for me,” Mr. Harrison said with a shrug, holding his wife’s hand. “It means something to somebody.”rnLinda C. Kobetitsch, 42, recently adopted a bench along her running route around the Great Lawn. Working in finance can be stressful, so she runs in the middle of the workday, three or four miles, several times a week. “Sit. Relax. Take a deep breath. Enjoy the day. Linda C. Kobetitsch,” the plaque reads.
“My bench is not a memorial,” emphasized Ms. Kobetitsch, who lives in West New York, N.J. “I’m not a yogi, but I try to be calm. My bench is for New Yorkers, for when you need to take a break from the craziness which surrounds us.”
Though the benches are available to anyone who might need a breather, some people do get proprietary about their particular benches. “We get calls from people who say, ‘Somebody’s sitting on my bench,’” said Ms. Hall of the women’s committee. “They want us to call the park police.”
By LILY KOPPEL
Published: December 13, 2007
