A few drives are taken through the park, yet another part of New York that sometimes makes you feel anachronistic if you’re near the ravine, or close to the old buildings like the Dairy.

“The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties and the clear voices of little girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight.”

Commonly known as “Summer Stage,” Central Park’s festival runs through mid-August , and includes Thievery Corporation, Mark Knopfler, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and The National. The famous bands and singers will cost ya, though, sometimes upwards of $70, so look for those mysterious words, “benefit concert” in the listings.

Central Park is your very own free playground, with the Great Lawn and Sheep’s Meadow to play pickup games in, baseball fields, and plenty of road to run on. You can really feel like Marathon Man if you take advantage of the park’s reservoir, located approximately between 86th and 96th Streets. The track surrounding the water is 1.58 miles, and you’ll feel great about sprinting past that guy in a fancy runner’s getup until you realize this poor bastard’s on his seventh lap! Don’t worry, you’ll get there.

Historically, it has been difficult to get permission to hold protests in precious Central Park. Bloomberg was effectively booed by tons of peeps when he refused to approve an anti-war protest in 2004. Is it because Central Park can be tourist-central? Is it too pristine to dirty up with politics? Someone should do the ironic thing and protest the forbidding of protests.