Turtle In Central Park

Central Park foliage photo-walk, Nov 2009 - 10

We New Yorkers know Central Park as a big space, full of greenery, tourists, dogs, bicycles, and sunlight — meanwhile, in the winter it retains the atmosphere reminiscent of a nuclear wasteland (probably only I think that). In Mytro, the name “Central Park” appears exactly 25 times, and each time, it makes an important reference to it, and even plays an important part in some of the scenes.

One of the most notable instances of Central Park being mentioned in Mytro is when Turtle’s grandmother, at the very beginning of the book, is said to have explained to him that the large rocks at the park were hauled from quarries upstate, via horse-drawn wagons. In fact, it’s perfectly summed up in Turtle’s mind that, “[those rocks] had been taken from the earth and brought here as decoration”. That’s humanity at work Turtle, and you haven’t even seen the best of it.

It turns out that this is in fact, partly true. According to the official New York City Park geology, some of the oldest rocks, classified as Manhattan schist and Hartland schist, were the result of a nearly billion-year-old formation between tectonic plates in North America, and were moved from what would be considered upstate New York, down to Central Park. So much of this rock exists, in fact, that some of the resulting rock formations don’t even surface in the area, instead existing as deep-layer rocks, with all their mysterious nature — kind of like the Mytro itself.

But the real-world connections between Central Park and Mytro exists far behind big and old rocks: just the general housing is related as well. Specifically, the Kincaid twins, whom I identify with their athletic natures, live in a house five times the size of Turtle’s grandmother’s house — obviously, they are well-off individuals. Even further still, the price of living in Central Park West is just as insane as believing there’s a real Mytro station in the park — but one can dream, no?

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