Introducing: Washington Symmetrical Park

Our Critic-At-Large, Seth, makes the long voyage from the far reaches of uptown Manhattan down to West 4th St. to review the newly renovated Washington Square Park. Here are his thoughts:

If you enter the park at night from any of the four corners, it still feels creepy. Within seconds of stepping into the hallowed park's entryway, two different men approached with the familiar refrain, "Smoke, smoke?" My nostalgia roared.

I went to NYU for undergrad and spent my freshman year at a dorm on Washington Square South. I've walked through the park drunk and sober, in various stages of undress, in blizzards and scalding heat, past many, many colonies of rats. I've been offered marijuana, coke and ecstasy by comically conspicuous drug dealers and proselytized to by Hare Krishnas, Mormons, Christian Evangelists and Chabad. If I had a nickel for every time a homeless person asked me for money while sitting in the fountain, maybe then I'd give them something. Probably not though; NYU seriously dented my funds and that liberal arts education is taking a damn long time to pay for itself.

Anyway, enough of nostalgia. The interior of the park where all the renovations have been centered this past year and a half is, sad to say, much, much nicer than it was before. Forget about whether the fountain is aligned with the arch. There is just much more space to navigate. I stopped by the park in the daytime later in the week and, despite there being dozens of people, it still did not feel crowded. On top of this, there are more places to sit and more places for small bands to set up shop and perform without clashing with one another. The park is also more level now, so there is less likelihood it will flood as badly as it used to during rain storms.

I definitely considered myself part of the group of students and city inhabitants who were adamantly against renovating the park. At the time, it just seemed like we were exiling all the best spirits from the city with various construction projects - whether it's the spirit of Bob Dylan playing in the park or the spirit of Mickey Mantle in the old Yankee Stadium. And, of course, to make matters worse, the park was the only community space we NYU students could claim as (mostly) our own.

The truth is, I would rather have had the park for this last year and a half. The construction wasn't worth all the drama and inconvenience of closing it off. But now that it's done, I'm glad to have those renovations in place.

Most importantly, though, it seems some but not all of the old recurring characters in the park are still there. Tic and Tac performed their usual acrobatic routine to dozens of people on one side of the fountain; on another side a typically anachronistic folk band crooned to Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad. All the while, drug dealers canvassed the area for sales. But other key figures were sadly missing, at least for now. The homeless man who makes crafts out of match-sticks was nowhere to be found. Neither was the psychic Homeless Jesus there with his portable PSP system. And where in the world is the Dosa Man?

The real tragedy must be for NYU's class of 2009 who spent nearly half of college without the park, only to have it open up a few days after graduation. Sorry guys! At least you had Dimo Square a few blocks away.