Bethesda Terrace in Central Park. (getty)

Prepare the juice cleanse: at the Central Park Conservancy’s annual “Taste of Summer,” dozens of fancy food tables amount to a cavalcade of calories. Gourmet grub is provided by the 21 Club, Armani Ristorante, La Esquina, PJ Clarke’s, Sirio Ristorante, Swifty’s and Tulsi, to name a few. Those with fat wallets and hungry tummies who buy tables get to pig out at The Taste Café, which is hosted by Crown Group Hospitality, the powers behind hot spots Crown, The Lion and Bill’s Food & Drink. Event chairs include Jay Mandelbaum, Gillian Miniter, John Paulson and Norman Selby. To burn off the non-beach-worthy body blubber you just packed on, dance to DJ Alexandra Richards.
Bethesda Terrace, Central Park, (212) 310-6600, 7-11pm, individual tickets $400, tables from $10,000.

Just enjoying his weekend. (YouTube)

While you were busy writing out a list of neutral topics yesterday to discuss during your terse, obligatory five minute Father's Day phone call (verboten items, as always: your career, your love life, how mom's doing), this roller-skating poppa said "Screw it" and went to the park instead of waiting for his kids to call. Why stress about family when you can just strap on your quad skates, go to Central Park and dance like nobody's watching?

In this era of over-snark and legitimate concerns of Big Brother-monitoring, it's truly refreshing to see a man who doesn't care what people think of his good time moves.

Ironically, it's his very "Don't give a shit whose watching" attitude that will make this video go viral by the end of the day.

Neglected branches are proving expensive and deadly. (Getty)

It looks like money does grow on trees—and that's not a good thing.

The City of New York has quietly awarded a Google engineer who sustained life-altering injuries from a falling tree limb in Central Park a cool $11.5 million, it was recently revealed.

Sasha Blair-Goldensohn was struck by a rotten Pine Oak branch on his way to work on July 29, 2009, fracturing his skull and partially severing his spine. He  sued the City of New York and the Central Park Conservancy for the injury, claiming that their negligence and lackluster maintenance of trees under their care caused the situation.

According to The Post, the 15-foot, 100-pound limb was deemed dangerous 20 days before it struck Mr. Blair-Goldensohn, but was not immediately removed.

“The limb’s condition should have been readily apparent to the city and the Central Park Conservancy, who were responsible for the maintenance of the park," Mr. Blair-Goldensohn's lawyer said in a statement in 2009.

The news arrived not long after the city awarded $3 million to the family of an Albanian immigrant killed by a falling branch in Central Park. Elmaz Qyra, 46, was struck and killed on February 25, 2010, just over six months after Mr. Blair-Goldensohn. A slew of similar accidents impacted the lives and livelihoods of New Yorkers over a particularly devastating 11-month period.

In 2008, the city spent $4.7 million on tree pruning, The Post reported. In recent years, the budget has been closer to $1.45 million; that figure has since been raised to $3.45 million.

With over two million trees within the city, both in parks and on the streets, and increasing cuts to programs dedicated to tree care, its seems unlikely that the problems will decrease in future years. Ten major lawsuits concerning falling branches were filed in the last decade, according to a 2012 New York Times report.

A city spokeswoman told The Post that "we hope [the settlements] have brought a measure of closure to the plaintiffs' families. Ensuring that parks are safe and enjoyable for residents and visitors is vitally important. New York City dedicates substantial resources to this work every year."

Ron P. Swegman fly fishing at the Harlem Meer. (Photo: Fernando Gomes)

The Harlem Meer was teeming with wildlife on a windy morning last week. Barn swallows swooped about stealthily, hunting for insects. Red-winged blackbirds sang their pretty songs in the distance. A wood duck dabbled lazily in the middle of the lake. And on a nearby bank, a great egret waded into the water, which was slightly turbid from a recent downpour.

“That’s a good omen,” Ron P. Swegman told the Transom, pointing to the big white bird, which at that moment suddenly shot its long, sharp beak straight into the water, emerging with a small fish.

We had come to fish too.

In late April, signs were posted around the lake warning park-goers of the possible presence of an invasive and highly adaptable species called the northern snakehead, the kudzu of fish. The ominous signs asked fishermen not to release the creature if caught, and since then regulars have been on high alert, including Mr. Swegman, a writer and urban angler.

(Photo: Fernando Gomes)

No one knows why, how or even if the snakehead was introduced to the Meer, which is situated in the northeast corner of Central Park. Despite its reputation as a predator, the snakehead is considered a delicacy in the Southeast Asian countries it comes from, and Mr. Swegman assumes that a pair was planted in the lake by some enterprising fishmonger.

Sightings have been reported, but a spokesperson for the Central Park Conservancy told the Transom that they very well could have been large carp, which resemble the invasive creature at this time of year. In early May, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection conducted a fish count in the lake; about 1,000 fish were tallied—largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill and yellow perch among them—but not a single snakehead was found.

Still, we weren’t taking any chances, and neither was Mr. Swegman, who said that there have been enough sightings to believe that the snakehead—which already thrives in Meadow Lake, in Queens—is in fact surviving in the Meer.

And so we cast our lines. And felt a bite! But came up with only a handful of stringy weeds. Mr. Swegman, who had lent us our rod, helped disentangle the plant, known as hydrilla, from our hook. Although it too is highly invasive, Mr. Swegman likes to call this species an immigrant. The European starling, the house sparrow and the street pigeon are all technically invasive too, he noted.

Did he feel that way about the snakehead, we asked?

Largemouth bass. (Photo: Fernando Gomes)

“I’m a misanthrope,” Mr. Swegman told the Transom. “Humans, mosquitoes and cockroaches are the only things on our planet that I really despise. So I don’t resent the snakehead for existing. I resent that people aren’t exposed to nature and the outdoors and to the issues of conservation.”

If the snakehead were to proliferate, it would most likely decimate the Meer’s fish population.

Mr. Swegman gets defensive when discussing the Meer, about which he wrote an essay called “Bright Fish, Big Cities,” a paean to the lake’s natural splendor. He often stopped to pluck pieces of trash from the ground as we made our way around its perimeter in search of the best fishing spot.

Even though we were hunting for snakehead, Mr. Swegman managed to reel in two bluegills, an impressive feat considering the murky water. They were each about six inches in length, prime prey for the snakehead.

“You’ll notice a distinct shift in my mood,” Mr. Swegman said cheerily when he caught his first fish. He wasn’t completely satisfied, however, until the Transom hooked one of our own.

As it turned out, neither of us caught any snakehead that day. But on our last cast, the Transom reeled in a beauty: a 10-inch largemouth bass!

“That’s exactly the kind of fish the snakehead would replace if it became pervasive,” Mr. Swegman said, unhooking the bass. Though he ended on an upbeat note: “The fact that we didn’t catch one today is good news.”

(Photo: Fernando Gomes)

(Song For Hope)

They really struck a chord!

The Sing For Hope program, which refurbishes old pianos and places them around the city for all to play, is putting 88 new pianos around the city this weekend. Why 88? Because it corresponds to the number of keys on a piano.

The pianos will be placed all around the five boroughs, from Central Park to Prospect Park. The pianos will only be around for a short time: June 1 through June 16.

Stefan Sierhej, the designer of the piano at Brooklyn Bridge Park, wanted to make his piano look like a piece of China, but he also wanted it to showcase New York City. He opted to re-imagine the iconic photo of of construction workers eating lunch on a ledge in white and blue.

Sing For Hope enlisted over 1,000 volunteer artists and local community members to design the pianos. Once on the streets, community organizers serve as "piano buddies," supervising the pianos against misuse and making sure they are protected from the fickle New York summer weather.

The intention of the project is to unite the city together under a shared love for music and art. From impromptu concerts to simple piano lessons, it encourages all to share their talents. Sing for Hope co-founder Camille Zamora told the Daily News that the success of the program is attributed to the people “who literally never touched a piano before and sit down and start plinking out a song and find they have a voice.”

Natalie Ross and Michelle-Marie Heinemann.

On the first Wednesday in May, a rather large tent pops up behind the Vanderbilt Gate on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets with the sole purpose of shielding the over-the-top headgear of 1,300 ladies who lunch, a handful of men and one Martha Stewart from the elements as they duke it out for millinery supremacy at the Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon—or, as anybody who’s anybody calls it, The Hat Luncheon. At this year’s event, the tent proved unnecessary, as honorees Jenny and John Paulson had pledged a cool $100 million to The Conservancy Fund, the exact dollar figure necessary to ensure perfect weather.

Arriving on the scene, the Transom quickly sussed out an early front-runner in the hat arms race: Carole McDermott, a sprightly darling decked out in heritage pearls and a Chanel suit. She skipped the small-time weaponry and went straight for the nuclear option with a towering scale replica of Central Park strapped to her dome, complete with an adoptable bench.

“I have every year gone a bit bigger, and I’ve never once regretted it,” said Ms. McDermott, who stands at 5-foot-3 sans heels but checked in at close to 7 feet with her choice chapeau, which she said took an estimated three months to put together.

We then found the gorgeous Lizzie Tisch standing contrapposto, surrounded by an iPhoned throng. She was wearing an anatomically correct garden snake made entirely from mother-of-pearl. The “hat” was apparently the handiwork of Aaron Keppel, an artist who, Ms. Tisch was quick to note, is not to be confused with “your grandmother’s milliner,” a sentiment echoed by gal pal Amy Fine Collins, who was wearing a snow-white barn owl on her forehead, precariously perched.

“He’s just the most incredible artist. Look at the detail—the wings were made from tearing up thick stock paper and putting it back together,” Ms. Fine Collins said of Mr. Keppel’s handiwork. “The eyes! Look at the eyes! They’re perfect replicas of the real thing. He even constructs them as they would be found in nature. Breathtaking.”

The Transom had only a moment to acknowledge the breathtakingness of the owl peering over her forehead before Ms. Tisch and Ms. Fine Collins continued almost in unison: “Our park is truly our city’s greatest gift. What better way to tip our hat to it than to literally tip our hats to it?”

Making our way into the tent for lunch, we found Gillian Miniter, former president of the Conservancy’s women’s committee, wearing a fluorescent firecracker above her head. We asked her about the logistics of something so delightfully impractical.

“The real art is getting past your doorman in one of these things without him making some slick remark,” she said, gesturing toward the large group of gathered women who would help raise $3.3 million while nibbling on avocado lobster salad. “People fly in from around the world for this lunch,” she continued. “People slave for months getting their hats ready; people open their checkbooks and really have a chance to make a lasting gesture to the city they love. One hundred percent of the money raised here will go to park programs and initiatives, and I think that’s just great.”

As we eventually teetered out of the tent after one too many white wines, clutching a Tiffany tote bag (the perfect Mother’s Day re-gift) stuffed with Estée Lauder’s finest, the Transom had a hard time disagreeing.

It is also home to one of the city’s longest-running construction projects, the Second Avenue Subway, which has disrupted residents, merchants and traffic farther to the east for the last seven years. But the end is in sight. The project is slated for completion in 2016. And the removal of those barricades and final silence of the jackhammers will just be harbingers of the renaissance of a transportation corridor, and the neighborhood surrounding it. The advice of many a real estate professional: Buy soon if you can, rather than kick yourself later with 20-20 hindsight when the subway is done.

In recent years, the Upper East Side has, according to some experts, lost some of its luster as the magnet for the young, the hip and the cool arriving in New York to make their mark. But with its great schools, parks and amenities, it remains a draw for families, and others looking for a good value in a city that, even through a severe downturn, remains strong, vibrant and safe, and where owning even a tiny piece of the pie is an investment that seldom goes sour.

Robert Schulman, associate broker and executive managing director at Warburg Realty, says that now is a great time to buy on the Upper East Side, because the neighborhood is where you can get the best value. “In the past few years, it wasn’t appreciating as fast as other neighborhoods, so you get the most for your money,” he says. At the same time, he cautions that the opportunity to get great value won’t last long. “Prices on condos, co-ops and townhouses are steadily increasing.”

Even in this past winter, the season when the market typically slows, Jacky Teplitzky, managing director, Douglas Elliman, and leader of the Jacky Teplitzky team, says open houses have attracted steady traffic, and sales have been strong. She only expects those numbers to improve with spring.  “In relative terms, there is more to choose from in terms of housing as there is more inventory, unlike most of Manhattan,” she says, explaining why the Upper East Side will always be popular. “The options are diverse and there is a range of price points.”

Today’s buyer wants everything in mint condition. “They don’t want to do any remodeling,” Ms. Teplitzky says. “The ideal properties are move-in-ready. Buyers are specific in what they want regarding amenities as well, such as a doorman building, gym, storage and bike room. Buyers also want views and plenty of natural light.”

And they want condos. While 75 percent of the housing on the Upper East Side is co-op, luxury condo developments are what are really on the rise, so to speak, and large apartments in these brand new structures are selling out at the highest numbers. Among those buildings and developments are: The Skyline Development at 200 East 79th Street, The Lucida at 151 East 85th Street, The Brompton at 205 East 85th Street, the Georgica at 305 East 85th Street, 135 East 79th Street, and The Chatham, new luxury townhomes on East 65th Street, and The Helmsley Carlton House at 21 East 61st Street, formerly a hotel, now a condo building offering the luxury amenities of a hotel.

“In the case of The Lucida, The Brompton, Georgica, and 170 East End Avenue, we see that luxury condominium offerings are moving north and east,” say Adrienne Albert and Jacqueline Urgo of The Marketing Directors, a development advisory and master property marketing and sales force that works on behalf of owners and builders of new homes. “Expanded retail offerings and higher demand from a greater number of market segments means that the coming years will be good ones for residential real estate on the Upper East Side.”

Among the developments moving north and east, the Azure at 333 East 91st Street is a sort of hybrid co-op/condo (it’s legally a co-op but has condo rules). With its far east address, on First and 91st, the building might be seen as off the beaten track, but that is not what its co-developers, The DeMatteis Organizations and The Mattone Group, are finding. For one thing, several private schools in the area, Spence, Sacred Heart and Trevor Day, are all building athletic facilities nearby, which will further enhance the neighborhood. And the building is already 75 percent sold, with two-, three- and four-bedroom units on the 21st through 34th floors remaining. The developers built the building so that two two-bedroom apartments can be combined for larger family apartments, and the developer offers to do the combining itself, saving potential buyers many contracting headaches. The building also offers some 6,000 square feet of amenities, including a large dining room with catering facilities that residents can reserve and use for entertaining.

“The area is very popular among families because the neighborhood has the best public and private schools in the city,” says Douglas MacLaury of the Mattone Group, “and because it is near both Carl Schurz and Central Park.” The development even included the building of a public school, M.S. 114, a middle school with 530 seats, and a totally separate entrance, under a program which helps the city to get new and needed schools, and developers to get certain tax breaks.

The completion of the Second Avenue Subway will benefit those who buy into the Azure, and many others. “We predict that by the time the construction is complete, the face of Second Avenue retail will have changed completely, making way for high-end stores, markets and restaurants,” say Albert and Urgo of The Marketing Directors. “This will cause property values on Second Avenue and the nearby streets on the Upper East Side to rise. Plus, the new subway line will create easier access from the Upper East Side to other neighborhoods in the city, making it a great place to live.”

The spring will come. Really.

Officially, spring begins tomorrow. In actuality, it will be yet another 40-degree day in what now appears to be an endless stream of borderline freezing days. The ongoing chill is enough to sap the energy and optimism from even the most cheerful of hearts. The Observer, whose own heart is not in this category, will almost certainly lose another pair of gloves before the end of the week in an act of forgetfulness/subconscious rebellion against the never-ending winter. If the gray skies and finger-numbing conditions continue, we may well start absentmindedly leaving our coats and sweaters behind on the subway as well.

But perhaps we can all learn a lesson from the Central Park Conservancy, an organization that not only believes the seasons will change someday soon, but started acting on that belief sometime ago: planting, hauling mulch, testing sprinkler heads.

This may not seem like acts of extraordinary faith, but for those of us who are not much given to religious feeling and who find the winter not only miserable, but interminable, it is quite impressive. As the chirpy and fact-filled email that landed in our inbox this afternoon informed us: the Conservancy started preparing for spring months ago.

The Conservancy has no other choice, of course, as the Park will soon be mobbed with thousands upon thousands of visitors a day. But still. Reading the email reminded us that sometimes one must act in accordance with, and in preparation for, expected and projected outcomes, rather than based on one's current, rather cold and unbearable situation. In other words, we should stop dwelling on the parts of the forecast that focus on, in painful detail, the wind and cold that will persist through the rest of this week, and look to the brighter side of things, like "the Green Mountains and Adirondacks getting what could be their last blast of winter." Last blast of winter. Or at least what could be the last. (On a sidenote, we find The Wall Street Journal's weather journals to be surprisingly poetic and oddly moving.)

So what has the Conservancy been doing to prepare for this alleged start of spring? Planting 57,000 flowers, testing and activating 1,400 sprinkler heads, turning on eight decorative fountains and hauling vast quantities of materials: 850 tons of mulch for garden beds, 500 tons of clay for ballfields, 200 tons of crushed stone for the bridle paths and 108 tons of sand for the sandboxes. Most inspiring of all, the Conservancy is already mowing 276 acres of what appear—to the horticultural layman—to be dead lawns and ballfields. The Conservancy tells us that the lawns of snow-covered yellow-brown grass are not, in fact, dead, but like the promise of this new season, alive and growing.

kvelsey@observer.com

Tree damage in Prospect Park. (Prospect Park Alliance)

On Sunday, it was fun to settle in at home with popcorn and movies. On Monday, the hurricane hit, a frightening and fraught time. On Tuesday, the city took stock of the devastation. On Wednesday, well, Wednesday was the beginning of many frustrations: frustrations with ongoing power outages, frustrations with being cooped up for yet another day, frustrations with working from home, school cancellations extending through the end of the week, and the difficulty of borough-to-borough travel.

In the midst of these frustrations, the many islands of green scattered across the five boroughs started to seem very, very tempting. A tantalizing emerald escape from stuffy apartments, boredom and the tedium of days stretching ahead. The only problem is that New York City parks are closed, for fear of falling branches and dangerous debris, until at least Saturday morning. Not that the barricades and ominous signs posted at the entrances were enough to stop the many outlaw walkers, runners, bicyclists and parents desperate for a breath of fresh air. On Wednesday morning, The Observer wandered into Fort Greene park, scooting past a whirring wood chipper at the entrance to find dog walkers, parents pushing strollers, precocious tots climbing on freshly cut logs and runners hungrily sucking in the suddenly cool autumn air. Workers were working to dismantle a huge tree splintered in three sections at the base of the hill, a dead bird was crushed into the muddy path around the perimeter of the park, and one mother was pointing out the felled tree to her son, but most of the frolicking Brooklynites seemed oblivious. In fact, it was busier than a Saturday in early September.

On Thursday afternoon, Prospect Park was decidedly quieter, with a parks employee stationed at the Grand Army Plaza entrance turning away cyclists and runners. But almost as many were streaming out of the park behind her. And at Prospect Park West and Third Street, streams of people scurried past a barricade that had been unceremoniously swept to one side. Just beyond the stone fence, a group of flannel-clad hipsters picnicked on a blanket beneath the swaying tree branches.

Many runners were dutifully sprinting around the perimeter of the park, but beyond the fallen trees and stumps, The Observer could see bicyclists whirring around the loop and dog walkers distractedly gazing into the distance as their pets sniffed the freshly disturbed foliage. On the western side, a runner who had circled half the park on the exterior sidewalk spotted a discreet opening in the stone wall and after looking around furtively, disappeared into the brush.

A Parks Department spokesperson admitted that some scofflaws have been ignoring the barricades and signs, but noted that parks employees and barricades are blocking a number of parks entrances. The Central Park Conservancy, which is rushing to clear the park before Sunday's marathon, estimates that some 250 mature trees are uprooted or compromised and on its website begs everyone "to help the Conservancy by staying out of the Park until further notice." The Parks Department has also scheduled volunteer work days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But in a city where so much more pressing work remains to be done, with resources allocated to cleanup rather than policing, the policy at most parks is, by default, enter at your own risk. And it's a risk that many New Yorkers, especially those burning with cabin fever, are apparently willing to take.

kvelsey@observer.com

This is not to suggest that unsafe cycling is ever acceptable, but as more people take to bikes, and the city's population continues to grow, park pathways are bound to get busier. Action by users is important, but also be operators.

As it has done with Prospect Park, following another spate of high-profile injuries, the city's Department of Transporation and Parks Department have reached an agreement to change the arrangement of traffic lanes to make more room for bikes and runners and less for vehicles. The measure is meant to make everyone safer.

“Central Park is New York City’s recreational oasis and this redesign will provide park visitors with safer and wider paths to walk, jog or bike,” Parks Commissioner Veronica White said in a release.

"Central Park's signature drives will now have even clearer markings to help every park user have the best and safest experience possible," echoed DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

In almost every place, the number of vehicle lanes will be reduced to make for wider lanes for bikes and joggers. The one exception is in the lower loop, where a defacto carriage lane exists and one must remain for cars. There, new dividers will be put in to try and separate bikers and joggers, keeping everyone separate and safe.

Will this prevent all injuries? Of course not. People need to pay attention and respect everyone. But as we see time and again, the power of the paint can be quite powerful.