Another beautiful day in New York. Today was spent visiting Central Park located in the center of Manhattan. We focused our trip on the bridges and arches of the park. But Central Park is such a marvelous feat of engineering we also got our fair share of its other features. There are twenty entrances to Central Park and each has a name to help you identify your location. It only made sense that we entered through Scholars Gate located on 60th Street and 5th Ave.
Entering the park we walked through the Central Park Zoo where we met the Dancing Goat and Dancing Bear! We were also treated to the musical chimes of the Delacourt Towers. The first two bridges we saw were the Denesmouth and the Willowdell. ALocated between these two was a statue of the dog Balto.
Taking along walk to the Trefoil Bridge we then located the statue of Hans Christian Anderson. Hans’ statue pointed us to the Alice in Wonderland Playground. Our group took a break to create poetic rubbings based on his work. A short walk past the Loeb boat house brought us to the Bethesda Fountain. This beautiful centerpiece is surrounded by a sweeping vista of the park. It is enough to make you forget that the park is man made and sculpted.
We were then treated to n operatic group. Free opera in the park! What a treat. They played violin and sang baritone and bass under the Terrace Bridge. The Terrace Bridge is without a doubt one of the most beautiful of all the bridges. Sweeping staircases, beautiful picture tiles, ornate sculpted walls, and an amazing acoustic system!
We visited with William Shakespeare (his statue at least) and also got a quick view of The Dairy and The chess and Checkers House. The Chess and Checkers House was donated by Bernard Baruch which was a great connection for us. After a few games we had a view of Playmates Arch and the Driprock. We took a short walk past Wollman’s Skating Rink and saw the Gapstow and Inscope Bridges.
When we exited the Inscope Bridge we were back where we started at Scholars Gate. We completed a short loop of the South Eastern part of the park. There are eleven bridges and twenty two arches in the park. We were able to do a visual study of their composition, style, building material, uses and purposes and unique features.
This information will be translated into our bridges that we construct for the last week of our Summer together. Remember – make them purty!
Baruch Step Bridges 2013 
this was the best summer ever i had lots of fun and cant wait for next summer !!!! Mr.tobias your the best and enjoy the rest of your summer 🙂