أهلا بكم

أهلا بالمشاركين في الورشة
اليوم تعاملنا مع المدونات
نعاني من انقطاع الإنترنت

Free Tours Are Fun But First You Have To Know Your Gate

Have you ever thought about taking one of the Central Park free tours?, it is not a bad idea at all even if you don’t know where exactly your favorite tour will start.

Last Tuesday, I checked the Central Park calendar and found that free “Exploring Hallett and the Pond” tour, the meeting point was at the Artists’ gate in 6th Avenue south the park , that sounded easy but when I got there before the meeting by 45 minutes the most important question was “Where is the Artists’ gate?”

At the entrance of the park at 6th Avenue I almost asked everybody about the Artists’ gate, by everybody I mean the carriage drivers, cyclists who work in the park, workers and gardeners, nobody had a clue!

One worker in the park called his colleagues to ask for me and they told him I can find the “ARTISAN” gate at the 7th Avenue south the park, I met couple of people who were asking the same question, we called the phone line of the tour service with no reply, then we decided to wait.

10 Minutes before the meeting time nine more people joined our group while our 2 guides appeared finally, Anna Zagoloff and Barbara Withers, 2 enthusiastic smiling ladies in their sixties who work voluntarily for the Central Park Conservancy.

Anna explained to the group that we were asking about the Artists’ gate while standing under it at the 6^th Avenue.

“When the park was built in the 1860s, the landscape designers wanted to honor New York city residents by naming the gates after their professions, so they used named for the park gates such as Artists’, Artisan, Merchants and Scholars”, said Anna.

“In later stage they added more names like Women gate and boys gate to honor their women and children”.

The story was interesting but some of the group members wasn’t satisfied that that the Central Park official website used historical terms to describe a meeting point.

The old gates story was just one of so many historical anecdotes told by Anna who worked as volunteer in the park for nine years.

The most valuable part of the one hour tour was visiting the Hallett Nature Sanctuary which is a fenced area surrounded by the big pond southern east the park.

The Nature Sanctuary was formally closed to public in 1934 to allow many species of animals and trees to flourish naturally.

The group felt excited when Barbara opened the gate of the Sanctuary named after George Hallett, a New York city civic movement leader in the 20^th century.

We weren’t allowed to step out of the pathway that goes around the 4 acres sanctuary, we can hardly see fifth avenue skyscrapers as the long trees surrounded us from every direction.

Anna said with pride that New York city school students made the path we are walking on during their summer vacations, they use trunks from dead trees and fix on the ground with steel nails, then they cover the path with mud and wood chips.

Other tree trunks were left on the ground to allow owls and woodpeckers to form their nests.

Even though our visit was short but most of us agreed that it was a unique experience specially many of the group members lives currently in New York and the central park is one of our favorite destinations, and the best part of it was touring for free.

Ole Ole Ole.. Dear Moroccan runners we support you

They covered themselves with red flags and balloons, they painted their faces with green-colored stars, they stood at the entrance of the central park in 63rd street west chanting louder than any New York City Marathon crowd “Ooooole ole ole ole”.

As a loyal fan to the sport called soccer in US, I couldn’t resist following them, wondering what 24 football fans are doing in the Big Apple’s running competition?

My first impression was right. As I got closer to the group, I noticed that most of its young members were wearing red jerseys of the National Moroccan soccer team and Wydad Casablanca, one of the North African country's most famous soccer clubs.

Two young guys raised a white six feet-wide sign reading “Go Moroccan runners, all Moroccans in USA are behind you”.

“One year ago, none of this group members knew each other, supporting our runners in the central park last year was our first gathering”, said Otman Tahiri, a business graduate student at City University.

According to Tahiri, about 4 Moroccan students decided to bring their compatriots to the big apple in the central park to support the Moroccan runners in New York City’s 2009 marathon.

“The official aim of the gathering was supporting the runners but actually it was a good chance for socializing”, he added.

Few of the 10 girls in the group were checking their cell phones to find out the marathon’s final results before one of them said with a disappointed voice “Goumri finished in the fourth place”.

Abderrahim Goumri is one of three Moroccan runners who finished Sunday’s marathon in the top 15 list.

The rest of the group didn’t look so disappointed when they knew that Ethiopian runner Gebre Gebrmariam won the marathon, Tahiri smiled while admitting the Kenyan and Ethiopian dominance over long distant races because “even if the Moroccans didn’t win medals at least the group had fun”.

“After last year’s gathering we started a Facebook group and we are planning to establish an association once most of the group members finish their university studies” said Mohamed Tabrani, a member of the group who works as an officer in Queens College study abroad department.

The Facebook group named “Moroccans in New York” started last year with fewer than 30 members. Now it has more than 369 members.

Members usually meet once every 2 months in the central park to celebrate special occasions like the Islamic feasts or to share a meal.