Serendipity in the Park

If I had to single out THE thing I love most about living in New York City, it probably would be the serendipity. 

I was reminded of this Saturday when I stumbled on, and became something of an impromptu temp usher for, a wedding - just a few hundred yards from where I'd gotten married less than five months earlier, and with my daughter's wedding just two weeks away. 

Serendipity. 

Sure, the city boasts all these amazing cultural institutions, architecture, parks, waterfront, history, restaurants, vistas. But there's an electricity to tripping across completely unexpected people, sights, and sounds amidst the sheer volume of everything that takes place in a Gotham day, that can't be matched. 

Like happening upon an entire parade that, if you were a block away, you wouldn't have even known was taking place. Or walking past a manmade, Central Park waterway and suddenly having a heron take flight. Or spotting a celebrity riding the subway. Or popping into an obscure Chelsea gallery show and running into a friend who lives 3000 miles away, who you haven't seen in decades. 

I've been experiencing more of them recently, whether due to post-pandemic bounceback, the warming of the temperatures, or just - serendipity. 

For instance: during a recent crowded matinee Wednesday on a Times Square sidewalk, while captaining a Writers' Guild picket, trying to keep order between the rules of the building, the monitoring of the cops, and the steady stream of tourists trying to make it to The Lion King, I thought I saw a familiar figure in our midst, wheeling a backpack. 

"Bill?" I asked. 

I was right. It was Bill McKibben, the famous environmentalist and author, who had been a year ahead of me at Harvard and been the editor of the Crimson. At the time he was a fiery political figure wrapped up in the issues of the Irish Republican Army, and I was a culturally minded critic who reviewed movies and records like by Steely Dan, The Police, and The English Beat. 

He somewhat ironically nicknamed me "Hotsh*t Handelman," which I still carry inside on days when things feel bleak. 

I hailed him, identifying myself as "Hotsh*t Handelman." We hadn't seen each other in person since he graduated in 1982 -- 40+ years ago. He smiled and stopped and chatted, en route to a speaking engagement, wearing a cap from "Third Act," his new venture trying to give oldsters like ourselves new meaningful goals later in life. As actors, writers, and hangers on picketed in circles around us, I grabbed a selfie to commemorate the moment, thinking this was probably the only time I would see him again. 

Me and McKibben, Times Square, May 2023

(Side note: in researching this post, I found that in 2015 my classmate Melissa Block of NPR had posted to Facebook this yellowing piece by Bill, about a anti-Draft rally we'd attended organized by another classmate of mine, now-Congressman Jamie Raskin, and now Washington Post editor Chuck Lane. If you take time to read what's legible, you can see Bill's skepticism about the long-term cause. The photo is by my friend Nevin Shalit, son of Gene, who would end up an executive at New Line. I have another photo he took that night where I look way more interested in talking to a cute woman than protesting.)

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Now to this Saturday. 

I woke at 6am per usual, to remotely help produce Smerconish on CNN, then crashed for my post-show nap. When I awoke, I headed out to run some errands like picking up dry cleaning. 

But the May weather beckoned, and I decided to detour into Central Park to see if the bench plaque Syd and I had ordered to commemorate our private ceremony had been installed. 

We had been promised mid-May, but deadlines mean nothing in NYC - as we are constantly reminded by the dilapidated plywood construction shed eyesore that has stood around the corner from our building for the entire 13 years we've lived here (right), or by the fact that my neighborhood pool has been closed for 4 years while they try to find a leak. 

Well - no plaque yet. But I moseyed past throngs of Memorial Day Weekend picnickers, and the turtles, geese, and cormorants in the murky Harlem Meer.

I kept going to the Conservatory Garden, where we'd held our ceremony on January 1. 

However, the northern, French-style garden with the dancing girls fountain - where we'd stood under an arbor on a 50-degree New Year's Day, with our friend officiating while another streamed it to immediate family - is now closed for more than a year of renovations.

So I made my way to the English (southern) section, and came across a group of people in black tie. (Also, unrelated, one woman in neon green plastic armor, which turned out to be her bodywear for a clowning class she was headed to) 

The reporter in me soon sussed out the situation: a half-hour hence, 100 people would be convening for the wedding between a 6'11" groom and his less tall wife, who had lived here for a dozen years but recently relocated to LA. 

I chatted up the groom's dad (pictured up top in the hat, with the blue-haired, tatted sister of the groom). 

He had flown in from Minneapolis and was preparing to officiate and we discussed how, because they had needed a permit, Park Rangers were on hand - meaning they would enforce the no-amplification rule (ironic, since every day dozens of musician buskers break this rule all over the park and are never ticketed). 

Even a dog had gussied up for the occasion: 

But - due to NYC construction - the ceremony was forced to improvise. 

The couple had planned to be up on the wisteria-laden pergola between the two halves of the garden - but last week, with no notice, the Conservancy had erected a huge fence blocking it from the public. 

Fact is, they were better off -- especially given her long dress -- not having to deal with all those steps. 

After the bride's veil and flowers were readied, her planner showed her a graph on her cell phone - - was it a stock market price? 

No, turns out, the bride has diabetes and had a concealed monitor stick on her inner arm to make sure her insulin was on track. 

I volunteered to block passersby from ruining the sightlines of the procession beneath the crabapple canopy. It was picture-perfect.

And - just when you thought you had enough serendipity for one Saturday - randomly this couple walked by:

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Update: the professional photographer has published his blog about the couple (Taylor & Kris)'s wedding weekend, so I thought I'd add it in here for posterity.