But Central Park is not the chaste oasis its verdure and placid lakes might imply.
The prime spot for a pick-up (if you're not hoity-toity) is the Central Park Mall, during the summer, though Riverside Drive runs a close second—if you're a sailor.
Some years ago, the beneficent city fathers inaugurated a program of free dances in Central Park. They were primarily designed for young men and women of the poorer districts.
They also drew degenerates, rapists and wolves.
It's standard practice there to ask any gal to dance and it doesn't seem to matter what color you are or she is.
Many fallen sisters—and very reasonably—take advantage of this frolic on the green to ply their avocation under police protection.
But the amateurs—especially the bobby sox juvenile delinquents—give them unethical competition.
Friendly bushes, in the darkness, provide privacy (of a sort) for a necking party. But those who stray too far from the well-lighted Mall invite serious danger.
Lurking in the park are all manner of anti-social characters, from footpads to vicious sex-maniacs. Blood-curdling crimes are common.
The police cannot patrol every foot of the big expanse of the park, though at times they have had remarkable success in keeping crime at a minimum by dressing a couple of boyish detectives in women's clothes and turning them loose on the scum.