The place is, of course, a happy hunting ground for psychopathic and physical irregulars, who find it an excellent layout to strike up acquaintances with others of their kind.
The southwest corner of the park, at Columbus Circle, has been pre-empted by Negro homos. The north border, Cathedral Parkway (110th) is alive with wicked wenches.
And yet, graceful old Central Park is one of the most beautiful places remaining in this modernist crazy world.
Its lights, architecture and landscaping retain the pre-rococo charm of the last century.
But the old Central Park Casino is gone, a victim of the leveling-down process of the dictatorship of the rabble.
Here, in a charming building surrounded by trees and the greensward, was one of New York's showspots of the hectic 20's where society and café society dined, danced and broke the dry law.
As Jimmy Walker's night city hall (he rarely arose in time to visit the official one), the casino attracted the cream—and the sour milk—of New York officialdom and gangdom. Its prices were outrageous, but its food divine, its liquor bona fide and its dance music memorable.
LaGuardia, darling of the déclassé, elected in 1933 on a platform of revenge and revulsion against civilized living, made the destruction of the Central Park Casino the first major issue in his campaign of social nihilism. He said the land was needed for a play-ground.
No sooner was the casino leveled than he found an excuse to open another dining and dance pavilion in the park, for concessionaires more friendly to his regime.