{"id":182,"date":"2005-03-21T14:02:39","date_gmt":"2005-03-21T22:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/03\/spring_hopes_eternal.html"},"modified":"2005-03-21T14:02:39","modified_gmt":"2005-03-21T22:02:39","slug":"spring_hopes_et","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/03\/spring_hopes_et.html","title":{"rendered":"“Spring Hopes: Eternal”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve noted the Post’s proclivity to print pat points about the weather. Now it’s time for the Times to wax poetic about that same topic: “The Calendar Says Spring and You Expect Sunshine and Flowers?”<\/a>. Someone on West 43rd Street is satisfying his literary leanings. Relevant excerpts to follow.<\/p>\n

Exhibit A) The Surreal Hook, taking the form of a man dressed in a carrot suit:<\/p>\n

Of all the possible signs that spring had, in fact, arrived in New York yesterday, a 5-foot-2-inch carrot strolling down Broadway at midday was a pretty hopeful one.<\/p>\n

But not even the carrot could convince itself that yesterday, the official first day of spring, even remotely resembled springtime.<\/p>\n

“It’s not spring yet,” the carrot declared indignantly. The carrot was inhabited by Venancio Meza, 45, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, who was distributing fliers for a health food restaurant. A chilly drizzle fell, and the temperature hovered around 40 degrees.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exhibit B) The Grand Observation on All of Human Existence:<\/p>\n

Somewhere in the human body, there is a mechanism that runs on a blend of hope and self-delusion and makes people believe that on the morning of the vernal equinox, the world around them will suddenly bloom. Even if the forecasters predict rain and cold – as they did in advance of yesterday – that little mechanism continues to crank away.<\/p>\n

In other words, spring hopes: eternal.<\/p>\n

So yesterday, New York residents and tourists alike were once again reminded of the century-old observation by the clergyman and author Henry Van Dyke: “The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And finally, Dashed Hopes in a Gritty Milieu:<\/p>\n

At Coney Island, where Astroland reopened yesterday, the sky and water were a solid sheet of gray, and the Boardwalk was all but abandoned.<\/p>\n

Those who showed up at the park were obviously driven by a deep commitment to the pursuit of thrills.<\/p>\n

Britney McCollough, 18, and Kyle Huneycutt, 21, two college students from Orlando, Fla., were determined to wring whatever fun they could out of a soggy Astroland, and rode several of the rides, including the Cyclone roller coaster.<\/p>\n

“On the Cyclone, we froze our faces off,” Ms. McCollough said in an enthusiastic way that suggested that freezing one’s face off is a good and exciting thing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bill Hoffmann, come home, all is forgiven!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve noted the Post’s proclivity to print pat points about the weather. Now it’s time for the Times to wax poetic about that same topic: “The Calendar Says Spring and You Expect Sunshine and Flowers?”. Someone on West 43rd Street is satisfying his literary leanings. Relevant excerpts to follow. Exhibit A) The Surreal Hook, taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the_new_york_times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}