The NYTimes.com reports that on a recent Saturday in the southwest corner of Central Park, scores of children swarmed an immense 40-by-15-foot rock. As they climbed, leapt and navigated a crevasse, one boy offered his appraisal. “If it was a restaurant, it would be a Michelin four-star,” said Cole Carin, an 8-year-old from the Upper West Side. (Michelin operates on a three-star rating system. Whether the third grader knew this is beside the point, or maybe it was exactly his point.)
Children have for many decades eagerly played on and around what is known officially as Umpire Rock, for the Heckscher Ballfields just north of it, and informally as Rat Rock, for the vermin that once overran it at night. In a 1924 article in The New York Times, a person identified simply as “the old New Yorker” described this geological wonder as “a famous sliding place for the boys and girls of old New York,” and recalled sitting “on an old tin pie plate” to slide down its surface. “The rock was just as shiny and slippery” in the 1870s, the writer noted, “as it is today.”
Along the north face of the rock, a small group of bouldering enthusiasts prepared to climb, equipped with powdered chalk and crash pads. “This is a real niche spot” for bouldering, Jinda Phommavongsa, 35, of Sunnyside, Queens, explained. (Unlike sport climbing, bouldering is done at lower heights, without ropes or harnesses.) He pointed out that the rock was a training ground for Ashima Shiraishi, a 15-year-old climbing prodigy who got her start there at age 6.
To read the article in its entirety, along with seeing the photos, click here.