Examples of descriptive writing

Example 1
It was the day after their wedding late this summer and Judy Applebaum
once again put on her long white bridal gown with veil and her husband,
Mitch, his tuxedo. They were on the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, by
subway, for a photo session that had been given them as a gift.

Subway reactions: As they passed through the turnstile, the token clerk
sent a hearty "Congratulations" over the loudspeaker. A homeless
woman yelled at the groom, "Now you're in trouble." Faces on a passing
train and in the car they entered showed smiles, bewilderment and
incredulity.

Bridge reactions: A group of passers-by sang "Here comes the Bride."
Motorists in both directions honked and waved. A Frenchman took their
picture and told them that now everyone in Paris would see them. A
woman power-walking across the bridge, cell phone in hand, interrupted
her conversation to say "Congratulations" and then continued talking.

Dinner at an East Village Thai restaurant after the session: A group of
patrons sitting outside burst into applause. There was a standing ovation
as they made their entrance. A young woman, seemingly giddy with
excitement, kissed the bride. A complimentary bottle of Champagne
appeared at their table.

MOVABLE (but dangerous) FEASTS

The blessings of technology are often unforeseen.
Take as one example, the facsimile machine,
supplanting messengers on bike who seemed to get a thrill
from giving you a ticket to St. Luke's or Lenox Hill.
But just when we were thinking it was safe to go abroad,
crossing streets without the prospect of the orthopedic ward,
now comes the sidewalk cyclist into our neighborhoods
careening toward us wildly with his culinary goods.
As I run for cover before this juggernaut,
I derive some consolation from this interesting thought;
If necessity's the mother of invention as they claim,
the intelligent will soon invent a way to fax lo mein.

MARCEL J. SISLOWITZ

J. D. Reed was on a D train rattling toward West Fourth Street when he
heard two uniformed but off-duty M.T.A. conductors discussing their
trade.

"I still lose it when people hold the door," one said.

"I used to get so angry I could hardly speak," the other said. "I'd yell at
the top of my lungs 'DON'T HOLD THE DOORS!' I finally had to stop.
I was going to have a heart attack."

"So how do you handle it now?" asked the first.

The second conductor indicated that he had given up screaming in favor
of pleading, with feeling, over the intercom: "Please, for the love of God,
don't hold the doors."

Something happened recently that made me stop for a minute and think.
As I was getting off the subway at Avenue of the Americas and 23rd
Street, during a typical morning rush hour, the conductor said, "Have a
successful day." A number of passengers smiled and commented. It
struck me as somehow more meaningful than the usual "good," "nice" or
"pleasant." "Successful" -- whatever success implied to each individual,
that was the conductor's wish. I think each subway rider who heard the
announcement spent some time that morning thinking about exactly what
it was they wanted from the day.

ALIZA ROTENSTEIN

BROADWAY STREET SCENE

More couples walk hand in hand these days:
in museums and parks, window shopping,
evening strolls.
Their hands flow easily into each other's,
fingers mingling like grapes on a vine.
Yes, there are dramas with clever denouements,
the pas de deux its well-rehearsed dance,
tenors sing arias of enduring romance,
but for real scenes romantic
ambling along in easy stride --
couples holding hands in noisy traffic.

AL SPECTOR

Neighbors Give Central Park a Wealthy
Glow



By BLAINE HARDEN

EW YORK -- By passing the hat among its neighbors, who
happen to be America's most densely packed bunch of rich
people, Central Park has harvested the largest haul of private dollars ever
raised for a public park.

As is obvious to the 20 million people who enter the park every year, this
bumper crop of philanthropy, $233 million so far, has done a world of
good. The graffiti-smeared ruin that was an international embarrassment
two decades ago has been reborn as a meticulously restored greensward
where bronze-preservation specialists each year polish and wax all 50 of
the park's statues.

What is far less
obvious is how this
happened.

To exploit the giving
habits of New York's
elite, the park
reinvented itself as an
elite cultural charity. It
has become a player
in the most exclusive
social ritual in town,
shrewdly capitalizing
on unwritten rules
about how the rich
must give to one
another's pet causes
or face social
ostracism.

Less obvious still is
the profound effect
that Central Park has
had on other urban
parks not encircled by
multimillionaires. Park
advocates across
New York admit they
resent Central Park's
phenomenal success,
but nevertheless copy
its management and
fund-raising methods.

"There is something
healthy even in envy,"
said Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, who created the Central Park
Conservancy 20 years ago and ran it for 16 years.

The conservancy has become the dominant model, in New York and
across the country, for groups trying to revive crumbling urban parks,
said Chris Walker, director of community and economic development for
the Urban Institute in Washington.

"It is almost impossible to discuss park restoration in the United States
without discussing Central Park," he said.

People who live near some of New York City's most troubled parks are
imitating the conservancy. Around Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem,
neighbors are raising money from local businesses, hospitals and
developers. They have recruited volunteers to clean up the park and
plant flowers. A gardener trained in Central Park will soon begin working
in their park, his salary paid by a private grant.

Those who live near Marcus Garvey say they are painfully aware of the
demographic chasm that separates them from Central Park. Their
October fund-raising dinner raised $7,000. The Central Park
Conservancy's Halloween Ball raised $805,000.

"We do not have much money, but we are getting organized as a
pressure group," said Helen Murray, a retired nurse who lives in a
brownstone next to the park. "Central Park is a model that gives us a
very high standard to work for."

Neither imitation nor envy, though, can conjure up the fuel that powers
Central Park: private money, donated in huge chunks. The rebirth of the
park, as much as anything, is a story about why the wealthy give in New
York.

As major park donors themselves explain, the rich tend to give to what
they know and to what gives them personal satisfaction. It is no accident
that many of the park's largest benefactors can monitor their giving from
their apartment windows.

"The park is visible, you can touch it, you can partake of it, you can brag
about it, you can see the difference your money makes," said Michael
Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Financial Markets. He is a member of
the conservancy's board and a major donor, and lives half a block from
the park.

Richard Gilder, a stockbroker who grew up playing in Central Park and
now lives beside it on Fifth Avenue, has given the park $17 million, which
is believed to be the largest gift from any individual to any municipal park.

"It is a natural for people who live near the park," Gilder said. Social
considerations also figure strongly for donors. Although the conservancy
is a relative arriviste among the city's charities, it has staked out a status
niche that puts it roughly on a par with the Museum of Modern Art or
Carnegie Hall, which is to say only slightly less chic than the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, several philanthropists said.

Things were different in the late 1970s, when Central Park was "a
disaster zone," in the words of Gordon Davis, then the commissioner of
parks. The city's fiscal crisis had cut spending on parks by nearly
two-thirds, and Central Park had lost about half its work force. Sen.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., called Davis, told him that the park
was a "national disgrace" and threatened a federal takeover.

CastiNg about for a way to rescue the park, Davis concluded that the
only w!y torevive it was to find one person to run it. He settled on
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, who had written a book on Frederick Law
Olmsted, the principal designer of Central Park.

Ms. Rogers had a simple and, as it turned out, profoundly powerful idea.
She decided that the park should be a cultural institution, rather like the
Metropolitan Museum. "The trees and the monuments and the gardens
are our collection," she said.

It was an easy sell. The park was bordered by many thousands of the
country's richest people, many of whom had strong emotional and
financial reasons for resuscitating it.

Elizabeth Cook, the executive director of the Park Council, a
90-year-old nonprofit that is critical of the city's reliance on private
money in the parks, said she was impressed that the conservancy had
raised so much money but was concerned that all of it went to just one
park.

"I wish that the wealthy who give so generously to Central Park would
give equally to the rest of the park system," said Ms. Cook "We are
concerned that this is creating a two-tiered park system in New York
City, one rich, one not."

A few restive members on the board of the Central Park Conservancy
believe that since the park is almost completely refurbished, the
conservancy should take its act on the road.

"We should have a loftier goal for ourselves," said Gilder, who has been
lobbying the conservancy board to shift some of its expertise and
fund-raising ability to Morningside Park in Harlem.

The idea of spreading the wealth, however, is not yet popular among
most conservancy donors, who as a rule do not give to charities that
support other city parks.

Besides, with Central Park having been elevated to such a rarefied
standard, donors are worried about the soaring cost of maintenance.

"How are we going to meet our ongoing costs?" asked Karen Putnam,
the conservancy's president. "We are not to the point where we can put
our feet on the desk and take on another park. We have our hands full."