It's Halloween month, which, as a child, meant planning my costume ALL MONTH, and probably part of September. Now that I'm too old to be a sexy nurse/pirate/doctor/vampire/witch/princess(never mind that one, never too old to be any kind of princess)/cow girl/monster/etc I think about pumpkin pie, hot cider (maybe these new thoughts explain why I can't be a sexy anything anymore)...moving on...this trivia Q from Watson Adventures is some interesting NYC history....
QUESTION: Poltergeists on Ice! It won’t be cold enough to see two Central Park ghosts on the October 7 Secrets of Central Park Hunt. That’s because the spectral Van der Voort sisters are always seen skating on a pond. Rosetta and Janet lived together in a brownstone mansion and loved to skate. They both died in 1880, and during World War I they were first spotted on the ice, one in a red dress, the other in purple. (Where they were between 1880 and the war is not recorded by the legend, but you get used to these sorts of incongruities when reading ghost stories.) They probably originally skated on Ladies’ Pond. Where is or was Ladies’ Pond?
(a) It used to be where the Conservatory Water is today, where people now sail model boats.
(b) It’s now Wollman Rink.
(c) It used to be under the 77th Street access road, but Robert Moses filled it in.
(d) Next to Men’s Pond, but the lines for Ladies’ Pond are always much longer.
ANSWER: (c) According to the always interesting Forgotten-NY.com: “Eaglevale Bridge...carries the 77th Street access road over the bridle path and what was once Ladies’ Pond (reserved for ladies-only ice skating in the 1890s. Why ladies only? To put skates on, women had to expose their ankles and Peeping Toms abounded), before Robert Moses filled it in in 1936 and replaced it with a playground.”
And to think, just an ankle was sexy...I have ankles....(NO JOKE, my phone just vibrated w/a text abt pumpkin facials! perfection!)
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