Aguilar, DaisyAnthropology 102Dr. Leanna Wolfe

12/02/10

Hark To NOHO Park

The park is separated by a busy street. One of the sides is dedicated almost exclusively to a track. You see people run around the track all through the day. You frequently see students from a local school running around the track and trainers motivating their clients.

One unlikely group of people you would see at the park would be the busy mom with a baby, yet there are groups of busy moms that exercise together by walking around the tracks with their babies in their strollers.

The other side of the park also offers moms a place to take their kids. In the children’s play area you see moms playing with their kids on swings and kids playing with other kids inside their play area. Although it may not seem age appropriate teenage boys and girls were also swinging in the larger swings, having fun didn’t seem to have an age limit for them.

The benches in the park are a place where people come and just relax by themselves or with family or friends. There were even some teenagers who seemed to be working on projects for school, which seemed to find the place to be relaxing and a good place to talk.

Young kids seem to find the open place a perfect place to play soccer and do a little exercising. It was also a great place to show their competitive spirit and their teamwork, by frequently cheering on others.

To my surprise the park’s skate park had a variety of ages from young elementary school kids, to teenagers, and even young adults. The real surprise was that they all seemed to be sharing the ramps and taking turns. Their seemed to be a friendship between the young kids and the older people. They all seemed to share a passion of skating that it didn’t seem to matter how old someone was. Although most young people seem to be glued to their phones and electronics, this was not the case. Most of them seemed glued to the person that was skating at the moment and they were always in constant communication with each other.

After a while of hanging out at the park with their friends, some kids decided to go inside the library, which is a place many young kids frequent to do work or just cool off after playing outside.

The park also has basketball courts which are roomy for big games or small one on one games between friends. As they played together you could hear them tease each other and at the same time ask each other questions about what was going on in each others lives. They were not only playing, but they were also bonding. The courts seemed to be a safe place to talk freely.

The tennis courts in the park seemed to have a very competitive atmosphere. It was a place of some rough talk, but all in good fun. The courts had friends just having a good time. They seemed to be regulars to the court and the game by the way they played and the way they felt right at home.

The park also has a pool, although it appeared not to be in use this season that didn’t stop people from sitting by it and just staring off into it. They like many other people in the park just seemed to have a good time playing around with each other and laughing away in jokes.