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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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A graduate of the University of Missouri with a major in photojournalism, the last thing I would ever expect him to tell me is "the best pictures are those you take inside your head." Despite his own prowess behind the camera as well as in the darkroom, he nonetheless insists the images captured by the camera lens are no match for those discerned by the natural lens in the eye.

Having traveled with my mother to New York City on Memorial Day weekend for the first time without my outdated point-and-click Nikon, I have no choice but to put his unwavering conviction on this matter to the test.

It is about 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning May 29. Mom and I are in Bryant Park sitting at a table on the terrace behind the New York Public Library Humanities and Social Science branch at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Just blocks from Time Squares and the ceaseless noise and neon glare that define that far more likely tourist destination, this football field size urban oasis is my favorite spot in all Manhattan. If I lived here, this is where I would come whenever possible to read, write, reflect or just admire the simple beauty of the park itself. And then too there are the distinctive architectural details of the surrounding structures to marvel at.

We are pausing to relax before walking uptown to stand in line to get inside the recently renovated Museum of Modern Art.

I can't wait to see Monet's "Water Lilies" and Van Gogh's "Starry Night" in their new settings. But before I take any new mental snapshots, I must try to record in my journal some of my most memorable impressions thus far of my eighth visit to the Big Apple.

However, as is usually the case when I am on vacation, I cannot concentrate on the task at hand. I am too distracted by what I am seeing right now. The sun is shining, there's a soft breeze and the most I can bring myself to do is look around and soak in the scene of which I am a part at this moment.

I have never had a better view of the park's long rectangular lawn, nobody having yet arrived to occupy the collapsible green chairs scattered haphazardly across it.

The relatively few other serenity seekers with whom we are sharing this remarkable vista have also stationed themselves at the perimeter of the lawn. They sporadically dot the terraces that mark either end and the promenades on either side.

How to choose between the majestic beaux-arts period library as one's backdrop on the east terrace or the romantic fountain on the west? Equally enticing are the shady promenades to the north and south. They feature the same species of London plane trees that are in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, according to the park's web site (www.bryantpark.org).

Comfortable at our perch just a few steps from the outdoor Bryant Park Cafe where we had lunch Friday afternoon after we checked into our hotel, Mom and I have no inclination to walk or run a fitness-conscious lap around the gravel path that separates lawn from garden.

Ordinarily I love examining plants and flowers up close. Again quoting the park's web site, "100 species of woody shrubs and herbaceous perennials and 20,000 bulbs" grow here.

But perhaps because I easily walked 10 miles yesterday in Soho, Greenwich Village and Midtown combined, I am content today to admire from afar the deep pink roses and other blossoms just beginning to open.

Besides it is far more fun to watch people than to study horticulture. We cannot help but note that nearly everyone who has crossed our path has a Dunkin' Donuts bag and tall styrofoam coffee cup in tow. There must be a franchise nearby.

Nor can we ignore an elderly gentleman who has completed several laps around the lawn without once removing his cell phone from his ear. Gosh, if you cannot stand to be alone with your own thoughts in this ultimate open air meditation chamber, where can you?

Alas, we can no longer use as eye candy the well-toned man jogging shirtless around the lawn when we made our entrance from the 40th Street side promenade near the charming children's carousel, which, along with the plane trees, would be perfectly at home in Paris. As should we have done too, he has long since moved on.

Although we feel keenly the absence of the jogger's rippling musculature, we are happy he has cleared the path for a little blond-headed boy, about 6 years old, to run an imaginary marathon. Several paces behind him is his look-alike younger brother. No more than a toddler, the little brother is determined to surpass the bigger brother, running as fast as his legs will carry him.

Oops. Hold on. The adorable underdog has spied something he knows is not right and brakes suddenly to fix it. A chair has been carelessly overturned and he has decided it is his job to set it back up properly. With a priceless expression of perplexity on his face, he wrestles with the deceptively heavy object for several minutes before finally giving up.

Mom and I are rooting for him as he immediately resumes his pursuit of his enviably faster and stronger brother. But having lost precious time trying to make the world a more perfect place, he is unjustly doomed to cross the finish line second. No good deed, as they say, goes unpunished.

Well, okay, enough eavesdropping on other unsuspecting tourists. Some of the shops should be open now. Likewise, if we do not hurry, the line for the museum will be three blocks long.

As we leave the park on the 42nd Street side where the open air reading room is situated on weekdays, my mom imparts an eyebrow-raising tidbit.

"Your dad said he slept in this park before finding an apartment when he came here to work for Capital Airlines in the late fifties."

Hmmmm. I am guessing there is about as much truth to that assertion as there is to the explanation he gave me for how catsup got its name when I was between the ages of the two miniature Olympians I just described.

I would only be willing to believe it if I had proof in the form of an actual photograph showing him eyes closed, stretched out on his side on a bench, head propped on folded jacket, hands clutching his few possessions tightly to his chest.

For more information about Bryant Park consult the web site I mentioned earlier, or better yet, visit it yourself. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the librarian at the Genesee District Library's Goodrich Branch.

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