The Battle for Belvedere Castle

It's snowing again today and I was reminded of the Battle for Belvedere Castle, a massive snowball fight waged last February.  This is a repost (2/2008) of that epic confrontation:

During the season's first winter storm last Friday, a day when most news outlets focused on the Serbian protesters setting part of the U.S. embassy ablaze or on the Turkish forces crossing into Iraq to engage Kurdish rebels, a much less publicized battle raged at Belvedere Castle, high above Turtle Pond.  It was my mission that morning to lead an unruly squad of forty-two eighth-graders and four of their teachers across Central Park.  After stocking up on rations in Times Square, we were transferred by the local B to our starting point at 81st Street.  A few in the ranks reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was closed due to snow, but they were from California and didn't know the difference between the Metropolitan Museum and Metropolitan College or whatever school would have announced its closing on the news that morning.  I ignored them and entered the park through the Hunter's Gate.     My plan was to march them south, then east to the Swedish Cottage, where we would turn north and then east to cut between the Delacorte Theater and the Great Lawn, slipping below the East Drive via the Greywacke Arch to reach Fifth Avenue and approach the Met from the south.  At the West Drive, however, I decided that we couldn't rush through such a beautiful winter landscape and I led them instead into the Ramble and up the windy path to Belvedere Castle.  I alerted my fellow guide, who was responsible for an additional forty-eight students and teachers, to our whereabouts.  He replied that they too would make the climb.

A thought occurred to me as I looked down on Turtle Pond, observing the ice punctured by snowballs arcing from the gloves of my ragtag crew.  (The term ragtag is used loosely here as these kids came from Palo Alto.)  I called my colleague to learn his group's coordinates and discovered they were approaching from the west, just passing the lavatories at the Delacorte Theater.  We had mere minutes.  I shouted orders and all forty-six raced to positions along the western wall to fortify the defenses.  A middle-aged couple who had been admiring the view when we arrived, fled the scene, two refugees forced into the Ramble for their own preservation.

The one true challenge to my battle plan was the man leading the forty-eight.  Travis Stroessenreuther hailed from Wisconsin and had spent his entire childhood in the outdoors of that frigid wilderness.  Part Viking, he was also still bearing a grudge against anyone who had cheered for the New York Giants over his Green Bay Packers in January.  If he led the charge, was there anything that could stop him?  A rifle would take him out, yes, but that morning we were restricting ourselves to snow.

As my forty-six hid beneath the parapet wall, preparing snowballs, I stepped down onto the northern outcropping of rock to reconnoiter the scene.  Travis and the first of his forty-eight appeared in the Shakespeare Garden below.  I turned to face my group, pretending that I was addressing an audience seated out of sight.  Vikings weren't famed for their intelligence and I hoped that Travis would lead his followers right into the trap.  Loudly, I lectured about the dimensions of the park and dispensed some trivia about the New York Shakespeare Festival.  There were some Vikings apparently among us who kept standing up and trying to listen to the tour instead of waiting for the signal.  "Get down!  I'm a decoy!" I frantically whispered before starting a monologue about the Great Lawn.

Travis was not falling for any of it.  He saw the heads bobbing above the snow-covered ramparts and he let his forces gather below--out of reach--occasionally shouting a few Central Park numbers over his own shoulder.  The first skirmish was turning out to be a vocal exchange not of insults but of random factoids.  The real battle would begin soon, but we felt no fear, perched as we were high on Vista Rock.  Anyone who knows the geography of this part of the park understands that the far better approach for them would have been from the south.  From the west, they had to charge the castle practically at its base and climb two flights of stairs, completely exposed at all times to their enemy above.  The only worse approach would have involved swimming through Turtle Pond before pulling themselves up the rock and castle walls.  This time, not a single bet would have been laid on the Green Bay team. 

At last, Travis called the charge and led his forces at a sprint up the path.  I gave the go and my forty-six stood, throwing all of their snowballs at the advancing troops.  In the first five seconds, a rough reckoning would count at least one hundred snowballs hurled from the castle alone, and as the invaders laid seige to the castle, my defenders, pushed all of the accumulated snow off the western wall and onto the heads of the army below.  Travis later reported that it was indeed an awe-inspiring sight to see an entire sky filling with spherical projectiles.  But it was also an awe-inspiring sight to see a troop of snow-covered eighth-graders breaching our defenses.

 

It was now a full-scale battle for the castle, almost one hundred people in an all-out melee.  I changed my tactics and kept snowballs in hand--for every person that hit me, a snowball was duly returned.  This was also obviously the time to go after the kid that we adults didn't like, but it was difficult to find him in the crowd.  People began to retreat beneath the wooden shelter in the northwest corner of the terrace, declaring it a neutral zone and amazingly, despite the chaos of the trajectories, it remained safe.  I threw my last snowballs, even turning against a couple of my own group, before retreating to sanctuary. 

In the shelter, I met my fellow leader, powdered from head to toe, and we agreed to merge the armies.  I would walk ahead to advance the Met, purchasing all of the admission buttons and gathering the floor plans for the museum by the time Travis led the group inside.  It was a peaceful walk.  I strolled to the Met, checked my wet coat at my secret downstairs coat check and then went to the desk in the Great Hall to obtain the buttons.  I was warm, dry, completely relaxed, looking forward to perusing more of the Cypriot collection (my new favorite section), when the ninety-four entered, dripping with melted snow.

One of the Met employees pointed the group out to me, wondering how they got so wet, and I answered, "I have no idea.  I've never seen anything like it." 

(Photos courtesy of our embedded photographer, Jennifer Hutsell.)

Comments

[Natalie]

My daughter Lauren come home raving about the snowbattle. It was the highlight of the entire trip for many of the kids, something they'll never forget. thanks for allowing us parents to be a part of it through your blog. Wonderful, indeed.

[Elizabeth]

First of all, you have WORK? Secondly, this is absolutely, undeniably, forever and ever, my most favorite place in the whole world...Central Park in the snow. It is transcendant. It floats you somewhere between heaven and earth--to some private planet where you at long last find your soul--and then it delicately returns you to a city that demands a piece of that soul every day.

[Jennifer]

Wow.... I just re-read this and saw the AMAZING photos (what a great photography source you had... hahaha!) So many memories of last year's trip... You guys are the best!!!