GOING ALL OUT
For some New Yorkers, picnics in city parks are serious business requiring months of planning, early morning setups, elaborate themes and the occasional U-Haul
WHEN it came to planning the perfect picnic to celebrate his daughter Maya’s third birthday, Brandon Stock had to get an early start.
This past Sunday, the father left his home in East New York at 3:30 a.m. and took a cab in the dead of night to Brooklyn Bridge Park in order to claim three coveted corner picnic tables on the waterfront. He set up animal-print balloons, tablecloths and a sign reserving the tables he decorated, just to make sure no one would take over the space when he went home to get the rest of the picnic fixings before the party started around noon. Although he didn’t see anyone at the park area in his pre-dawn setup, he was prepared to, based on prior research.
“If it’s a holiday weekend, getting here at 5 a.m. is not early enough,” says Stock. “You’re not gonna get a table at any of these spots.”
New Yorkers take everything to the extreme — even the leisurely picnic. Lacking in private outdoor spaces, Gothamites stake out the best spots in city parks before the sun rises, arrange for elaborate tents and decorations and even hire UHauls to get everything to the park. All the work makes for wholesome fun with family and friends — and the occasional skirmish with competing picnics.
“I think he cheated,” says Jay Cruz, 36, of Stock’s prime cookout real estate. Cruz, an engineer from Brooklyn Heights, arrived to the park at a relatively leisurely 7:30 a.m. — four hours after Stock — to claim one of the few remaining grills and tables for his family’s back-to-school picnic.
Planning ahead is essential to win the picnic game. Arrangements for Uzo Amuzie’s fraternity’s 200-person picnic in Prospect Park, also on Sunday, began back in March. The fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, raised about $2,000 to put on the annual event, which included the usual hot dogs,
hamburgers, macaroni salad and — perhaps less usual — a live DJ, which required a special $45 permit. Getting all the materials to the park for the gathering was a literal haul.
“We needed a U-Haul to get the barbecue and the tables down here from The Bronx,” Amuzie, 23, says of the lengths he and his friends went to for the festivities. “We needed the bigger grill to get more food out — maximize our output!”
For such elaborate picnics, there are strict rules. The city requires that all park events with 20 or more people get a $25 permit. Bringing tents and tables also requires a permit, although people often don’t bother, thinking they’re unlikely to get busted. Propane cooking and open fires aren’t allowed, but charcoal grills are OK in designated areas. The city also forbids signs or banners from being hung on trees or fences.
Prospect Park, where a history of picnicking dates back to its founding in the 1860s, may very well be ground zero for competitive picnicking. For Chanica Barrow’s recent 28th birthday, her cousins organized a tropical-themed picnic, complete with leis, grass skirts, an inflatable palm tree and a tent. About a dozen trays of food were kept warm by Sterno dishes to feed the 20 or so friends and family in attendance.
“I wanted something simple, but my family is extra,” says Barrow, a Bed-Stuy resident who works at a nonprofit.
At nearby Fort Greene Park, the decor was equally “extra” for “Zachary’s Kickin’ Fourth Birthday,” a sports-themed picnic for Landi Horace’s soccer-obsessed son and 20 young friends. Horace, who lives in nearby Clinton Hill, hired her friend Nathalie Ambroise to execute the theme. Ambroise constructed a balloon arch with about 40 black-and-white balloons, set over an elaborate 8-foot-high chiffon curtain backdrop for Zach’s birthday cake and other soccer-decorated desserts, which sat on pedestals.
Ambroise declined to say how much she spent on the decor and food, only that “there was no budget.”
Although Ambroise helps arrange picnics just for friends, event planners offer their services for elaborate outdoor meals. Personal Attention, a Tribeca-based concierge service owned by two picnic-obsessed former Parisians, charges anywhere from $150 to $1,500 to set up picture-perfect spreads at public parks.
“In 2018, everything has to be Instagrammable,” says Personal Attention co-owner Laéthycia Simms. “So for us, we cannot just have a picnic with a blanket. No, we want to have a nice setting. It’s like going to a restaurant except you are outside.”
The company sets up spreads with throws, pillows and elevated platforms for food and beverages, and, depending on how much the client pays, will clean up the picnic when the festivities end. Luxury experiences can also include games and entertainment. One of their most elaborate picnics, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, even had a private chef. Setups like these have all the benefits of fine dining, but without the stuffy atmosphere.
“When you have a dinner reservation, they’ll tell you, ‘We cannot seat everyone, or you have to wait’ — with a picnic it’s more flexible, and it’s outside and you feel like you have your own private space,” Simms says.
Competitor Upicnic, which typically sets up spreads for people in Central Park, plans lunches that cost anywhere from $80 for a romantic couple’s spread to $7,000 for a company picnic. Their biggest picnic this year served 120 people, according to the company’s founder Alp Behar.
“We create an environment maybe you’ve only ever seen in movies,” says Behar, who adds that sometimes picnickers opt for a romantic violin player to accompany the sandwiches and side dishes his team brings.
With picnics getting so elaborate, some get out of control. NYC Parks Enforcement Patrol has issued 13 noise-related summonses at the city’s parks this year.
At Van Cortlandt Park in The Bronx, amplified sound is not allowed, but it’s common for larger picnics to get too noisy when people don’t know the rules, says Carlos Echeverria, the manager at the golf course next to the park.
“Every other weekend . . . I have to call the rangers because it gets so loud,” Echeverria says.
But for many families, going the distance for their picnics is a way they can show their loved ones that quality time is worth the extra effort.
“I skipped church for this,” says 72-yearold Gloria Martin of her family’s picnic on Sunday, which brought together her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for a rare couple of hours together. “My choir director said, ‘Go ahead.’ Life is too short to miss out on these moments.”