A toast is in order to the High Line today, which just took top honors in terms of drunk people, or at least drunk people who get caught drinking. The Parks Department has given out more summonses this past year—113, to be exact—for illegal drinking in the High Line than at any other park in the city. That's a lot of tickets for a petite seven-acre park—certainly enough to warrant a fresh bottle of bubbly, don't you think?
Unsurprisingly, many of the offenders were couples, particularly tourists, who like to sip champagne at sunset and get a little frisky. “This is the make-out park of New York City,” said a Parks enforcement officer, which we've known since Day One. What's more, adds the officer, the tipsy horndogs are usually “the philharmonic crowd and the upwardly mobile,”the kind of people who think they're above the law. This is America, people, not some godforsaken European free-for-all! Sorry, we can get a little nasty after too much gin on the esplanade.
There is a bit of good news, however: first off, you can legally imbibe at a small open-air bar called The Porch on the West 15th Street stretch of the High Line, and secondly, thanks to the city's fiscal cuts, fewer officers are patrolling the parks. To play it extra safe, just pull the old "vodka-in-a-waterbottle" trick and carry an extra pack of Altoids—it might not be as romantic as Dom Perignon, but there's a good chance you'll still get lucky after a few shots.
