Backgammon in Lower Manhattan

Liberty Park is

back, and much better looking than it was, it must be said. (I know Liberty

Park is not its official name. But I’m sure it will no more be called Zuccotti

Park than Sixth Avenue is called Avenue of the Americas, or the West Side Highway

is called Joe DiMaggio Highway.)

Judging by the

photos up at Curbed, the chess players are back as well. But the real question

is whether the backgammon players will return. They left after September 11,

of course, and eventually found a new, more central venue: Bryant Park.Will

they desert midtown and its magnificent

conveniences for the memories of the windswept Liberty Park of old? In the

years before September 11, Wall Street would regularly face off against the

semiprofessional backgammon hustlers, sometimes for very large stakes indeed.

Bryant Park is probably nicer, but I suspect the pickings are better downtown.