AMERICANS NEED OUTINGS 27 



commercial playgrounds during the hottest weather, from Independence 

 Day to Labor Day. During heat waves the beach at Coney Island photo- 

 graphed from a 'plane resembles nothing so much as a vast anthill swarm- 

 ing. In point of recreational use this beach probably carries the heaviest load 

 in the Nation. 



Local police complain that the thousands of tottering children custom- 

 arily taken up as lost, and at nightfall generally reclaimed by their parents, 

 were not really lost at all, but were mainly turned loose to be lost for the 

 day by overdriven parents. The New York papers customarily carry air 

 photos of the thickest of these heat-wave swarms in the Sunday rotogravure 

 sections, and no news account by a trained metropolitan reporter omits as a 

 sort of key to the extent of the exodus the number of "lost" children picked 

 up and tended for the day by the Coney Island police. 



It is plain that such mass outings, while valuable, leave something to be 

 desired. The incessant pressures of urban time schedules, of space restric- 

 tions, the noise and the huddle of a metropolitan existence still beat at the 

 mind and cramp the spirit amid these tangled beach throngs. The beach at 

 Coney Island on a hot Sunday provides air, sun, and ocean enough for all, 

 but certainly it is not an ideal place to recover a lost sense of personal sig- 

 nificance or find new elbowroom for the ego. And it is one of the sights of 

 New York City to see these sunburned, tense, and jaded pleasure seekers 

 pouring back into town at the end of their day in the open. The poorest of 

 them pack the tube and subway trains, pushing and stomping. They are 

 tired to the point where they can almost sleep standing. At the ferries the 

 automobiles of somewhat more solvent citizens stand jammed in line for 

 miles, crawling, stopping, waiting; sometimes they have to wait for hours to 

 get the car on a ferry. Their auto horns keep up a constant caterwauling of 

 agitation and protest all through the night. There is a great crying of weary 

 children and a great slapping of weary children for crying. 



Now these people know from experience, most of them, what their day 

 at the shore will cost them in money and in discomfort, but they keep on 

 going again and again. Nothing could more plainly testify that outdoor 

 recreation is a driving human need. These driven people are simply trying 

 to get all they can of it within their means and scope. 



