It was a beautiful moment at 8 a.m. this morning when Parks and Recreation star and former New Yorker Aziz Ansari joined the Central Park Conservancy for its inaugural first cut of the park's beloved Sheep Meadow. Laughs were shared, lawns were mowed, and now the park is officially ready for its April 7th reopening.
Central Park Conservancy President Doug Blonsky and NYC Department of Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe were in attendance to present Aziz with the lawnmower "Key to Central Park" before the comedian took a ceremonial mow of the meadow. "When I initially agreed to do this I thought it'd be later in the day and I would be getting the key to the city," said Aziz. But undeterred by neither the early hour nor the downgrade of key-holding status, our comedic hero mounted the metal stallion and rode proudly towards the rising New York sun.
We chatted with Aziz after his ride and found out the important stuff: His favorite parks in NYC, besides Central Park, are Washington Square Park and Madison Square Park (mostly because of Shake Shack), and Echo Park in Los Angeles is his West Coast park preference. He also told us that, given the opportunity, his Parks and Recreation character, Tom Haverford, would "try to throw a foam party in Sheep Meadow, which would be horrible. He'd try to install DJs everywhere. It would be... not cool." Probably not considering Sheep Meadow is a Quiet Zone that requires headphones for radios.
Aziz hadn't ridden a lawn-mowing device in years and admitted he was a little afraid of all the power he wielded atop the machine. As he told us, "I'm glad a Mad Men-esque incident didn't go down where I mowed someone's leg." Ride on, Aziz, ride on.
