{"id":38101,"date":"2025-11-20T16:11:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/?p=38101"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T21:14:13","slug":"gaines-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2025\/11\/20\/gaines-bench\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s visit the William M. Gaines memorial park bench!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ever since I saw Dick Bartolo&#8217;s video of how he&#8217;d arranged with the NYC parks department to install a bench plaque commemorating the late, great William M. Gaines &#8212;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o5DDmVs7ikY?si=cDxAihU_uyndYcg3\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8212; I&#8217;ve been wanting to make a pilgrimage to that spot. <\/p>\n<p>And yesterday morning, November 19, 2025, I finally did!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-38102\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ScottEdelmanGainesBench111925-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The bench wasn&#8217;t easy to find, since DeBartolo gave no clue to its location other than that it was by a marina. Searching online for &#8220;Riverside Park marina&#8221; yielded nothing. But studying a map of the Manhattan coastline led me to believe it might be somewhere near the West 79th Street entrance to the park, so that&#8217;s where I headed.<\/p>\n<p>But that entrance was closed due to construction, and seemed as if it would remain so for quite awhile. So I was forced to take a more circuitous route to the bench. Hoping to help you with your own future pilgrimage, I retraced my steps and started all over again, recording the following video to aid you in your quest.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ifQa-7db9b0?si=YuBR4T7lGRQyWSjw\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If that&#8217;s not enough, I took this photo facing the bench so you&#8217;d be aware of the topography.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-38104\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/FacingtheWilliamGainesBench-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I also took a photo from the bench itself out toward the water, figuring the landmarks on the path as well as across the way could also help.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-38105\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BacktotheWilliamGainesbench-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever since I saw Dick Bartolo&#8217;s video of how he&#8217;d arranged with the NYC parks department to install a bench plaque commemorating the late, great William M. Gaines &#8212; &#8212; I&#8217;ve been wanting to make a pilgrimage to that spot. And yesterday morning, November 19, 2025, I finally did!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,272],"class_list":["post-38101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-gaines","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38101"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38111,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38101\/revisions\/38111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}