Ellie & Mike Engaged!
Hernshead, Central Park, NYC
Dec 13, 2025
Mike let us in on the surprise a few weeks before the event: he wanted to propose to Ellie during the December weekend we were out there, and needed us to play along to ensure we reached the right spot at the exact time the photographer was ready for the moment.
We had the excuse that we wanted to go to the Natural History Museum on the Upper West Side, and have brunch at a diner on the Upper East Side, which would have us crossing the park in early afternoon. Some well-timed after brunch coffee and a trip to The Gap produced the necessary delays, but how would we get Ellie actually out onto the rocky point in The Lake to reach the exact point?
"I've got this," I told Mike, and I quickly fabricated a memory about an old short story by E.B. White in The New Yorker about Hernshead, the rocky point, and how it reminded him of sailing off the Maine coast -- and ran excitedly toward the point. The notion of my being excited for an old EB White short story about sailing in Central Park was completely credible to Ellie, and once we had her up on the rocks, Mike took it from there.
