A day in the life of Central Park?
 

Gay lovers go out on limb

By DEREK ROSE and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS



A teen and his transgender partner romp in Central Park tree.


Two lovers, naked as jaybirds and apparently as crazy as looneybirds, climbed a tree in Central Park yesterday - and put on a bizarre four-hour show that drew cops and hundreds of gawkers.

In a shocking new twist on the birds and the bees, a 17-year-old boy and a 32-year-old preoperative transsexual offered an X-rated sex spectacle - refusing cops' pleas to leave their unlikely love nest 50 feet above the Chess and Checkers House.

The standoff ended at 8:30 p.m., when the duo voluntarily came down and embraced as onlookers cheered. They were then taken away for psychiatric observation.

"We don't get this back home," said tourist Elise Gaillard, 21, of Adelaide, Australia. "Crazy Americans."

Earlier, the teen told cops that his parents did not approve of his relationship with his newly bosomy pal. "I want my mother and my psychologist," he yelled.

When police began scaling the leafy larch tree, the couple climbed higher.

"You think I won't jump?" the transgender tree-hugger screamed at cops, who rushed two cherrypickers to the scene and put a huge airbag around the base of the towering larch.

At one point, the older of the couple broke off a branch and threatened to throw it at cops, before demanding a vanilla diet Pepsi.

When police handed up a regular old diet Pepsi, the 32-year-old hurled the can to the ground, screamed, "Vanilla!" and declared, "What I say goes!"

The couple also shouted complaints about the portrayal of transgender people in the media, and called for an apology on national TV.

"I think they were just mentally distraught, fed up with how people were treating them," said Detective Steven Elter, who climbed up the tree to talk to the couple. "We just tried to talk to them and make them feel comfortable."

The incident came just days after two Canadian women took a swim - fully clothed - in the Central Park reservoir.

Yesterday's surreal antics prompted tourists like Louise Sharp, 24, of Scotland to change their sightseeing plans.

"We were going to go to the Empire State Building, but we thought we'd stay here instead," Sharp said.

With Kerry Burke

A teen and his transgender partner romp in Central Park tree.

Spectators gather in New York's Central Park on Thursday as police try to coax two men out of a tree.

Treed (AP Photo/Ed Bailey)
Apr 22, 2004

Vanilla Pepsi people are thrilled to no end.

Its Diet Vanilla Pespi people. :)

This stunt is likely to help that.

Well, what do you expect? They obviously don't like the cherry variety.

See it's effective marketing. I was not aware there was such a thing as diet vanilla pepsi.

I can see the executives over at Pepsi running commericals with these guys.

I'm sorry I missed it. Nothing fun ever happens when I'm in Central Park. :(

maybe the kid's parents aren't really freaked out that their son is dating a transgendered man. Maybe it's the whole 17 year old/32 year old thing.

What a bizarre story.

I wanted to poke them with a stick,
because they are different then me,
but it seems I was upstaged
by the mother-loving tree.

Word.

Maybe there is something to taking X and drinking Diet Vanilla Pepsi?

Paging The Afoci on the psychedelic courtesy phone . . .

can we get the pictures delinked? That's not exactly work-safe.

Well, those pics are on major new sites. It's not exactly porn.

so did they have sex in the tree? I'm still a little confused on the events here.

As far as I know, there's no screaming allowed during a silent protest.

Well, from what I read, at least one of them HAD to be silent for at least part of the time. :p

*shudders*

Man, I want a diet vanilla Pepsi.

Ditto for me too.

Who knew naked gay and transgendered men were such an advertising force? This could revolutionize Madison Avenue.

Give me thirty minutes and a twelve pack of Diet Vanilla Pepsi and I will let you know. ;)

Throw in a 32 year old transgendered person and we could recreate the whole thing.

I've got 2 for this one:

So THAT'S what the vanilla is in vanilla Pepsi.

OR

I thought Pepsi took care of the transgendered demographic when they hired Britney?

I'm suing! I nearly chocked to death on a peanut when I read this.

Sorry it took so long to post, they held me at Bellview longer than John Galt, but we're both out and fine now. And the good news is that I finally got that damn vanilla pepsi!

Ok, on a more serious note, you ever notice that as good as a rack looks on a broad there is something about putting boobies on a man that is just not attractive...

The massive gobs of hair? Or maybe it's the package?

I'm all fine with playing along, but I don't like being the one with the boobs. Trout in rectum - yes. Silicon hanging from chest - no. ;)

I wonder how many people in the crowd recognized that the tree was a larch from watch Monty Python

The Larch