Say 'Hi' to Alberto Arroyo, 'Mayor of Central Park' — And wish him 'Happy Birthday' (he's 93 today)

Colleen Ambrose, a New York City jogger who met Arroyo 15 years ago, plans to celebrate by pushing him around the Central Park Reservoir track (he had a stroke last August which disabled him) with a balloon tied to his wheelchair.

"Afterwards, he expects to spend a couple of hours greeting well-wishers at the South Gate House," wrote Charles Wilson in today's New York Times Sports section; the article follows.

The caption for the photo up top: "Alberto Arroyo, who will be 93 on Sunday, had a stroke in August. Central Park joggers joined forces, and take him to a park in his wheelchair."

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Helping Hands Keep Alberto Arroyo, Jogging Pioneer at Central Park, Going

Alberto Arroyo, the de facto mayor of Central Park, can no longer travel there on his own. He could be found exercising one recent morning by guiding his walker in a small oval pattern in the 16th-floor solarium of the Kateri Residence, a nursing and rehabilitation center on the Upper West Side.

Arroyo is a native of Puerto Rico with soulful eyes and a confident mustache. He is “one of the pioneers who helped set the current trend toward jogging in America,” according to a 1985 New York State Senate resolution honoring him for his “50 years of jogging.”

Last August, Arroyo, then 92, had a stroke as he was leaving his one-room apartment at the Greystone Hotel on 91st Street. It affected his speech, which now comes only slowly and with great mental strain, in a mix of Spanish and English. The stroke also deprived him of his ability to make independent trips to Central Park’s reservoir and its track, places he has loved like no one else.

In recent months, joggers from the reservoir have begun to pay back Arroyo’s years of devotion. After the stroke, people who had known him for decades sensed his sudden absence and reached out to one another to discover what had happened.

Colleen Ambrose, a jogger who met Arroyo 15 years ago, posted orange fliers with her telephone number on the wall at the South Gate House, letting people know how to visit him at the Kateri Residence. Arroyo’s close friend Louis Torres started a private Google group. The site has a schedule for Arroyo’s visitors, who post reports of his progress and activities.

“The first few weeks when he couldn’t come to the reservoir, he was very depressed,” said Michael Manning, 59, who met Arroyo while jogging in 1977. “His friends started talking about it, and we decided he needs to be there.”

So several days a week since September, members of Arroyo’s running family have been taking him nearly a mile by wheelchair to the reservoir — even when there is snow on the ground or when they need to bundle him in several layers.

Arroyo has long claimed to be the first person to have jogged around the reservoir, in 1935. The 1.6-mile path is now one of the most popular tracks in the world, attracting thousands of runners each day.

Since his retirement as a clerk for Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1978, Arroyo spent almost all of his time there until last summer. When he was not on the track, he could be found near the benches at the South Gate House offering free foot massages, telling his life story, shadowboxing and, until he was almost 90, doing handstands.

“The reservoir is his life,” Maria Rivera, his niece, said.

In his prime, Arroyo ran as many as 10 laps at a time. By his early 70s, his knees finally stopped cooperating. More recently, he guided his walker clockwise on the track, facing the counterclockwise stream of runners. He would greet everyone who met his eyes with a smile and a gesture that seemed part wave and part benediction.

“He would walk very slowly,” said Elizabeth Zelvin, 64, a jogger and mystery novelist who once wrote a song about Arroyo. “He would always tell me that I was looking good, that I was beautiful. It could be raining, and he would be lifting his hands to the sky and saying, ‘It’s a beautiful day.’ ”

Around his neck, he hung a laminated picture of himself jogging with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for whom the reservoir was named after her death. He also wore an oversize medallion. He spoke often of St. Francis of Assisi, whose example he sought to follow by taking a vow of poverty. Two decades ago, people began to call Arroyo the mayor of Central Park. He came to introduce himself that way.

His few possessions are mostly mementos, almost all of them revealing his commitment to the reservoir. Among his papers are a number of letters from the Parks Department, responding to requests that he had made over many years for the repair of a reservoir water fountain, or the construction of a new handrail by the South Gate House, or the need for a fresh coat of paint on the benches.

The author and activist Jane Jacobs once wrote that a person “in frequent contact with a wide circle of people and who is sufficiently interested to make himself a public character” plays a vital part in creating a sense of community in a city.

Arroyo appeared to recognize that he could serve such a function.

“Once he became a figure that people knew about, he took his role very seriously,” said Nancy Linday, 59, who met him while running in the early 1970s.

As he was wheeled into the park at 90th Street and Central Park West last Sunday, Arroyo extended his arms and lifted his smiling face to breathe in the air. He wore a new St. Francis medal that Ambrose gave him that day. He waved to nearly every jogger who passed. Many stopped, asked how he had been, said they had missed him.

On Sunday, Arroyo’s 93rd birthday, Ambrose plans to push him on a lap around the track, with a balloon tied to his wheelchair. Afterward, he expects to spend a couple of hours greeting well-wishers at the South Gate House.

One of Arroyo’s keepsakes is a yellowing slip of paper from a fortune cookie. The message seems to be proving true: “Your path will be made smooth for you by good friends.”

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Above, Arroyo at the reservoir in 2005.