The Bronx Zoo was the destination for a June 12, 1983 outing that combined novelty, recreation, and a striking shift in the diary’s attention. On a beautiful Sunday, the narrator and Jon Gould went there by cab after church; the zoo was somewhere the narrator had never visited before. The visit began as a relaxed excursion, but the account ultimately places the zoo within a larger view of the city’s racial landscape that day.

A First Visit and a Day Out

The narrator describes the zoo as a welcome discovery and recalls taking many photographs. The pair chose the Safari Trail ride, making the visit more than a walk through the grounds: it became an activity they shared and found fun. The entry records the outing in the diary’s practical register as well, listing $20 and an admission price of $5.

From the Zoo Back to the City

On the way out, they encountered Ron Galella, who was visiting with his wife; neither of them had been to the zoo before either. Galella gave the pair a ride to the Grand Concourse, where they caught the subway. The narrator noted that the train made many stops at first before becoming express. They got off at Columbus Circle and walked home, carrying the day from the Bronx back into their familiar neighborhood by a succession of rides and changes in pace.

The Zoo in the Day’s Racial Observations

The diary explains that getting away from Puerto Rican Day festivities in the city was one reason for the excursion. Its account then turns from the zoo outing to broad estimates of the day’s racial composition: the narrator described the day as mostly Black and estimated that Black people made up 80 percent of the zoo’s visitors, 85 percent of the subway riders, and 99.5 percent of people in the park, concluding that white people were a minority. These are the narrator’s impressions rather than independently verified counts. Their placement after the cheerful account of photographs and the Safari Trail ride gives the entry a sudden change in register: the zoo is both a place of personal recreation and a vantage point from which the narrator frames the city through racial proportions.