Climbing Central Park

I found this surfing. Beware, New Yorkers.

Park rangers handed [Anthony Avellino] a $1,000 ticket after his daughters, ages 9 and 11, and their 11-year-old friend were caught climbing a Japanese white pine in [New York’s] Central Park. …

“My children have been climbing trees in Central Park for nine years,” Avellino said. “At least give me a warning.”

But officials said it was too late—the tree was damaged. …

But with no posted signs, how’s a park patron supposed to know that tree-climbing is forbidden?

“There are lots of things that you cannot do in parks that are not posted,” [Parks Department spokesman Edward] Skyler said. “If we listed every rule, we’d have more signs than trees.”

—Associated Press, April 8, 1999