{"id":64692,"date":"2025-12-08T20:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T20:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/64692\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T20:39:08","slug":"meet-armando-who-lives-in-central-park-where-he-dispenses-spiritual-wisdom-and-doggy-treats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/64692\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Armando, Who Lives in Central Park, Where He Dispenses Spiritual Wisdom and Doggy Treats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Armando with his cart that counsels \u201cStillness Speaks.\u201d Photos by Carol Tannenhauser.<\/p>\n

By Carol Tannenhauser<\/p>\n

I met John Maynard, the 84-year-old poet who agreed to act as my guide, in front of the Dakota at 9 on a freezing-cold December morning. We were both bundled up as we headed into Central Park at West 72nd Street, past the Imagine mosaic, to the sounds of a pretty decent rendition of The Beatles\u2019 \u201cIn My Life,\u201d stopping to listen and applaud.<\/p>\n

We were on a journey to find a man named Armando, whose last name we don\u2019t know, who lives deep in the woods of the park.<\/p>\n

Lots of wayward people sleep in Central Park; you see them huddled under blankets, beneath bridges, or behind rocky outcrops \u2013 transients who are gone by morning. Armando is different. He lives in the park. Year round. Somewhere in the woods on a hill is a flat rock he calls \u201cmy bed.\u201d The park is the place he comes home to after his daily activities, which take him all over the neighborhood, including to Trader Joe\u2019s, Morton Williams, and the Y.<\/p>\n

No, he doesn\u2019t have a tent or encampment. He carries everything he needs neatly packed in what he calls his \u201cmobile home,\u201d a wooden cart painted light blue, with pictures of birds on it and sayings like \u201cStillness Speaks,\u201d \u201dThe Power of Now,\u201d and \u201cNo bad times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do not mistake him for homeless. Armando lives in the woods by choice. He once had a Section 8 apartment in the Bronx, but gave it up for the outdoors. \u201cI told them maybe someone else can use it, because I\u2019m not going to,\u201d he told me. He said he loves to go to bed when the sun does and wake up at 4 a.m. when it\u2019s still dark and \u201cmeditate on the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were lucky that day: we found Armando on his usual bench, surrounded by admirers and well-wishers, and flocks of birds and plump squirrels playing in the trees. One man had brought him a new down vest: \u201cIt\u2019s getting chilly,\u201d he said (the high that day was in the 20s). John and I joined the group, and I immediately experienced a feeling of belonging and comfort. I didn\u2019t want the moment to end, was aware that it must, yet still was able to enjoy it \u2013 a moment spent with a random group of New Yorkers, all of us chilled to the bone, communing together in Central Park.<\/p>\n

There was so much good will emanating from the small, smiling man at the center, who told us that life\u2019s essence is \u201cpeace, happiness, and love,\u201d but that we bury it under layers of lifelong, often self-inflicted pain and suffering. Armando has a paradoxical solution to the problem of suffering: surrender to it, as he said he had. Once he did that, he said, it transformed him and his life. The suffering was gone. The world was new. Everything was shining, and the snow was whiter than white.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, wait. We\u2019re getting ahead of the story. What brought Armando to that moment of nothing less than enlightenment, and then to his life in Central Park? I asked him to start at the beginning and tell me about his childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very short,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cBecause I started with drugs and alcohol at 13. So my really young life is only 13 years.\u201d Armando was born in Coney Island; his mother was Colombian, his father Puerto Rican, and he lived with his grandmothers. \u201cI was very good in the school, with the family, and everything,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, on the same day, I fell in love with pot, beer, and cigarettes. And after that day, forget it. I went the drug way: heroin, pills, acid, selling and using crack.\u201d<\/p>\n

This lifestyle continued for 30 years, until Armando stole drugs from a dealer who threatened to kill him, and he fled from New York on a bus to Boston. When he arrived, in the dead of winter, he hoped to be tossed into a warm Boston jail, but the police wanted nothing to do with him and threw him out in the snow instead. He saw a large concrete sewer pipe by the side of an expressway, walked to it, and crawled inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 2, 3 in the morning,\u201d he recalled. It was the year 2000, and Armando was around 41. \u201cAnd I had my spiritual experience,\u201d he said, matter-of-factly. \u201cOne moment the police are in my mind, you know. And then I start feeling something beautiful inside. I surrendered to suffering. From that time on I stopped all drugs. It\u2019s been 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armando stayed in Boston for six months, then returned to New York City. He went into the city\u2019s homeless shelter system and was assigned an apartment, but by then he was already living in the park. \u201cI said \u2018Maybe you can send somebody else over there, because I\u2019m asleep over here.\u2019\u201d He did keep his food stamps and Medicaid.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John Maynard (right) and Armando feeding some of his doggy visitors.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not running errands, Armando holds court on his bench, which he has nicknamed the \u201cJelly Belly Cafe,\u201d because of the countless dogs who come to visit him and feast on Trader Joe\u2019s treats, while their owners chat with Armando. Among his regular visitors is John Maynard, the poet who brought me to Armando. Maynard has written an entire book<\/a> of poems about Armando and John\u2019s dog Maisie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is so much more to tell about Armando. He is famous in his own right. Eckhart Tolle, the renowned spiritual teacher and bestselling author of \u201cThe Power of Now,\u201d learned that Armando was an adherent and came to visit him in Central Park. You can read that story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As far as whether the authorities bother him because the park is closed from 1 to 6 a.m., he demurred. \u201cThe police know I follow the rules,\u201d he said, enigmatically.<\/p>\n

By 5 p.m. it is already dark these days. Armando loves it that way. He places cardboard and a thermal pad on his flat rock, then zips his two sleeping bags together \u201cand slips in like a pizza,\u201d he giggles.<\/p>\n

You can find Armando. His life is as open as his heart. Go early to The Ramble and follow along The Lake. If you already know him, tell us more in the comments.<\/p>\n

Look for Armando and Maisie, by John Maynard \u2013 HERE.<\/a>\u00a0 Thanks John!<\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Armando with his cart that counsels \u201cStillness Speaks.\u201d Photos by Carol Tannenhauser. By Carol Tannenhauser I met John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,4709,33832,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-64692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-central-park","tag-john-maynard","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}