Temperatures soared yesterday, but New Yorkers and tourists who braved the outdoors played it cool.

Central Park saw a high of 91 yesterday, 7 degrees shy of the all-time high for July 11. A meteorologist for the National Weather Service, Gary Conte, said yesterday’s temperatures were not unusual. The agency canceled a heat advisory it issued Sunday night because the heat index – which takes into account humidity as well as temperature – was not expected to reach 100 degrees. Mr. Conte said there are typically between 15 and 20 days in June, July, and August in which temperatures surpass 90. New York City has seen six so far this year.

“It may feel hot, and it is hot, but it’s normal for New York City,” Mr. Conte said. Telling tales of times they had survived worse climates, pedestrians interviewed by The New York Sun shrugged off yesterday’s steamy temperatures.

A 19-year-old rising sophomore at Duke University, Hailey Ferber, waited for four hours in a 200-person line to score free tickets for tonight’s Shakespeare in the Park performance of “As You Like It.” Ms. Ferber said she spent 48 hours in line for a basketball game last winter – and that was in 36-degree weather.

“It’s a nice vacation from that,” Ms. Ferber, a Concord, Mass., native who is an intern at ClearChannel Entertainment this summer, said. “You have to make sure to hydrate. You got to bring the A game if you got to wait in line.”

As they weathered a sticky platform of the B train, a mother-daughter pair from Albuquerque, Jean Nelson, 48, and Alison Balis, 10, said they were accustomed to the heat but not the humidity. After a romp through sprinklers in Little Italy, Ms. Nelson said she was surprised how damp they stayed through tea at the American Girls store.

“You don’t dry off as quick as you do at home,” Ms. Nelson said.

Holding her arms out and leaning toward the tracks, Alison said passing trains gave respite: “When the train comes you get that breeze.”

A 41-year-old tourist from northern Mexico, Grace Acosta, said temperatures there reach 110 degrees. “For us, it’s nothing,” Ms. Acosta, who was walking through Central Park with her husband and 2-year-old son, said.

The heath director for camps in Bedford, N.Y., Eliot Beerbower, said he advised his charges to drink water and wear sunscreen.

“It’s like 90 degrees and I’m wearing jeans. I’m playing kickball,” Mr. Beerbower, a Manhattan native entering his senior year at Amherst College, said. “At least it’s not raining.”

A nonchalant Upper East Side mother, Heli Blum, took her son, Mark, to play in a playground on 84th Street and Fifth Avenue. She said that compared to Japan, where she lived for three years, yesterday’s heat was nothing. Her son disagreed.

“It’s steeeeaaamming hot,” Mark, 7, said.

He ran off into the sprinklers before his mother could lather on more sunblock.

Two Banana Republic salesclerks threw a football near the Great Lawn, waiting for tardy co-workers to show up for a volleyball game. Arlington Thompson, 24, of the Bronx and Gene Tom, 28, of Brooklyn said perspiration is the body’s internal air conditioner.

“We can take our shirts off and run around,” Mr. Tom said. “The sweat will keep us cool.”

Twenty yards away, the director of communications for Legal Services for New York City, Edwina Martin, was unwrapping platters of brownies for a company picnic. Ms. Martin, 40, said she was more concerned about Hurricane Dennis than the climbing temperatures.

“A heat advisory won’t keep us out, only a storm will,” she said.

A Central Park vendor, Mahkamed Khaimov, 40, said hot weather hurts business. He said he sold 200 bottles of water on Sunday but less than half that number yesterday.

“It’s too hot for people to come out,” he said. “Seventy-five to 80 degrees is good to sell, 90, 95, it’s no good.”

In a brusque fashion, a 37-year-old construction manager from New Jersey, Tony Datallo, said he could stand the heat.

“Sweat it out,” Mr. Datello said. “I’m not one of those spoiled-brat type of people. Deal with it or move to Alaska.”