New York City


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Parkside of the Moon at Socrates Sculpture Park

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Last night was a benefit party for our favorite park in Queens: Socrates Sculpture Park. This year marks the park’s twenty-fifth anniversary and this fundraiser was a great way to kick off its summer season. The party featured a pig roast, which we didn’t attend because of the $200 price for those tickets, but we did arrive just in time for a stunning sunset, which is a common sight along the East River waterfront.

We have taken a fairly passionate liking to this park over the last couple of years. Not only is the park relatively close, it is hosts some great public programs: a weekly farmers market, outdoor screening series, and a few other events, such as last week’s summer solstice festival. It also helps that we can easily bicycle to this park, as it’s a mere two-mile ride, along Vernon Boulevard, from Hunters Point.

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The party, dubbed “the Parkside of the Moon” was a party featuring DJs AndrewAndrew, a performance by Jacolby Satterwhite, cocktails mixed with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and beer from a new Queens brewery, Singlecut Beersmiths.

Bike Route from Long Island City to Trader Joe’s in Rego Park

Needing a bike ride and groceries, I rode from Long Island City to the Trader Joe’s in Rego Park. This is not a new ride for me, but my previous trips have been mostly via Metropolitan Avenue. Taking Metropolitan is no less than a nerve-wracking experience: cars zoom past you at 40 mph (less than a foot away from you), people opening their car doors without looking, and double-parked cars to circumnavigate. And there’s potholes!

Today, I took a route traveling on streets less busy than Metropolitan, such as Eliot Avenue and Juniper Valley Road. The route was a little less than seven miles, and it took me about 35 minutes at a pretty easy pace on my track bike.

Here’s the route:

Direction Location Distance
South Vernon Blvd toward Borden Ave  
Left Borden Ave 0.9 mi
Right Starr Ave 0.2 mi
Right Van Dam St 174 ft
Right 35th St 433 ft
Left Review Ave 0.7 mi
Right 56th Rd 0.8 mi
Continue on Rust St 0.5 mi
Continue on 59th Dr 0.2 mi
Right 60th St 348 ft
Left 60th Ave 0.2 mi
Right Fresh Pond Rd 0.2 mi
Left Eliot Ave 0.6 mi
Right 69th St 0.4 mi
Left Juniper Valley Rd 0.8 mi
Right 80th St 0.2 mi
Left Metropolitan Ave 0.7 mi
Arrive 90-30 Metropolitan Ave, Rego Park

If you do this ride, you’ll find that it’s not very picturesque. Most of it follows the industrial district that hugs the Newtown Creek. Once you’re past Grand Ave, you go through the neighborhoods and cemeteries of Middle Village. There are a lot of trees providing a nice shade.

The only part of the ride that is a little tough is the short stretch on Eliot Avenue that crosses through the Lutheran Cemetery, where the road is very narrow. Beyond that, the streets are wide enough to allow cars to speed past you without coming too close. The final stretch is on Metropolitan Avenue though St. John’s Cemetery. Unlike most of Metropolitan Avenue, the street here is pretty wide allowing some room for cars to pass you.

Once you arrive, there is a bike rack outside on the store along Trotting Course Lane. Lock up, and shop away!

Cash-Only is “Inhospitable” and a Little Sleazy

A local restaurant here in Long Island City went “cash-only” about a month ago. When they first implemented the strategy, one of their bartenders told me that it was a “new business decision.” I jokingly replied, “of course, it’s easier to hide cash.” Initially, they put up a sign indicating their anti-plastic policy, but over the course of the last few weeks, any notice of the policy has disappeared: it was not mentioned on their cocktail menu and there is no sign over the register. The lack of any sign made me think they abandoned the policy and returned to accepting credit cards.

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The other evening, a couple of friends and I stopped by for a few drinks and to sit in an air-conditioned room. We ordered six $10 cocktails, and when the check came, we saw the “cash only” edict on the bill. None of us had brought much cash, thinking that they took plastic. They don’t. However, the restaurant’s management had conveniently installed an ATM in the back, charging a $1.75 transaction fee (in addition to whatever your bank might charge you). This seemed too opportunistic, and even a little sleazy.

If that wasn’t bad enough, they added sales tax to the $10 cocktail price. I’ve never seen any place add sales tax on a cocktails-only order. If a bar itemizes sales tax, the base price is a number that, when tax is added, reaches a nice even price. For example, our cocktails should have a base price of $9.18. Add 8.875% NY state and city sales tax, and you will get $9.99. And I’ll let them call it $10.

The biggest issue was that I had to get up, get cash from their ATM, and cobble together our payment. Not only was it bad enough that our six $10 cocktails actually cost $67.08, before tip, it just seemed mean. Bon Appetit’s Foodist also dislikes cash-only policies for restaurants, writing “It’s one thing for a sandwich shop or food truck to accept cash only, but when a place is charging $15 or more for entrees and offering wine by the bottle, not taking credit cards seems downright inhospitable.” Because of the added cost and inconvenience, I kind of stiffed the servers on the tip. I left only about a 10% tip, reasoning that the additional and completely unexpected costs made up the other 10%. Before they come after me, however, they might consider directing their ire towards the management and its “inhospitable” policies.

I won’t be back, and that’s a shame because the food and service were both quite good.

The LIC Rock

Years ago, I came across a giant rock north of 44th Drive in Long Island City. I was alone on my bike, and I didn’t take a picture of it. I promptly forgot where it was, and when I tried to tell people about it, I couldn’t provide a specific location.

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Today, LIC Spot wrote a brief piece on it:

10,000 years ago we had slow-paced glaciers in Long Island City. And it turns out that some of those glaciers started melting and depositing these giant boulders throughout their path called “erratics”.

LIC Spot locates the rock (or “erratic” to be more precise) on the corner of 43rd Ave and 12th St, in Long Island City.

I didn’t think much of the “LIC Rock” until I saw someone in the neighborhood wearing a t-shirt bearing the rock’s likeness and perhaps even identifying it as the “LIC Rock”. Maybe I should make that my new t-shirt project.

(Tip of the hat to Sarah for sending me the link.)

Obscura Society NYC to Visit the Abandoned Ruins of Bannerman Island

The Obscura Society of NYC will visit the abandoned ruins of Bannerman Island on July 22:

Built between 1901 and 1918, the property was modeled after Scottish baronial castles and sits on a tiny, rugged island in Hudson Valley. Frank Bannerman became a surplus munitions dealer as a teenager and a few decades later his collection was so vast that he needed to buy the island for storage space. Some of his most notable purchases include 90% of the army surplus from the Spanish-American War, cannons from the Battle of Yorktown and equipment from Admiral Perry’s expedition to the Arctic Circle.

Sarah took me on a weekend getaway last July to tour the island but we went by kayak. I highly recommend taking the tour to peek at the ruins and to see some great views of the Hudson River Valley.