It was a surprisingly sunny and warm (41 degrees F) today and it felt warmer than the temperature let on. It was a beautiful, clear sunny day and I decided to continue my walk on the Upper East Side, venturing from East 84th Street to East 72nd Street. Even though I have been visiting this area for years by way of the museums, I had never ventured this far to the East River.
This unusual sculpture is outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled ‘Unidentified Object’
Artist Isamu Noguchi was an American born artist known for his bold sculptures and work with Interior design. He had attended Columbia University and apprenticed under several famous artists through his early career (Wiki).
My day started with a walking tour of the Asian Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 1000 Fifth Avenue and the new “Chinese Scrolls Exhibition”. The Asian Galleries have been updated over the years and the new exhibition was displaying recent acquisitions of the collection plus newer pieces based on the Master’s in the collection.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art at 1000 Fifth Avenue
It was eye-opening to me the perspective of nature that they had in ancient times versus the growth and building of today. It was interesting to hear the difference between how the artists used ancient art as an inspiration for their perspective on the how the location in nature should look. These tours attract lots of people who are not from the cellphone set.
‘Chinese Scrolls Exhibition’ at the Met
The ‘Scroll Room’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
I started the walk as I exited the museum. It was such a beautiful day that I thought it would be fun to walk around the neighborhood and really explore the Upper East Side. It really has changed over the last ten to fifteen years. It has always been a very expensive area but it looks more expensive now. Not only have the apartment buildings changed but the stores and parks as well.
I have noticed over the duration of this walk that the area keeps getting knocked down for bigger and more glossier buildings. The older brownstone covered streets are giving way to large box-like apartment buildings whose character is not the same and changes the complexity and look of the grid pattern. It’s hard to believe it is getting generic.
Another thing I have noticed on these walks especially as I have gotten below 96th Street is the amount of empty store fronts. I know as I revisit the old neighborhoods, I have already walked that this is happening, it is becoming an epidemic in the expensive areas as well. I noticed that in areas of Fifth and Madison Avenue, there are a lot emptier store fronts and then the expensive stores are being pushed to Lexington and Third Avenues, pushing the moderate restaurants and shops out of the neighborhood. I hate to clue these landlords in on this but not everyone needs $300.00 shoes or a $16.00 hamburger and this is happening in places like Harlem as well.
Where this character has not changed is as you exit the museum and walk down Fifth Avenue, which has not changed too much over the years in on 79th Street just off Fifth Avenue where a line of ‘Gilded Age’ mansions still exists. I bet most people don’t see this row of grand old mansions that are now being used as stores and embassies. I am sure that a few are still private but these homes were expensive to maintain back then and went out of vogue after Income Tax was established.
What’s left from the Gilded Age on East 79th Street
Take time out and stop at the Ukrainian Institute of America right around the corner from the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 2 East 79th Street. This museum is dedicated to art from the Ukraine and artists from both here and abroad. The Institute was founded in 1948 and moved to its new home in the Sinclair-Fletcher home in 1955.
The Ukrainian Institute of America is at 2 East 79th Street and should not be missed.
The art of royalty is interesting by artist Vasyl Diadyniuk
Really take time to walk down 79th Street on the north side between Fifth and Madison Avenues to get a good look at the detail of these stone masterpieces. They don’t build homes like this anymore and I don’t think we have the stone masons around to do them again. It is hard to believe for most of these residents this was one of four homes.
When I got to the corner of East 79th and Madison Avenue, I passed this unusual statue that I had passed dozens of times but never really noticed it. It is called “Dama a Caballo V” by artist Manolo Valdes.
This interesting looking soldier statue is at East 79th and Madison Avenue by artist Manolo Valdes
Manolo Valdes was born in Valencia in 1942. He attended the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia and began his career in the 1960s as one of the founding members of Equipo Cronica, a group of artists who took inspiration from Pop Art to challenge the Spanish dictatorship of Franco and the History of Art itself. Valdés revitalizes these familiar images by taking them out of their original context (Opera Gallery.com)
I took a quick swing into Central Park to see Cleopatra’s Needle, which is located behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art located by East 81st Street. This obelisk was erected February 22nd, 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by Judge Elbert E. Farnam, the then-United State Consul General at Cairo as a gift the Khedive for the United States for remaining friendly neutral as the European powers, France and Britain, maneuvered to secure political control of the Egyptian Government (Wikipedia). The twin was given to the British and resides London.
Although this is a genuine ancient Egyptian obelisk, it has no connection to Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. It was already over a thousand years old in her lifetime. The obelisk, which originally stood in the ancient city of Alexandria were made during the reign of Thutmose III in the 18th Dynasty (Wikipedia). Since their arrival in New York City, there has been a lot of wear and tear on this statue and the elements have worn down a lot of the carving. Still, this is something that you should not miss when visiting the neighborhood.
After I turned the corner onto East 72nd Street, I walked the length of the street until I hit FDR Drive and took a walk around the busy through-way. Walking along FDR Drive is always interesting because there is no clear path down the road. As I have said in previous walks, it is not the most scenic route and cars just love to honk at you.
John Jay Park in the Summer of 2024
As you make the turn around to head north, I discovered John Jay Park, located between East 76th and East 78th Streets. This park is very nicely situated by the East River and offers great views of the ever-changing Queens waterfront. I swear, they must be knocking everything down on that side of the river to build new apartment buildings. They must have great views of the skyline.
John Jay Park at FDR Drive during the Summer of 2024
John Jay was a prominent statesman and was elected the President of the First Continental Congress in 1778. He served as Minister to Spain, drafted New York’s first constitution in 1777, served as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1789-1795) and lastly served two consecutive terms as the Governor of New York (1795-1801). Imagine in today’s turmoil in the government trying to do all that. A very impressive man with a very impressive park named after him (NYC Parks History).
Another unique feature to the park is the sculptures installed on the west side of the park in 1979 by artist Douglas Abdell. The artist, who is originally from Boston got his BA in Art from Syracuse University and currently lives in Spain. The artist’s sculptures are created in steel, bronze or stone (Wiki).
These are made of welded steel, painted black and are meant to frame space and define irregular areas. He has been quoted as saying, “that each sculpture as a building block of something potentially more complex as the alphabet is the basis of the written language” and calls the works “The Aebyad Series” (NYC Parks History).
These two structures are located just south of the entrance of the park and are very geometric looking, done in twisted black steel. They are in the pathway between East 75th and 76th Streets. Take time to really look at them. The work is unique.
The Douglas Abdell Statue in John Jay Park
Outside the views of the park and the artwork, they also house much needed public bathrooms so plan your trip accordingly as there are no public bathrooms until you hit Carl Schurz Park up on East 84th Street.
The other Douglas Abdell Statue in John Jay Park
Across the street from the park is a very unusual apartment building, 516 & 517 Cherokee Place, with the most beautiful wrought iron features along all the windows. It looks like something built for New Orleans. The green color of the metal accents the building perfectly and meshes well with the greens of the park. This historic building lines the park and when you look in has a courtyard. It really does add something to the park and P.S. 158 next door. That extra character that makes the neighborhood.
This interesting building was built between 1909 and 1911 as the Shively Sanitary Tenements and designed by Henry Atterbury Smith with the assistance of Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt. The building was designed with a sense of style and space and offer circulation in its approach (City Realty).
The side of the Cherokee Apartments that face John Jay Park
I did the whole walk around John Jay Park along Cherokee Place and watched as some city workers were cleaning and sweeping the outside of the park. God, did they give me a funny look when I watched them. They actually looked guilty (they could have done a better job of cleaning up the leaves and garbage).
I took an unusual path as I walked up the elevated extension of FDR Drive, which offers great views of the river along the waterfront to Carl Schurz Park and then I doubled back and walked up and down East End Avenue, which only goes from East 79th Street to East 90th Street. I swear that most of East End Avenue is being knocked down for newer big apartment buildings. This is what I mean by the character of the neighborhood changing. The whole block felt like it was under scaffolding. I walked up and down both sides of the block to see the work being done.
I doubled back and walked up and down York Avenue as well. It is also under the same transition but only on the Avenue sides. There are some nice businesses and restaurants along York Avenue you can stop at along the way. I stopped back at Carl Schurz Park at East 84th Street for a breather and to just look at the view. It really has the most spectacular view of Randalls-Ward Island and Roosevelt Island and the East River and on a sunny warm day, it is a nice place for break.
I could hear all the noise and commotion from the kids at P.S. 158 at 78th and York Avenue, who were either playing outside in the cool weather or singing in one of the classes. I swear not much has changed since I went to elementary school. The school is a beautiful old building that was built in the late 1800’s and just went through a full renovation to bring it back to its elegant beauty. This was built at a time when education was truly valued. I could not believe all the parents waiting outside talking amongst themselves in the cold.
I continued walking east across East 84th Street, the border of Yorkville with the Upper East Side and took a lunch break at 83 Asian at 1605 Second Avenue (See review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com) and a much-needed sit. The food is excellent here and over two trips to it made the cut for my own blog site.
For lunch, I ordered a Beef with String Beans that was freshly cooked in front of me and came out on a timely basis steaming hot. The beef was so tender and was cooked in a combination of what seemed like soy and Hunan sauce with perfectly cooked string beans. The portion size for lunch was large and was my lunch and dinner. Their eggrolls are really good as well full of pork and vegetables. The service is really good as well as the cooks are friendly and very welcoming. Lunch cost only $10.10!
83 Asian’s food is excellent
I walked the rest of East 84th Street until I hit Central Park again and then walked down the opposite side of Fifth Avenue near the museum and started in the other direction. On the north side of East 72nd Street, there is a graceful and elegant building that was once the Henry T. Sloane Mansion that is located at 9 East 72nd Street.
The confectionery of a building was designed Carrere & Hastings in the late French Renaissance style in 1894 and built for Henry T. Sloane, the son of the founders of the carpet firm W & J Sloane. It housed a private school until recently and is now once again a private home. Look up at all the beautiful detail work in the stone and the accents along the roof of the house. The masonry is superb and the house has been so nicely restored.
Having walked both sides of FDR Drive (to what you can), East End Avenue and York Avenue, I re-walked York Avenue again to look at the Henderson Place homes by Carl Schurz Park and East 86th Street one more time. These homes are such a special and unique part of the neighborhood and if the builders had known how expensive they would become 100 years later would have probably built more of them.
Henderson Place Historic District by Carl Schulz Park
The homes were built by developer John. C. Henderson as small homes for the working class. The developer has architects Lamb and Rich, who had designed Sagamore Hill, the home of President Theodore Roosevelt. There were originally 32 homes but were reduced to 24 for build the luxury Henderson House next store twenty years later. It was also one of the first districts to be landmarked in New York City (Brick Underground).
If you can sneak in, the Henderson District is very interesting to see
Having walked both sides of Fifth Avenue and all of East 84th I took a pit stop at Glaser’s Bakery at 1670 1st Avenue (Now Closed: see my review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com) for some dessert. I swear that I think I am walking the Upper East Side first just so that I can go there before I take the subway back downtown. I love this place!
The ladies recommended a sugar cake doughnut ($1.25) and the apple turnover ($2.50) and since I could not decide between the two, I bought both and God, were they good. The apple turnover alone had the sweetest and tartest apples and a thick layer of icing that made the twelve block by nine block walk well worth it. I figured I could just walk them off again. I highly recommend the cake doughnuts as well.
I was finished doing the perimeter of the neighborhood just as it was getting dark so I will be doing all the Avenues and Streets for another day.
There is a lot more to see and do on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
It is never easy when there is a death in the family and is harder when it happens during the Christmas holiday season. This blog is dedicated to my uncle, Donald Snyder (1929-2017), who passed away December 4th, 2017. I had just come back from my Sinterklaas weekend in Upstate New York when we got the news as I was getting out of class on Monday night. So the next week after Sinterklaas weekend was spent preparing for the funeral.
My brother had flown in for the service so it was nice to have some support and I could see that my aunt and cousins appreciated it. At least we could be there to support our family in their time of need.
My aunt had planned a small and tasteful service for my uncle and it was the first time I had met many of my cousin’s cousins from my uncle’s side of the family. They pretty much talked amongst themselves and were not at the funeral services the next morning. It was going to be a snowy day the next morning and the commutes would have been tough for everyone.
My aunt kept everything simple and tasteful and it was a short service with a smaller internment service at the mausoleum. It was only the immediate family and friends of my cousins who came to the service and by the repast dinner, everyone was exhausted and it was a small crowd of close family (our side) and friends of my cousins. We had a toast to my uncle and then talked amongst ourselves.
After that weekend, the holidays started to speed up again. It is always tough after a big loss to a family but I found ways to support my aunt and my cousins during the holidays as we planned a Christmas dinner right before Christmas Day.
I took my younger brother to the fire department Christmas Party and that was a cultural awaking for him. He had never been in a firehouse before and really did not understand the culture. He was a little shocked to see adults fighting in front of small children and some of the horse play that the guys do on one another. Even though he had a good time and enjoyed the food, it was a different experience for him.
The holiday month continued on with Christmas tree sales every weekend (we sold out by December 18th this year with a record of 315 trees). We had the Christmas Party for the Men’s Association at the Christmas tree site, which is always interesting. We spend most of the time huddling around a barrel fire to keep warm.
This is when the guy’s culinary skills kick in and we see some interesting dishes. I always leave it easy. I made chicken cutlets, baked ziti and double fudge brownies ( I am not going to say how many baked ziti’s, lasagnas and batches of stuffed shells on top of gallons of marinara sauce and pounds of cookies and brownies that I made this holiday season but it was a lot). This party was the first in five meals that I cooked at the holidays trying to keep with the same theme, so I did not have to do double time in the kitchen. Plus, everyone seems to like Italian cooking, so it makes it easy.
Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association Christmas Tree Set Up
The party was a great success with about thirty members coming and going all night while we caught up with what each other were doing at the holidays and the parties that they were planning and cooking for their families.
December is always a tough month to get anything done as everyone is running around. Leaving at 11:00pm as I usually do because of work, I had heard they were still going strong into the morning hours.
Arriving at Carnegie Hall that night
The New York Pops with Megan Hilty
I took an about face and at the last minute decided to go to Carnegie Hall for a Christmas Concert starring Megan Hilty, a Disney star, who was terrific.
The front of Carnegie Hall at Christmas
The stage at Christmas time
I got last minute tickets in the nose-bleed section of the theater but still could see and hear everything. I was really surprised being on the top tear and to hear it all so perfectly.
Megan Hilty with the New York Pops
It was an excellent concert with many popular songs of the holidays being performed so well. She did a great job with the more contemporary classics such as “Sleigh Ride” and “Santa Claus is coming to town”.
Megan Hilty with Santa leading the sing a long
Everyone in the audience got so into the show and the last few songs became a sing along and the whole auditorium became alive with song. People really enjoyed themselves and were still laughing and singing as they were leaving the theater.
Megan Hilty’s Christmas Album “Have yourself a Merry Christmas”
Megan Hilty “There’s Always Tomorrow”
Megan Hilty “It’s the Most Wonderful time of the Year”
The last full week before Christmas weekend was non-stop cooking, cleaning and running around. We started the week with the Annual ‘Santa Around Town’ that the Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department sponsors every year for the residents of Hasbrouck Heights. We take all the fire trucks and equipment to twelve locations around the town and have Santa meet with all the families. Every year this is a very big deal to a lot of residents and some plan their holiday parties around this event.
Santa Around Town with the Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department
Our day started early in the morning when myself, my captain and lieutenant and a junior member met for breakfast and then washed and decorated the truck. This is where a lot of my cooking came into play. I made a sausage, egg and cheese souffle, homemade waffles and fresh cinnamon butter muffins. I had cooked enough for the company and it ended up only four of us showed up. So, we had a great breakfast and then we scrubbed down the truck inside and out and put all the Christmas lights on it. The truck always looks festive in the dark.
For the trip around Hasbrouck Heights, I made homemade French Bread pizza with homemade marinara sauce and double fudge brownies, two items that are very popular with hungry firemen. Along the way, residents make all sorts of Christmas cookies and other holiday treats for us along the route, so we don’t ‘starve’.
The tough part for us was that the generator blew before the last three stops and we had to bring it back up to the house and extinguish it. That was tough as the engine then had to go out of service for the holidays for repair. At least we got it back up to the firehouse in one piece.
The next night I gave my final exam in class and finished the semester on a high note. All of my students got “A”‘s and I could not have been happier with their final project, the tech start up “Buscomonzefi.com” (see ‘Day Ninety-Eight’) and was impressed with them as a class. It was fun going into work every week and I will miss this class.
What was nice was I took some of my team to Biagio’s Restaurant in Paramus, NJ (see review on TripAdvisor) near the college for a wrap up party. I was surprised when only four of my sixteen students showed up. One of my students mentioned that no one would show because of exams and I was almost tempted not to show up but I figured I was starved so at least I could get something to eat. It ended up that all of my Sales & Marketing team showed up and we had a really nice time.
I could not believe how this group of students bonded so much together. I really did see a lot of new friendships being formed that night and for that I was really proud of the project. Plus the food and conversation were excellent that evening. If ever a Professor could be more proud of their students.
I did not have much time to dwell on class as I had to cook a Holiday luncheon for my Stroke & Disabled Support Group that meets every Tuesday in Ridgewood, NJ (See my BergenCountyCaregiver.com site on WordPress.com). I don’t know I got suckered into this but it was a lot of work.
In years past, our group normally ordered in for the party and all I would do is dessert. For years, we ordered in Chinese food but last year most people got sick of it so we ordered in pizza. This year one of the women in the group asked about maybe getting a tray of stuffed shells and of salad. When I mentioned how much that might cost and how I could make it for so much less that’s when I was asked to cook.
Thank God I had made a double batch of marinara sauce because it came in handy. I made the most amazing lunch for everyone and used every skill from catering that I learned from Hyatt.
I got up early that morning and started to cook. I did all the last-minute touches and fried out the cutlets and cut up the salad. The last thing I did was prepare the garlic bread before I packed the car up. I never had so much food all over the car as I had to bring it from home to City Hall in Ridgewood.
The party was a huge success! I made Chicken Cutlet Parmesan with a side of plain cutlets for those who didn’t want all the cheese, a lasagna, two small trays of stuffed shells, a arugula salad, garlic bread, assorted cookies, brownies and cupcakes. Some of the members brought fruit and other desserts so we had a lot of food left.
The whole building came up to the conference room to the party so it was very festive. People from different departments who help us during the year joined us so there were people in and out the whole afternoon. I really think that’s what the holidays are about. Everyone had great time and there was not much left over. All I know is that I was exhausted on the drive home. I had to take a nap when I got home.
There was not much time to rest as I drove out to visit Lillian again on Long Island at her Assisted Living Facility for her annual resident concert (see various blogs on my visits). I had gone last year and had a nice time. I swear even at 99, she has the same spirit that she always has had.
Lillian and I at Christmas 2018
The rest of the afternoon I walked around Cape May, looking at the store windows downtown, walking along the shore and looking at the birds on the beach and the waves and looking at all the Victorian homes that were decorated for the holidays. Even though all the hotels surrounding ours including ours were fully booked, the town was quiet. It looked like a lot of people were away.
She sang and played the triangle as she did last year and all the residents performed a list of Christmas songs to the other residents and their families who attended. It was a nice concert but it seemed have more guests last year. Everyone who attended really enjoyed it.
After the concert was over, I went off and got Chinese food for our Christmas lunch, which I know that Lillian always appreciates. I go to Dragon House (See review on TripAdvisor) for our meals and this one did not disappoint. I ordered Lo Mein and Chicken and String beans with some eggrolls. I swear that Lillian has a good appetite. She can eat. For dessert, I brought some cookies from Park Bakery (See review on TripAdvisor) right next store to the restaurant. To have two such good places to eat right next to one another is great.
Dragon House at 118A Main Street in Kings Park, NY for excellent Chinese food
After our dinner, we talked for the rest of the evening. Since the weather was going to be nice the next day, I got a hotel room and was able to stay late to talk to Lillian for a few more hours. We just caught up and as we talked more, I noticed how much more came back to her. It was the ‘old’ Lillian who I remember. I think she needed it as well. We laughed so much it was like old times. When I had to leave a little after seven, she had a huge smile on her face. It was a very special Christmas for the two us.
I stayed at a very nice Hampton Inn on the South Shore in Commack, NY (See review on TripAdvisor) that evening and just collapsed in the room. It had been a long week already and I was tired from all the cooking and cleaning. I just relaxed that evening and read and wrote out Christmas cards.
The next morning, I got up and traveled out to Montauk on the very edge of the island. I wanted to see their famous lighthouse and museum (which was closed at the time). It was a beautiful sunny and warm day for this time of the year.
The South Shore of Long Island is so beautiful and I highly recommend it in the off season. It is just so nice to visit these small towns when they are not overrun with people from the city. The locals are so nice and you really do remember that it is a farming community out there. Outside of the core of East Hampton and the overbuilt areas of South Hampton, the other towns were like visiting a farming community. All the locals were out in their pick-up trucks carrying local products. It is so different in the off season but so much nicer. Everyone is so laid back.
I wanted to visit the ‘Big Duck’ (see Review on TripAdvisor & my blog “VisitingaMuseum.wordpress.com), a building in the shape of a duck on Route 24 Flanders Road in Flanders, NY. It is very interesting to see a building in the shape of a duck, very similar to ‘Lucy’ the Elephant in Margate, NJ (see review on TripAdvisor & my blog “VisitingaMuseum.wordpress.com).
It is a small building in the shape of a duck that was created by the owners back in the 30’s to promote their duck farm. It’s cute but the guy that volunteers there must not get too many visitors because he NEVER SHUTS UP! God, I to fray going to the bathroom to get away from him and got out of there.
I continued my way through the backroads to the Hampton’s. I now know why it takes so long to get to the Hampton’s. All the roads once you get off the main highway are all local two-lane roads. Most of the towns were quiet before the holidays so it was nice just to drive through.
I got out to Montauk to Lighthouse Park (See review on TripAdvisor) by 2:00pm. I took far longer than I thought but it was well worth the trip. It was a bright sunny afternoon and the view on the point was just breathtaking! The way the sun shone over the beach area and the point was spectacular. The only bad part was the lighthouse was closed that afternoon and would not open until the weekend. The giant wreath on the front of the lighthouse made it very festive.
I had lunch in downtown Montauk and most of the places were closed for the afternoon. The town was really quiet. I ended up eating at Pizza Village at 700 Montauk Highway in (See review on TripAdvisor) in the downtown area. The pizza is amazingly good and their sauce is excellent. I highly recommend it when visiting Montauk. It really warmed me up.
Then I headed back to New Jersey. Is that a long trip? Going over the George Washington Bridge at rush hour right before the holidays is a nightmare. It took over two hours to go from the Throgs Neck Bridge to Route 46 in New Jersey. The irony was that as soon as I got closer to home, we had a dumpster fire at the local Walmart. Never a dull moment.
As things revved up for the holidays, I had my family over to the house for an early Christmas dinner. Since I was going to be away and my aunt and cousin had just suffered a very hard loss right before the holidays, I had a holiday meal at the house.
Even at a time of loss, we had such a nice time. I went all out for the meal. I cleaned the whole house again, did more shopping and prep work and decorated the house. We had such a nice time. I had my two aunts and my cousin over for a three-course meal. As usual, I started the meal with appetizers followed by a full meal and dessert.
I made sautéed shrimp on toasts, pigs in a blanket and assorted gourmet cheeses to start with two bottles of Asti to enjoy with it. For the main meal, I made pork cutlets, a potato puff with lots of cheese and eggs, string beans and my aunt brought some of her homemade apple sauce (I hate to brag but she makes it terrific). For dessert, I brought a seven-layer cake from Mills Bakery (See review on TripAdvisor) and my aunt brought a strawberry cheesecake. We ate a lot.
It was a nice night of good food and great conversation. It was nice to have the house so full of life during the holidays again. It had been so long since everyone had something to laugh about. I have to admit we did have a nice Easter and celebration of our birthdays at the house, so it felt that my uncle was there with us in spirit. Dinner went into the late evening, so I had to clean up the house and run the dishwasher that night, so it was a long night for me.
The next day I was off to spend my Christmas in Cape May, NJ. Most of family had their own plans and I like to spend the holidays by myself to relax and write. It was a gloomy day when I started out that afternoon. I had so much to do before I left like the laundry and the vacuuming, so that the house looked good when I got home. I just didn’t want to have to do much before I got home.
It takes about three hours to Cape May from my house. You are literally going from one end of the state to another. When I finally reached Cape May I made a big mistake and took a turnover the bridge into the Wildwoods. LWhen I tell you that is a dead community at this time of the year, it is DEAD. There were no lights on in any of the homes or in the hotels and there were very few businesses open as well. It is so weird to see a place that you were just in two and half months ago that was so much alive. Since I could find my way out, I had to take the route I knew off the island and drive back down south to Cape May.
The entrance of Congress Hall Hotel at 200 Congress Road
When I arrived at the Congress Hall Hotel (See review on TripAdvisor), it was ablaze with Christmas lights. I have to say that the two days that I stayed at the Congress Hall put me in the Christmas mood. Since my father passed, the holidays have been tough on me and the atmosphere of the hotel was just what I needed. The whole place was decorated for the holidays with garland, trees, bright lights and Christmas cheer. It just made me festive for the holidays.
Congress Hall Hotel at Christmas
The Congress Hotel is beautifully decorated for the holidays
The decorations at the holidays
The spectacular decorations in the lobby of the hotel
I got to the hotel late and wanted to celebrate Midnight Mass and unfortunately no church in town did the Midnight Mass. So, I went to the Our Lady of the Sea Church for the 9:00pm Christmas Eve mass. It was a beautiful mass.
Not quite the elaborate mass I was used to at the Dutch Reformed Church up in Woodstock, NY for the past three years but still inspirational and enjoyable. Even though it is church, I still believe mass should not be stuffy or boring. I think it should be inspirational, engaging and make you reflect on the past year.
The church was beautifully decorated for the holidays with secular decorations of holy, trees, garland and poinsettias. I have noticed over the past decade that more churches have done this. The poor priest was suffering through a leg injury but still gave a nice sermon. I think he was surprised by so many out of towners at the mass.
Our Lady Star of the Sea Church at 525 Washington Street at Christmas
Our Lady Star of the Sea Church decorated for Christmas
Our Lady Star of the Sea manger inside the church
The Manger outside the Church
After the service, I walked around the Washington Street Mall, which is Cape May’s downtown. It looked like every business was trying to outdo one another for the best decorations. All were so elegantly decorated for the holidays with detailed displays, lights and in some cases bows and garland. Inside there were all sorts of Christmas scenes with Santa’s, reindeer and Currier & Ives type displays. Everyone did a nice job and the downtown was very picturesque with the hotel in the backdrop being so nicely decorated on the outside as well.
Washington Street Mall at Christmas
I had Christmas Eve dinner in the hotel’s pizzeria, the Boiler Room, for pizza (See review on TripAdvisor). The service was excellent and the food was wonderful. I had a prosciutto and arugula pizza and it was perfectly cooked and just what I needed after a long drive. They even had music that night. It was a far cry from the two restaurants that I ate at in Woodstock over the past three Christmas Eve’s, where the food was hit or miss.
The Boiler Room Pizzeria in the Congress Hotel has amazing pizza
The food at the Boiler Room was top notch and the Caesar Salad and the pizza could have fed two people the portion was so large. The place was so dark that my pictures came out a little funny but it still shows the quality of the food here. I really enjoy the pizza at the Boiler Room.
The bar area of the Boiler Room was very busy that night
The ‘small’ Caesar Salad for dinner that night
The Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza here is excellent
The dinner was really amazing that night
The Boiler Room was a nice place to dine. There was a lot of activity in the room and the music was wonderful. I was so stuffed after dinner that I had to walk around the Washington Mall afterwards.
I just relaxed on Christmas Eve and walked back outside to look at the downtown and the hotel from a distance. I could not believe how packed the hotel was on a holiday. The place was completely sold out.
The Congress Hotel lobby bar and fireplace.
Christmas was very mellow this year. With my uncle passing two weeks earlier and everything going on in my life and family, I needed a break from everyone and everything in my life.
The Blue Pig Restaurant menu offers many wonderful choices for breakfast and lunch
The Blue Pig place setting
I slept in and relaxed Christmas morning, had a nice long breakfast in the very busy Blue Pig restaurant, the hotel’s casual family restaurant (see review on TripAdvisor) and just enjoyed the quiet morning. The restaurant itself was going full force when I got there. Families were all eating together and it looked like a lot of family reunions were going on in the hotel for the holidays.
The Eggs Blackstone are pretty amazing. A nice combination of eggs, spinach, bacon on a cheese biscuit
The food there is excellent, and I highly recommend eating there when in Cape May. I had this dish, the Eggs Blackstone, that was a unique combination of poached eggs on two cheese biscuits with wilted greens and hollandaise sauce, which I normally do not like that just worked. The combination of flavors mixed so well and with the service of Laura, my waiter that morning, who I could tell has been in the business for years, just made the Christmas morning meal perfect.
The Eggs Blackstone at the Blue Pig
The Blue Pig at the end of service at Christmas time
I sat for most of the morning on a window bench on the second floor of the hotel, overlooking the courtyard of the hotel and the small holiday marketplace the hotel had in the courtyard for the guests. It was nicely set up around the heated pool.
They had a fire-pit for warm up around, small tents with quirky shops to buy local products (although I thought most everything was WAY over-priced) and a small Christmas Cafe with traditional winter treats like hot chocolate and Christmas cookies.
The Christmas tree in the marketplace area
The hotel was decorated to the hilt for the holidays both inside and outside
Even those were pretty but overpriced ($6.00 for four cookies?). It was nice to walk around and Christmas ended up being a bright and sunny day. We had missed the snowstorm that hit Northern New Jersey and I later found out really hit Woodstock, NY.
The Merry Go Round in the courtyard of the hotel
I spent most of my morning doing my writing, call friends and family wishing them a Merry Christmas and talking to other guests who just happened to see me writing and wanted to know what I was up to. I swear that I am never alone when I travel, people just seem to find me.
The train around the courtyard
The Cape May beaches are beautiful anytime of the year
I had my Christmas dinner at the Ugly Mug, a bar/pub that I had eaten at over twenty years ago. Not much had changed since I ate here in 1993 from what I can remember.
The Ugly Mug on the Washington Mall at 426 Washington Street
The food is still excellent. I had a bacon BBQ cheeseburger with fries, not your traditional Christmas dinner but still was wonderful.
The Barbecue Bacon Cheeseburger at the Ugly Mug is a perfect meal on Christmas
The place was really busy with other people who looked like they were done with Christmas as well.
The burger was so good
Even the manager told me that they are always busy at the holidays.
Cape May Town Square at Christmas
The Christmas tree in the Cape May Town Square can put anyone in the Christmas Spirit
Cape May Town Square Park at Christmas
That night I just walked around town and looked at the Christmas tree in the square, which was so elegantly decorated for the holidays. Cape May knows how to decorate for the holidays. I walked around the hotel and looked at the decorations. The hotel was mobbed with people just looking for something to do and a place to sit and chat. People were jockeying for a place near the fireplace and I could see there were some struggles for that.
The lobby of the Congress Hotel by the fireplace
On the 26th, things got back to normal in town. Most of the stores opened and there were sales on everything. I went to the Mad Batter Restaurant at 19 Jackson Street(See review on TripAdvisor) for breakfast, wanting some elbow room from the hotel. I was seated at the bar and it was nice to just look over the post Christmas crowds and watch the parents with their kids.
The food there is excellent. I had the Croustade with scrambled eggs, sausage, peppers and cheese served on a brioche bun. This is a cross between a egg souffle, an omelet and a Texas scramble.
The Crousade is a wonderful combination of eggs and other great ingredients
It really was an excellent lunch
It was an unusual combination but it worked and was delicious. This institution has been around for years and I wanted to try it for a long time. The Mad Batter has become one of my ‘go to’ places when I visit Cape May.
The Mad Batter at 19 Jackson Street is excellent for breakfast
I explored the town for the afternoon. I went on the decorated house tour at the Emlen Physick Estate 1048 Washington Place (see review on TripAdvisor & VisitingaMuseum.wordpress.com), who was a prominent doctor in the town and his house showed it.
His grandfather has invented a famous medical device and upon getting his medical degree, he inherited his fortune and never practiced medicine again. What he did leave was a beautiful home for touring and every room was decorated for the holidays. The woman who gave the tour was an actor playing his mother and it was the week before Christmas. She did a nice job.
Physick Estate Dining Room at Christmas
The Physick Estate Living Room at Christmas
The Physick Estate Main Hallway
After that, I visited the Cape May Lighthouse (see review on TripAdvisor & VisitingaMuseum.Wordpress.com) and climbed the whole thing in about twenty minutes, shocking the guy at the admission office who said that I only had a half hour to spend before they closed. I even surprised myself with how fast I climbed it.
I swear, this walking project is keeping me in good health. What a view! You could see all over West Cape May and the whole tip of the peninsula. The beach was so quiet yet majestic with all the waves crashing and the birds and dogs running around. They also have a small museum next to the building on Jersey flora and fauna that you should check out as well.
The top of the lighthouse has the most breathtaking views
The last part of the evening was when I visited Sunset Beach in West Cape May (See review on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com). What a magnificent beach this is, located on the very western tip of New Jersey. Sunset Beach has the most breathtaking sunset of any beach I have ever seen and I have been all over the world.
The way the sun sets on the beach and the location of where it falls creates a rainbow of colors anytime of the year. Although it was cool on the beach as it fell, the beach was full of people watching the same natural phenomenon. It was just amazing to see all the colors change as the sun changed positions and more fun to watch the Lewis/Cape May shuttle drive past every half hour. If there is ever a beach that you need to visit, it is Sunset Beach.
Sunset Beach at 502 Sunset Boulevard in West Cape May
That evening was my last night in Cape May and I had to change hotels because the Congress was booked solid for a wedding. I switched to The Chalfonte, one of the oldest hotels and most ‘Southern’ in Cape May. You have to remember that Cape May is below the Mason-Dixon Line and Southern New Jersey is technically the South.
The Chalfonte at 301 Howard Street (see review on TripAdvisor) is located in an older section of Cape May surrounded by Victorian homes. The main hotel was closed for the season (it closes in October) but they keep the ‘Southern Quarters’, a small house next to the hotel, open for the season as it is insulated.
The Chalfonte Hotel at 301 Howard Street during the summer months
As I wrote in my review on TripAdvisor, it was like staying at your grandmother’s or Great Aunt’s beach home for the night. A little rough around the edges but comfortable, warm and homey. I find places like this charming but they are not for everyone.
My bedroom at the Chalfonte Hotel’s Southern Quarters
I stopped by the Beach Plum Farm at 140 Stevens Street (see review on TripAdvisor) for breakfast and to tour the farm. Although the breakfast sandwich I ate was good as well as the home fries, everything was cold or lukewarm.
The property is so nicely laid out and it was fun to feed the chickens who were excited about the feed.
Beach Plum Farm’s gardens and farm stand
The Market Menu at Beach Plum Farm
The gourmet products for sale at Christmas
Feeding the chickens was fun. They got so excited!
I did one last walk around the downtown to see the tree on the square and had a slice of pizza at JoJo’s Pizza on the Washington Mall. I just wanted a quick snack before I got changed for dinner that evening. Their pizza is really good and they have a nice sauce which I always feel is the body of the pizza.
My last dinner in Cape May was at the Washington Inn Restaurant (see review on TripAdvisor), considered one of the best in Cape May. The food and the service were all top notch.
The Washington Inn at 801 Washington Street Christmas time
The restaurant had been on my bucket list for a long time and I was looking forward to eating here. I ordered the Seafood Bisque to start which was perfect on a cool night, the Crab Cakes for my entree and the Bananas Foster for dessert both I recommend very much. The service was excellent but for some reason I expected older waiters to be working in a place like this.
The inside Dining Room at the Washington Inn
The Seafood Bisque
The Crabcakes with fresh vegetables
The Bananas Foster for dessert
The rooms are elegant and romantic for couples. For me, it was just the thrill of eating in such a well-known restaurant with excellent food and service. At its price tag though, it is a special occasion treat.
The Christmas tree in the Reception area of the restaurant
The restaurant is the perfect place to go for a special occasion or just for a wonderful night out. I really enjoyed myself. The food and the service were both excellent and I enjoyed my meal in both 2018 as well as 2025.
I slept like a log that night, being able to faintly hear the crashing of the waves in the distance. They decorated the room with just enough plants and Christmas items to make it look festive.
The Southern Quarters at Christmas time
The Southern Quarters when I got there the evening before
The next morning as I was dropping off my keys, the owner’s son, Dillon, took me on a tour inside the family hotel. It was elegant as it was gloomy. I had read that the hotel was haunted but as he said to me, he had never seen anything. It is weird to see a hotel closed down for the season. All I could think of was the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’. It just had that eerie, someone had just been there looked to it. After I said my goodbyes, I was off to Rehoboth Beach to visit my mother.
On the trip to Rehoboth, I made several stops to towns I had passed through the previous year. I stopped in Millville, NJ first. The downtown has been creating a buzz for itself as an art center especially with the opening of the Cumberland College Arts Annex and the studio area. Artists from Southern New Jersey seem to be pouring into the town as all the buildings are getting renovated and new restaurants are opening. I stopped in a few galleries and looked at menus of what is going to be an ‘arts hub’ of Southern New Jersey.
The next town I stopped in was Bridgeton, whose downtown had seen better days. Most of the stores were either empty or catered to the Hispanic population who worked in the area. Not exactly the arts district they claim to be. There is not much to see here except a lot of Victorian homes in bad shape.
Passing the Bridgeton Old Presbyterian Church historic cemetery right off the downtown in warmer months
Salem was my last stop before crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge. This is a town that has not been discovered yet. The homes are really gorgeous in the downtown area, all built in the 1700 and 1800’s. Beautiful old Federal and Empire style homes are spread throughout the downtown and the sad part is that they are mostly in bad shape.
Downtown Salem, NJ is the most beautiful downtown
I stopped in the Salem Historical Society at 83 Market Street (see review on TripAdvisor & VisitingaMuseum.com) . This place is not the usual Historical Society with the musty displays and the dusty artifacts with some woman older than God looking you over. It was an interesting, insightful and beautifully decorated for the holidays building with displays of local interest.
The building is made up of three homes, one of which had a hearth fireplace in the kitchen. That part of the building was decorated for a Colonial Christmas. I loved the spinning wheel with the lights and the tree in the older section of the house.
The oldest section of the museum is from the late 1700’s
It only takes about an hour to see the whole building but take the time to really look at the displays as they are so well mounted.
I ate at Bravo Pizza and Pasta at 179 West Broadway (see review on TripAdvisor) in the downtown area and highly recommend their pizza. The sauce was excellent and the flavor was delicious. What was best was that the owner asked me to wait as he had a new pizza coming out, so It gave me time to walk around the downtown area and look at the old buildings.
Bravo Pizza at 179 West Broadway in downtown Salem, NJ
It was so sad to see many of these old homes in such bad shape. This is a place I am surprised that the artists have not discovered yet. Check out the local cemetery with the large historical Oak Tree that covers the graveyard. It is right around the corner from the restaurant and Historical Society.
The Salem Oak Cemetery on West Broadway in Salem, NJ when I visited it in the fall
I finally got out of Salem, it was the long drive down to mom’s from Salem to Rehoboth Beach. When I called my mother, she was wondering what was taking me so long. When I finally arrived around six, she was asking me what I was doing all this time. I told her discovering my State. I never realized how interesting the State of New Jersey is (no jokes everyone).
My mom and I talked about the trip, the holidays and what we had planned for the next two days. My younger brother was coming up with my nieces to celebrate the post holidays. We really had a nice time. My mom cooked ‘the Dinner’ again and we just sat around and I told her about my Christmas. I now know where I get my love for travel details from as she sees how excited I get when I talk about visiting places.
“The Dinner” at Mom’s house
My brother arrived the next morning and we planned everything. We went took the girls to the boardwalk for the afternoon to walk around and ended up going to Thrasher’s (see review on TripAdvisor) for French Fries. I have never seen four people devour a medium bucket of fries so fast. They were just fried and were oh so good. Even in the winter, I never tire of seeing the shore.
Downtown Rehoboth Beach, DE at Christmas time
Santa’s House on the Boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach
Our first night at my mom’s she cooked so we had a mellow roast pork dinner and just sat around and talked. It was nice for my nieces who never get to see my mom much and for me who see them about the same about of time. They talked about their trip up from Florida and how school is going.
Christmas in Rehoboth Beach, DE with my family
The next day we took the girls on a tour of Rehoboth Beach and the surrounding areas, we went at twilight to Henlopen Park (see review on TripAdvisor) to see the Christmas lights, which was very similar in feel to the Jackle Lantern display in Croton-on-the- Hudson. It was a huge display of figures, such as Santa’s, elf’s, reindeer and decorated trees lit up by lights all over the park and we were able to drive and see all the displays one at a time.
Even tough we were going out to dinner that night, my mother insisted we stop at the Big Oyster Brewery at 1007 Kings Highway (see review on TripAdvisor) for lunch when no one was hungry. I had some pulled pork sliders that were very good but like everyone else did not have much of an appetite. We had had a big breakfast earlier in the day.
For dinner my last night in Rehoboth, we went to my mother’s favorite restaurant, Confucius Chinese Restaurant at 57 Wilmington Street (See review on TripAdvisor) by the beach. We must have had eight different dishes on the table but you know what, the food here is just excellent and the service matches the food. My mother has been coming here since they opened and know the owners well, so they are always coming over to say high or sometimes they give us a free appetizer, which I think is good business.
Confucius Chinese Restaurant at 57 Wilmington Street
I had to head home the next day but we had a nice time even though it was so short with my nieces. I wish my brother had planned more time. We didn’t get to do too much on this trip since it was so quick. I headed back to New Jersey the next morning, probably seeing my mom again when the weather gets warmer.
The Orange Flavored Chicken is excellent here
The Beef Chow Fun is also popular with us
My last day before the New Year began, I joined my other brother in the New York City for Dim Sum at the Golden Unicorn Restaurant at 18 East Broadway (see review on TripAdvisor), one of the mainstays for going for Dim Sum in the city. I swear we must have gone through half the menu. The food is really good and I love when the carts go around with all the dishes. I love to try many dishes when I am at the restaurant.
The only problem with New Year’s Eve is that the city shuts down all their roads by 3:00pm and it was also 20F outside that day. Trust me, it is not a day you want to be in New York City unless you want to sit in Times Square for hours on end to watch the ball drop. It was 9F degrees that evening.
The New Year brought in my Swearing In with the fire department. I am the Department Secretary (now on my fifth year) and Engine One Secretary (now on my eleventh year) and just keep rolling along. Our Installation Dinner was the second week of January and that pretty much ends my holiday season.
Firefighter Justin Watrel at the swearing in as Secretary of the Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department
It was a lot of running around this holiday season but I also was able to raise a lot of money for charity in between working three jobs, editing my book and all my volunteer work. I never seem to just stop and relax.
Now you all know why I had to put the MywalkinManhattan.com on hold.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Everyone!!
Getting to Cape May, NJ:
Just follow the Garden State Parkway to the very end and there you are in the middle of town.
*Blogger wants to note that the hours change for many of these historical sites and for the restaurants so please check their websites for the most current hours during the off-season and when in season.
Events:
Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association Christmas Tree Sale
This Christmas holiday season was one of the best I have had in years. It was also one of the busiest. It is never easy when you are working three jobs, have a book to edit as well as writing one and have six blog sites to maintain, all while looking for full time work. Squeezing the holidays is interesting when you have a full plate.
After Halloween was behind me, I put ‘MywalkinManhattan.com’ on hold to concentrate on the holiday season. Halloween kept me really busy with my jobs, volunteer work and community service that I like to perform. I swear that my feet did not touch the ground until January 2nd of the New Year.
Work is my always my first priority and my students dazzled me in class with their final group project presentation, ‘Buscomonzefi.com’, a simulated tech start-up company (See Day- Ninety-Eight-‘MywalkinManhattan’). Working with my students on the project took a lot of my time up as well as my job consulting for the Department of Disability Services and working on my blog, ‘BergenCountyCaregiver’. I am very proud to say we welcomed our 3000th visitor to the site. There were lots of activities and charitable functions that I did supplemented my free time.
Buscomonzefi.com logo
First, we had set up for the Annual Christmas Tree Sale for the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association right before Thanksgiving. Our set up clashed with the Cornell/Penn football game.
It was a heartbreaking loss at the last second at Penn
The Stadium is never full
Being the dedicated Alumni, I ran down to Philly for the Cornell-Penn Game (and watched us lose in the final second when the ball was intercepted in the end zone, which would have tied the game). It was a heart breaker but was my excuse of not being there for day of set-up.
Christmas Tree Set-Up
So I decided to rake the whole site the Friday before I left for the game. There were not too many leaves on the site and I spent about an hour and a half raking the site and piling leaves. The rest of the guys met and took care of the set-up for the site. The Saturday after Thanksgiving was tree delivery day. With all the members of the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association present, we unloaded 315 Christmas trees (up from 285 the year before.
Me selling trees as it appeared in the Community News Paper
Our Christmas tree sale is the main fundraiser for the Association and last year we gave out ten $650.00 scholarships. We were hoping to sell more this year to give out more this year. I am very proud to say that as a group we sold all 315 trees by December 19th and were able to donate a few to ex-members families and our local church. We even donated a free tree to a local senior resident where we set it up and took it down. This is my 18th year on the organization and I have never seen trees sell so fast (See my commercial on YouTube under ‘Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association below and see the picture above).
Thanksgiving this year had some sad twists to it. My uncle had been very sick and my family had no formal plans for the holidays. Not to burden anyone with me, I went to visit my friend, Lillian (See ‘Day Seventy-Six-MywalkinManhattan’) out on Long Island for the holiday. I knew she would be alone and I thought this might cheer her up. I can’t think of a more magical Thanksgiving I have had in the last several years.
Lillian and I have been friends for 24 years and she has seen me through a lot. She was there for me during job changes and college comings and goings and a shoulder to cry on when my father passed away. Now at 99 and having outlived most of her immediate family, I wanted to be there for her.
Lillian and I
Thanksgiving could not have been nicer. I was able to get to the assisted living facility in an hour and twenty minutes so we were able to spend more time together. The facility had a lovely dinner for us in the formal dining room in the building that is used (I guess) for special occasions. We sat with all the other families and had a nice dinner of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and string bean casserole. For dessert, we had a slice of pumpkin and apple pie.
After the dinner was over, we joined the other family members in the other dining room for entertainment. It was nice because I was able to relax and digest before the long ride home. The singer performed songs from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and I could tell by the humming along most of the residents appreciated something more contemporary.
What I liked was how happy it made Lillian, who liked the afternoon out in her own home. We had a long talk about her life in the facility, her family and friends and at 99, I could not believe how sharp she was about life and everything around her. It just goes to show that people are more observant than they let on and people at nursing homes know exactly what is going on. I would see Lillian later on in the holiday season (See Part Two-This is Christmas).
After Thanksgiving, it was the Christmas Parade in Hasbrouck Heights with the Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department. This annual tradition has been going on in my town for years and the fire department is usually at the end of the parade with Santa following. There is always a lot of last minute running around at the firehouse before we leave for the parade, including wiping down the truck. My biggest contribution is the double batch of milk chocolate brownies that the guys want me to make every year.
Engine One in the Hasbrouck Heights Holiday Parade
The crowds of people really seem to enjoy the parade although I have to say that the crowds at the Woodstock parade on Christmas Eve when I visit Woodstock, NY have been bigger. The whole downtown is ablaze with lights and at the end of the downtown on the circle in Hasbrouck Heights, we have the annual Christmas Tree lighting at the end of the parade. The funny part is once that tree is lit, everyone scatters and the event is over. Within twenty minutes, you would never know that there was a parade.
The Hasbrouck Heights Christmas Parade
The Christmas Parade in Downtown Hasbrouck Heights, NJ
After the parade was over, the next morning was Christmas tree delivery for the Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association. 315 trees were delivered that morning and with a crowd of thirty men and their sons, we got the trees unloaded and tagged for sale for that afternoon. I was surprised we sold a few trees after they had been tagged. Three trees went off the lot within fifteen minutes after we finished the tagging. People really like to make a head start on their holiday decorating.
Setting up Christmas trees
As the week went on there were other preparations for the holidays, including me handwriting 90 Christmas cards for members of the firefighting community (not only am I the Engine One Company Secretary but I am also the Department Secretary as well for a decade and five years respectively). That on top of the ones I have to do for family and friends.
I packed everything up and headed down to Rehoboth Beach, DE that Wednesday for my mother’s 81st birthday. I swear, I don’t think my mom has aged that much since she was in her sixties. She looks terrific and keeps herself super active. I was surprised that she had time on her birthday to see me! It is always nice spending time with her.
Mom making “The Dinner”
“The Dinner” Chicken Cutlets with Ziti and a salad with Vinegar and Oil
My mom and my siblings and I have a favorite meal my mother calls ‘the dinner’ that she makes for us when we are in town. ‘The Dinner’ is breaded veal cutlets, spaghetti (or Ziti) with marinara sauce and a salad with lots of oil and vinegar. That is the meal we had on my first night there. We just caught up and laughed. We always have a nice time when I come down to her house.
My brothers and I with our mom
For her birthday, I took her and her partner to the Blue Moon Restaurant at 35 Baltimore Avenue in downtown Rehoboth Beach (See review on TripAdvisor).
The food here is always wonderful and the service is excellent. The best part was that even though it was the 30th of November, the whole place was decorated for Christmas. I had the most wonderful beef stroganoff with sauted broccoli and a wonderful tart for dessert. The food and the service here are just excellent and I can tell that the two of them enjoyed themselves as well.
The best part of the two days that I was here was that I got two great nights of sleep and that really helped with the second part of the weekend. I had to leave right after breakfast and drive four hours home to check my emails and change my clothes as I was heading up another two hours to Rhinebeck, NY for the Annual Mills Mansion Christmas fundraising cocktail party and the Sinterklaas Parade on Saturday.
After that I had to head home for the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Christmas Party at the Firemen’s Home in Boonton, NJ. I swear I ran all over the place this weekend. After I arrived home, I quickly went through all of my mail and emails and bills and got everything sent out. I changed my clothes and got in the car for the weekends volunteer events.
I got up to Rhinebeck with an hour to spare before the cocktail party and fundraiser for the Friends of the Mills Mansion. The Mills Mansion in Staatsburgh, right below Rhinebeck was the home of Ruth (nee Livingston) and Ogden Mills until Mrs. Mills death in the 20’s. I remember visiting the house in the early 2000’s for research on my book and it was falling apart then.
Mills Mansion at the holidays
Now there has been a whole series of successful fundraising to continue the restoration of the house and its contents. The Annual Christmas fundraiser is a lot of fun and a way to give back to the house. From 6:00pm to 8:00pm, we had cocktails and hors oeuvres in the main dining room that the Mill’s used to entertain. The food was catered by the Culinary Institute of America and was excellent. Many of the members kids help pass out the food and it was a nice way to get them involved.
The library decorated for Christmas at the Mills Mansion
There must have been about 150 people at the event, and it is always so nice to see people dressed up for an event. Everyone was in either suits or dresses and it fit the mood of an elegant get-together the way the Mills would have had it. The dining room and tables were all decorated for the holidays as was the rest of the house. There were trees and garland all over the house as well as decorations in all the rooms.
Me at the Mills Mansion Christmas fundraiser
I am not sure how often they used the house for the Christmas holidays but there are records of gift giving at the house by the family. We had the house to ourselves to walk around and see the decorations, so we felt like invited honored guests. The best was when they put the desserts out. They served the most delicious mini eclairs and chocolate mousse in chocolate shells.
The foyer decorated for the holidays.
I still think the most beautiful room in the house was the library that was decked out with its own tree and presents around it. The room always seemed so homey to me and a nice place to just relax and look at the view. I highly recommend this fundraiser as now only are you raising money for much needed repairs at an interesting site, but it is a night of good food and drink in an elegantly decorated private home. How many people get to be the invited guests of the Mills family at Christmas?
Christmas tree in the foyer
I don’t know if it was the two cocktails, I had that evening or just the six hours’ worth of driving I had to do between mom’s house and the fundraiser, but I went back to my hotel and completely conked out. I hit the pillow to just ‘relax’ at 9:00pm and woke up at 1:30am in the morning and then went back to bed and did not wake up until 8:00am and I had to be at the Starr Library by 10:00am for the set up for the Sinterklaas Parade the next morning.
I love participating in the Sinterklaas Parade every Christmas in Rhinebeck, NY. It is so much fun and Rhinebeck, New York is one of the most beautiful places to spend the holidays. The town is straight out of a Currier & Ives wood carving. The town is dominated by buildings are from the late 1800’s and all the stores are so beautifully decorated for the holidays accented all by the white lights on the trees and on the buildings.
Downtown Rhinebeck, NY at Christmas.
When I got there in the morning, we lucked out as the weather was a brisk 48 degrees F and sunny. We unloaded all the puppets and floats from the truck and a group of about twenty of us started to assemble the items. I must be becoming an old-timer because I know at this point how to put everything together. There are some great puppets in the parade and this year’s honorary animal was the Elephant. They had a great surreal, wire-like elephant puppet that someone walked around in at the fundraiser at the Beekman Arms a few weeks earlier.
Setting up for the parade
Previous puppets were put together first such as the bee and penguin puppets on a stick, the hummingbirds and the knights and dragons. We also had the traditional floats such as the dancing ballerina, the four seasons, the nature gods and my float, Mother Nature or as everyone calls her “Big Mama”. New puppets are created every year but like the Macy’s parade, everyone has their traditional favorites.
Sinterklass starting the parade
We zipped right through most of the items because having worked on the parade for the last three years (I have volunteered for the parade for 2010, 2015-2017) and at this point have worked out the kinks to them. We were done by 10:00am and were able to join everyone else at the Beekman Arms Restaurant for the Opening Ceremonies.
The Opening Ceremony at the Beekman Arms
The Opening Ceremonies at the Beekman Arms introduces all the mascots of the day’s festivities including Mother Holly (who is always feeling jolly), the Queen Bee, the Pocket Lady, the Wish Lady, the Elephant Lady with her sidekick the Mouse, the Royal Court and the Dancing Bear. This is a big family event and there were people all over the main banquet room of the Beekman Arms to greet everyone. Johnathan Kruk, the famous storyteller, was on hand at the end of the ceremony to tell the story of Sinterklaas.
All over the town for the rest of the day there were all sorts of activities. At the churches, there were all sorts of performers from choirs to band combos and singing groups. All the churches had their own activities as well as food for sale. My favorite is at the Third Evangelical Lutheran Church when they sell their hot dogs and drinks. As part of the meal, many of their members bake homemade Christmas cookies and its worth the price of the meal.
In Rhinebeck, the whole downtown is awash with Christmas decorations and groups selling baked goods and other foods to raise money for their charities. You can get the most amazing cookies and other treats as these groups really know how to bake.
The decorated stores of Downtown Rhinebeck, NY at Christmas
All over there are craft workshops, dancers, storytellers’ bands, children’s performances and shows such as “Into the Light” at the Church of the Messiah, which is sold out every year. The Grumpuses, Sinterklaas’s helpers perform and dance all over the place as well as the Dancing Polar Bear dances along with a song (the guy that wears that costume is exhausted by the end of the day every year).
‘Into the Light’ pageant
I had to get back to the library by 4:00pm for set up and the get my assignment. I decided to give our coordinator a break and I walked with the ‘Mother Earth’ float. I had a nice time as all we had to do is push her down the hill and move her arms around (see YouTube video of the event under ‘Sinterklaas in Rhinebeck NY 2017).
Downtown Rhinebeck decorated for the holidays
I only get to see it from a distance but from parades past that I have viewed and to see it all on YouTube, it is quite a site when the parade guides down the hill from the Starr Library to Downtown Rhinebeck awash with colors and music. It is such an exciting and festive mood when you see the white lights and puppets all over the place with marching bands performing Christmas songs. The parade is full of lit stars which are one of the symbols of Sinterklaas.
Us holding Mother Earth in the Sinterklaas Parade
I can’t believe how the crowds have grown over the years. There must have been about three thousand people lining the street this year. We have lucked out with the weather being so mild and people were all over the place. Everyone was excited and laughed and singed along with the parade.
The Gumpuses dancing around the downtown
At the end of the parade after pushing ‘Mother Nature’ several blocks we ended up at the Grand Finale Pageant in the municipal parking lot where Sinterklaas and his court welcome everyone to the end of the parade. All the floats pass by the stage and are given their sendoff. The parking is getting more mobbed each year.
Sinterklaas wishing everyone well at the end of the parade
Video of the closing ceremony
We dropped ‘Big Mama’ at the truck to be packed up and put away for next year. I left and went to the Reformed Church for the end of their Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser. I swear, these church groups know how to cook. They gave the small group of us who showed up after the parade (I could not believe that they closed it at 8:00pm when that was the end of the parade) a large portion of Spaghetti and homemade meatballs (the three meatballs were huge) along with salad and garlic bread. It hit the spot after a long day of events and the parade.
The Christmas tree in Downtown Rhinebeck, NY
The whole downtown was quiet after the parade was over. I swear everyone went home and the first wave of people who had gone out to eat had already finished and most of the restaurants started to close after a busy day. It was the opposite of the rest of the day. It is nice to see the town lit up with white lights, quiet and peaceful finally. You could just enjoy the beauty of it.
Downtown Rhinebeck decorated for the night of the parade
I was in bed early that night as I had to leave Rhinebeck early to get to Boonton, NJ for the Annual Bergen County Firemen’s Home Christmas Party. I have to tell you I was exhausted having to drive back down to New Jersey and put on the happy face. It was well worth it though.
The Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association Christmas Party
We have a band perform on a quarterly basis for the residents, sponsor a barbecue every summer and the holiday party is the last event of the year. I was exhausted so I was falling asleep on the couch in the main meeting room. All that driving was getting to me but it was well worth it. The look on the residents faces when we handed out the gifts on the break from the band was performing. Our organization bought all the guys a new shirt with the Bergen County Firemen’s Home logo on it. I could tell that many of them were touched.
As I handed out refreshments at the break, many of the residents said how much they felt appreciated at the holidays. Some never get to see their families. I am glad that the organization could bring a little holiday cheer to the guys.
The Members of the Bergen County Firemen’s Home Association handing out gifts
After the event was over, we all went out for a late lunch at the Columbia Inn in Montville, NJ (see review on TripAdvisor), as a group which was a nice way to end the weekend.
And to think, this is just ONE weekend at the holidays where I volunteer! This is unusual and a very long and productive holiday weekend. I would not have had it any other way!
I dedicate this blog to my uncle, Donald Snyder, who passed away the Monday night that I came home from Rhinebeck. This is sent with much love and respect to my family who had a lot to deal with during the beginning of the holidays.
Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!!
The Heartbreaker at Penn: Losing at the last second
Events to join in on in the future:
-The Hasbrouck Heights Christmas Parade is the Friday night after Thanksgiving every year.
-The Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association opens its Annual Christmas Tree sale every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We are located on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Terrace Avenue in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. (See my commercial on YouTube under the ‘Hasbrouck Heights Men’s Association).
The Friends of the Mills Mansion hold their Annual Christmas Fundraiser at the mansion on the first Friday night of December.
-The Sinterklaas Parade is every year the first Saturday of December in downtown Rhinebeck, NY.
It is amazing the changes that happen in just a month! The weather changed but not the way you would think. It went from being in the 80’s in the beginning of October to the 40’s and 50’s in November. Now you might say that is normal for this time of year, but the temperatures have been all over the place.
People were dining outside as late as the day after Thanksgiving. It was 52F on the 25th of November. Nippy yes but eating outside? In the sun, it really was warm. As I walked the streets of the Upper Upper West Side, it was a pleasant and warm day.
The nice part is that it has been so warm outside lately that the leaves did not change as fast as they normally do this time of the year. The leaves did not start to change in the New York City area until about five days before Halloween. Everything was greener than it normally has been in the past. As of my last day on this part of the West Side, the trees still have changing foliage in Riverside Park, so when the sun hit some of the trees, they still cast a glow of golds and reds.
I have seen a distinct change in the make up in the city as you cross over the 100th Street on the West Side. Once you pass the Douglas Houses, the residential area starts to change along with the stores and restaurants around it. The bodegas and cheaper restaurants start to disappear.
Things keep changing around the Douglas Houses on the Upper West Side
The rents have been going up in this area and there is a lot of empty retail space in the Upper Upper West Side. What there is a lot of restaurants where the price of a burger will run you around $16.00. The Upper West Side is becoming a lot more like the Upper East Side.
What I have also found is many beautiful pocket parks, unusual architecture with creative details and some wonderful restaurants and shops that show that the chain stores do not dominate a city. I never realized that it would take so long to finish the area. A little thing called Halloween came into play and then the weather got colder (See all the activities you can get involved with for the Halloween holidays for next year on this blog).
I started my first day at surprising enough 127th Street. I got on the C subway train by mistake ( I should have gotten on the A Train) but it gave me a chance to see what changes have come about in Morningside Heights. I swear as the new buildings at Columbia University are ready to open soon between 125th-134th Streets, the area is quickly changing around it. All over the area surrounding the 125th subway stop on the A subway line is being ripped apart and being rebuilt.
All the buildings around 125th Street are being sandblasted and gutted back to life or are being knocked down and rebuilt. This will just be an extension of Morningside Heights within the next five years. It will be more college campus than Harlem or the traditional Harlem that people know.
I had lunch that afternoon at West Place Chinese Restaurant at 1288 Amsterdam Avenue, a small hole in the wall Chinese restaurant that I passed several times (See review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com) and had wanted to try for a long time. The food was wonderful, and the portion sizes were plentiful.
The General Tso’s Chicken is excellent
I had an order of General Tso’s chicken with rice and Wonton Soup with a Coke for $8.00. It could have fed two people easily. The food was as good as anything in Chinatown and the quality was great.
After lunch, I walked down Broadway to 96th Street, passing through the campus that I had walked months earlier. The Columbia Campus is another part of the city that just keeps changing with new buildings being built on old ones or old buildings being sandblasted back to their original beauty. This area is becoming more desirable to live in again and as Morningside Park keeps improving, everything that surrounds it does as well. Even the parks surrounding the campus keep improving with Morningside Park receiving new plantings and Riverside Park getting a spruce up. I got to my destination, West 96th Street and Central Park West by the early afternoon.
I started my day on West 96th Street on the corner of West 96th and Central Park West where some of the trees were still green even this late into the season. I swear Central Park is never not busy. Families were playing in the playgrounds and tourists still walking through the park getting a taste of the real New York. The weather has been so unusually warm this year that it is a pleasure to just walk around.
Riverside Park in the late Fall of 2024
For the most part, the blocks closer to both parks, Central Park and Riverside Park, the streets are lined with beautiful brownstones. Most of the side streets between Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue are lined with some of the most elegant architecture from the turn of the last century. It is hard to believe that up to twenty years ago, parts of this area had been bombed out.
Halloween at 20 West 96th Street
I was able to see the last of the Halloween decorations give way to fall themes decorating the brownstones. Like their suburban counterparts, people like to decorate their buildings. Pumpkins and haystacks lined the elegant brownstones and occasionally there was a ghost or witch motif decorating the front.
Brownstones decorated for the holiday
West 95th Street decorations
Some of the most beautiful buildings outside of the Central Park district were the homes between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive right next to Riverside Park. Old elegant mansions and gracefully carved apartment buildings line the streets between both Avenues.
The West 95th Street brownstones
The townhouses along West 95th Street are just beautiful
The elegant details of these townhouses
Look up at the craved stone sculptures that line the building. Graceful animals, fierce gargoyles and lattice work line the tops of these buildings. It is time to put down those silly cellphones and really notice how beautifully built these homes were and the care put into them.
Riverside Park at West 94th Street
There is a lot of artworks on the Riverside Drive especially around this section of the Upper West Side. The Joan of Arc statue on 95th Street and Riverside Drive gives a description of her life and who she really was in the time of war. I didn’t realize how threatened they were by her that they had to accuse her of being a witch to get rid of her power of persuasion. The statute which was created in 1915 is in a small park within a park, “Joan of Arc Park”, that stands above Riverside Park above the paths.
Artist and art patron Anne Vaughn Hyatt Huntington created this beautiful piece. She had studied with many known artists of the time and completed her work at the Art Students League of New York and one of the first women artist inducted into the Academy of Arts & Letters (Wiki).If you want to know more about her life, stop here and read the plaques.
Joan of Arc Statue in the small park
The Joan of Arc Statue in Joan of Arc Park in Riverside Park
Joan of Arc Park on the Upper West Side
What stands out between 95th to 94th Streets off West End Avenue is the ‘Pomander Walk’, a small alley behind a large apartment building which contains a series of eight two story Tudor homes with gardens in front. This is hidden behind a gate off 94th Street.
Pomander Walk on West End Avenue
This whimsical little treasure was built between 1920-1922 by nightclub owner, Thomas Healy. He was creating income for a large hotel that he wanted to build on the property. He died in 1927 before he could find funding for the hotel and that’s why it exists today.
Pomander Walk is one of those hidden little Manhattan gems
Pomander Walk sign and entrance to the complex at 260-274 West 95th Street
I have read that today it is hard to find a home in this little strip and a recent two-bedroom apartment building sold for $700,000. Pretty good for a dolls house.
The outside of the homes can be seen in on 95th Street and look like a Swiss or German Chalet in the Alps. The detail work was under scaffolding when I first passed it and I wondered if it was a restaurant being fixed up. When you discover the gate entrance, it almost looks like a hidden ‘Land of Oz’. I could see the flowers and plants from the street. It reminded me of some of the small developments in Harlem where a small set of row homes creates its own neighborhood. You have to really look for it or you will miss it.
Pomander complex on West 95th Street
I was able to walk Riverside Park and enjoy that late foliage. The view of the Hudson River is just spectacular especially from the buffs of the neighborhood. I don’t think too many tourists appreciate this park with its beautiful vistas of the river and its great parks for kids. The trees were a combination of golds and oranges when the sun hit them. When I did the Great Saunter Walk, the 32 mile perimeter walk around Manhattan, the park looks much different with the lush gardens and everything in bloom.
Riverside Park in the spring is beautiful at West 95th Street in the Summer of 2024
Fall decorations on West 95th Street
The beautiful brownstones that line West 95th Street
The homes in the neighborhood were very detailed and showed the craftsmanship of the people who built them with such elegant details.
The walk down West 94th Street was just as nice in the middle of the Fall of 2024
I came across this interesting mural on West 94th Street
These blocks above West 84th Street were lined with blocks and blocks of beautiful brownstones ladened with interesting carvings and sculpture and wonderful decorations for Halloween and the Fall months in preparation for Thanksgiving.
As I walked down West 93rd Street for the first time in five years, I took the time to really notice the beauty in the buildings and parks. There were all sorts of wonderful carvings I had never noticed and street gardens I had passed by. Maybe some of these things had always been there but I was too in a rush to notice them to finish walking the street.
I came across the murals “4 Seasons in Central Park that was created by the students of PS 84 and the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. It thought this was very clever
This lion looking humanoid kept looking at me on the way down West 93rd Street
The Upper Upper West is a combination apartment building built in the 1970’s and 80’s with more newer buildings being developed along Broadway but here in there in the commercial district some things do pop out at you. This is true of the former ‘Little Plantation Restaurant’ that recently closed on the corner of 93rd Street and Columbus Avenue. Attached to an apartment building, this space looks like a Southern plantation mansion fitted even with a porch swing. I am not sure how long this will last without being a restaurant but make a special trip to the building just see the detail work.
I walked down West 92nd Street to see another interesting mural that I had not noticed before. This one was closer to Columbus Avenue.
Who says you have to go to a museum when there is a whole outside full of art? What I love around this part of the neighborhood are all the public murals and outside art.
Sol Bloom Playground in the Fall of 2024 at West 91st Street
The Sol Bloom Playground sign that welcomes you to the park next to PS 84
As I rounded the corners back to Central Park West, I stopped at the Sol Bloom Playground on 92nd Street near the local school to look for a bathroom. This whimsical park on a nice day attracts kids from all over the place and their parents running all over and playing on the equipment.
The memorial sign
The park was named after Sol Bloom, a self-made millionaire. He had made his money in his music and real estate businesses. He had built several apartment buildings and both the Apollo and Music Box theaters.
I ended the day at the 86th Station totally exhausted having walk the area between 96th Street to 90th Street. The one thing that differs the Upper Upper West Side from Manhattan Valley/Bloomingdale to the north is how much newer it has gotten at the core. So many more newer apartment buildings in this area and more businesses catering to a higher end client. It just seems more like the old Upper West Side above 96th Street.
Riverside Park at West 96th Street
My second day walking the neighborhood I started after a long day at the Soup Kitchen. Working the Bread station all afternoon with the homeless asking you for pastries all morning long can be wearing. I got through it all. I started this part of the walk with lunch in Yorkville, wanting to try East Garden Chinese Restaurant at 1685 First Avenue again to see if it made the cut for my blog, ‘DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com’. It did!
East Garden Chinese Restaurant really blows my mind on how good this place is for lunch. Their lunch specials are reasonable (the restaurant closed June of 2024) and you get a very large entrée with a side of rice. Add in a Coke for an extra dollar and you have lunch and dinner. The place is really clean too.
East Garden Chinese Restaurant is excellent (Closed June 2024)
I had the Chicken with Broccoli with white rice, and it was a very large portion. Both the chicken and the broccoli were perfectly, and they do give you a nice amount of chicken. The sauce is flavorful and delicious (See review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC.wordpress.com as well). It was both lunch and dinner for me.
The Chicken and Broccoli here is excellent.
After lunch, it was across the street to Glaser’s Bakery at 1670 First Avenue for dessert (See reviews on both TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC-Closed in 2018). They make a peach Danish that is out of this world! I swear this is one of the best bakeries in the city! So much for the places with the $10.00 cookies, Glaser’s is the real thing. Every bite of that Danish was like heaven!
Glaser’s Bakery at 1670 First Avenue (Closed in 2018)
I decided to walk across the park this afternoon to get some real exercise and work off that lunch. The park in the late fall is glorious with the gold and yellow leaves and the cool but still warm breezes. I walked along the reservoir and watched the joggers pass me by. I had more than a few tourists ask to take pictures for them, but it is so much fun to see the park so alive with people and happy to be there. The park is so graceful in its own way and the fact that so much of it is being renovated by the Conservatory shows that people believe in it.
I love the winding paths and the quietness of the park. Even though these paths have been traveled many times, I felt as if I had seen them for the first time. I had never been to this part of the park before and walking these paths felt like a new adventure. It amazes me that I have been in this park a million times since I was a kid, but I still wonder at the parts of it that I have never seen.
I walked along the back paths of the lake by the low 80’s and ended up walking to West 82nd Street and Central Park West in the mid-afternoon. The trees were still brilliant with colorful leaves as November was still gripping. We had had such a warm fall that many of the trees turned late much to the benefit of those who like to walk around the neighborhood.
The new West Side Kids store at 201 West 84th Street
I walked up to 84th Street and Central Park West to resume my walk of the neighborhood. I really like the stores in this neighborhood. They have character. I walked into West Side Kids at 498 Amsterdam Avenue and West 84th Street, to look at the toys and games. It is one of the classic stores of the city and still holds on to the tradition that kids are not all glued to their cellphones. It has a nice array of games and stuffed animals and assorted pocket Knick knacks. It is a place I would have liked to shop at when I was a kid.
West Side Kids at 201 West 84th Street is a fun store
John Koch Antiques at 201 West 84th Street (It has now moved to Long Island City and West Side Kids has taken this space) has unique window displays and in the short visit I had there had many wonderful pieces to decorate the office or your home. I liked the sailboats in the window. There was a turn of the last century feel about the place.
John Koch Antiques at 201 West 84th Street (Closed November 2022-Now in Long Island City-Now West Side Kids)
Books of Wonder at 217 West 84th Street (See review on LittleShoponMainStreet@Wordpress.com-Closed in 2021) was enjoyable except they were going through a floor move when I was there, and I only got to see the front of the store. It has an excellent selection of classic and contemporary children’s books.
Books of Wonder Book Store at 217 West 84th Street (Closed June 2021)
As you turn the corner onto West 85th Street, take time to admire 101 West 85th Street. The building has the most beautiful architecture and beautiful details and built in the 1880’s. The Red House Apartment building at West 85th Street and West End Avenue near Riverside Drive has unique details to it as well. You really have to stop and look up to admire the design of the building.
The Clifton at 74 West 85th Street is a pre-war condominium building in the Upper West Side’s Central Park West neighborhood finished in 1910 (CityRealty.com).
This townhouse was built between 1894-95 in the Romanesque Revival style by architect Adam Fischer
The details
The faces staring back
The faces staring back
I rounded West 85th Street around West 86th Street and then to West 87th Street.
The building was built in 1890 and is called the Brockholst Apartment. It was named after Brockholst Livingston, the former Supreme Court Judge who family estate the building was built on. Look close at the checkerboard stonework and iron work details (Daytonian).
101 West 85th Street; look at the details of the building
The Red House, completed in 1904, is located on 85th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive. The work of the architectural firm of Harde and Short, it is a distinctive six story red brick and white terra cotta building with bold multi-paneled black painted windows, adorned with dripping Gothic screens and a terra cotta salamander & crown cartouche. The center is recessed behind a triple arched entryway. The partnership of Herbert Spencer Harde and R. Thomas Short was formed in 1901 (Streeteasy.com).
When walking up the block and turning onto West 87th Street, take time to admire the foliage at Central Park West. The park is truly beautiful on this part of block. The trees are really ablaze with color.
Central Park in the Fall of 2024
128 West 87th Street
I strolled past the West 87th Street Garden which was open for the first time that I ever walked this neighborhood. Every time I passed the gardens, they were closed to the public but the weekend I revisited in 2024, all the Public Gardens seemed to be open for planting.
West 87th Street Park & Park at 55 West 87th Street
There were so many beautiful brownstones with such interesting carvings and gardens in the high 80’s and 90’s on the West Side that I could not feature them all but here are many of my new favorites that I passed along the way.
Designed by architects Thom & Wilson in 1889, 25 West 88th Street is one of the finest renovated single-family townhouses on the Upper West Side. This triple mint home is among the first in Manhattan to receive a national designation as a Platinum Certified LEED Home and Passive Energy Certification (Leslie Garfield.org).
The old Claremont Riding Academy was built by architect Frank A. Rooke and was built in Romanesque Revival style in 1892. These were the oldest continuously operated equestrian stable in New York City and the last public stable in Manhattan (Wiki).
When I arrived at P.S. 166 on 132 West 89th Street, the Richard Rodgers School, is the Manhattan School of Art & Technology. I read the plaque that was dedicated in 2003 to the famous composer. The school was built in 1897 and is one of the few terra cotta Gothic designs in the New York Public School system. It is such an honor to a famous composer of musicals such as ‘The Flower Drum Song’ and ‘The King and I’.
The Playground 89 next to P.S. 166 adds a little life to the quiet neighborhood. Even on a slightly warm November day, there were loads of kids running around while their parents relaxed and chatted on the benches surrounding the park. It was nice to see so many families out that afternoon.
PS 166
The front of PS 166
The historic plaque
The Richard Rodger’s plaque
P.S. 166 is one of the few Terra Cotta schools in NYC
As you round the neighborhood on West 89th Street, I walked into the West Side Community Garden at 123 West 89th and Columbus Avenue. This little gem of a park is located behind an office building and is across from P.S. 166.
Westside Community Garden sign at 123 West 89th Street
Though not in the full bloom that I saw from the pictures posted in the park from the Summer Opera Program, the trees still held on to their golden hue and some of the plants had some greenery to them. It looks like the community really backs and maintains the park. In warmer months, there is a lot of special events here.
West Side Community Garden in the Fall of 2024 when the replanting was taking
In the Spring of 2026, I got to see the whole garden in full bloom. The volunteers take amazing care of the gardens and their well landscaped paths.
The historic sign
The gardens in the Spring
The entrance to the park
The pathway in the garden
The pathway in the park
The pathway near the entrance to the park
Down the street from the school and the parks is Ballet Hispanico at the corner of 167 West 89th and Amsterdam Avenue. Some of the holiday shows had been posted and looked rather interesting. The building was closed the day I was there.
The last part of my journey of the streets of the neighborhood was crossing West 90th Street for a second time and exploring the avenues. I stopped at the St. Gregory’s Playground near the corner of West 90th Street and Columbus Avenue. this little pocket park on the other side of the West Side Community Garden is in dire need of a face lift.
I can see this is something the neighborhood needs as a parent yelled out to me if I was from the NYC Parks Department (I have no clue why I look so important to people when walking around the city. Either I look like a policeman or a city official).
Since my trip back then, the park looks like it has been renovated and these interesting purple flowers have shown up in the Fall of 2024. Very Surreal!
St. Gregory’s Park at 130 90th Street
There is another small park behind the Wise Houses, a small public housing project, in this very quickly gentrifying and updated neighborhood. As I had read online and seen by walking though it (more stares from the residents), the small park has some unique fixtures yet is falling apart when you really look at it. The benches and some of the equipment is in need of repair but I could tell is well used by the residents by the kids running around. Like the St. Gregory playground, it could use a facelift.
The new Wise Park right next to the housing complex has been totally renovated and looks amazing!
The last part of the walk took me back to West End Avenue on West 90th Street and the most elegant row of brownstone homes that lined the avenue. I have noticed on my walk of this neighborhood that the individual homes along the streets between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue and Riverside Drive and West End Avenue have some of the most unique architecture in the neighborhood.
The beauty of West 90th Street
West 90th Street brownstones that line the street
West 90th Street art on the brownstones
Faces staring at you on West 90th Street
Colorful garden along West 90th Street in early November
The one apartment building that always stood out to me when walking West 90th Street was the Concord Building Apartments. The grace and the detail of the carvings makes you stop and stare at the faces staring back at you.
Built by Neville & Bagge, The Cornwall remains one of the architectural gems of the Upper West Side. Completed in 1910, The Cornwall is a 12 story building with a red-brick façade, three-story limestone base, a number of decorative balconies and impressive Art Nouveau style roofline. The apartments have fine pre-war details exhibited in gracious layouts, high ceilings, pocket French doors, intricate woodwork, onyx fireplace surrounds and glass transoms (Streeteasy.com)
The beautiful details of The Cornwall Building
The stonework is just amazing
It must have been something when the whole neighborhood must have looked like this but that is progress. In the middle of the neighborhood, the area keeps updating, modernizing and changing. It seems that the neighborhood is morphing into something a little more upscale like its southern neighbors and less like Manhattan Valley to the north. For now, not quite the traditional Upper West Side but still homey and welcoming to people moving in. I enjoyed my afternoons here.
Halloween decorations on West 90th Street
Still more decoration in the post Halloween week
Take the A or C or 1 subway trains to the Upper Upper West Side. The A train will be express from 59th Street to 125th Street.
The West 96th Street subway stop was a constant for me when visiting the Upper West Side and the views are spectacular
Read my other Blogs on the Bloomingdale/Upper West Side neighborhoods:
Day Ninety-Three: Walking the Borders of the Upper Upper West Side:
Halloween again?! I can’t believe how fast this year has gone. Ever since July 4th, it has just accelerated again. I have never seen time fly so fast. Every year the same thing, once the July 4th weekend is over, you blink your eye and there is Christmas again.
I have never been a great fan of Halloween when growing up. I must have been the only kid who hated trick or treating (like begging) and dressing up for elementary school parades (I thought that they were stupid and a waste of time).
It was not until I became an adult and got to celebrate in non-conventional terms that it became fun for me. I always liked the occult side of it and look at it from the way the early Celts did with a ceremonial celebration. This is why I participated in more unusual events.
In researching many of our historical sites and museums in Bergen County, New Jersey where I live, I came across many events that the museums were sponsoring leading up to Halloween. I was impressed by the uniqueness of the events and the response to them. I was lucky to get in because everything sold out so quickly. All of these events lead to the big one, the Halloween parade Halloween night.
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Woodland Park in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ at night
Halloween starts for me in Hasbrouck Heights with the town’s Annual Halloween in the Park, an event that takes place each fall in Woodland Park in Hasbrouck Heights. First thing to note that since developers have built new condos on the parks edges, it has taken some of the allure from the park. You can see the lights and people moving around.
We ‘stand by’ with the fire department for lights for the event and emergency calls when we have to leave. Still it is a lot of fun watching everyone get on the hayrides and start screaming in the distance. We watch from the equipment while eating a pizza dinner which we share with our Ambulance Squad who is on hand incase someone gets hurt. The last ride of the night, we get to go on when everyone else has left.
Patrons waiting at the Pavillion
The fireplace roaring at the event
Ghouls waiting for you
The park decorated for Halloween
The DPW takes families around the park in hayride fashion with bales of hay in the trailers and everyone on the trailer is chased and harassed by various ghosts, ghouls and witches. You spend most of the evening being chased with someone with a knife or chainsaw.
The start of the haunted hayride
Video of Halloween in the park
Ghouls and creatures of the night chasing everyone
This popular event is always sold out and residents get such a kick out of it. I of course was working that night and got there in time for the last two rides and people were still screaming at 9:30pm.
Halloween in the Park in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ in Woodland Park
I started the next part of the Halloween celebration at The Schoolhouse Museum (see VisitingaMuseum@wordpress.com for more details and review on TripAdvisor) 650 East Glen Avenue in Ridgewood, New Jersey for the Annual Cemetery Walk on October 20th. Usually I am not keen on walking around cemeteries at night but this was a unique fundraiser for the museum.
In fact, for a small museum there was a sold out attendance with more people wanting to go on the tour. The museum ran the walk around the cemetery for only one night and all the walks were packed with families with a surprising number of small children who seemed to love the idea of walking around tombstones.
My tour was the last one of the evening and it was already getting dark by 6:00pm and I was on the 7:00pm tour. The staff at The Schoolhouse Museum could not have been nicer and the volunteers both there and at the cemetery could have been more engaging with the crowds. We started our tour with a ghostly talk in front of the museum by Ridgewood Historian, Joseph Suplicki, who gave a quick tour on the well-known residents of Ridgewood who were buried in the cemetery.
We proceeded as a group (which had ballooned from 20 people to 36 people as more people showed up then there were places so they came on our tour) walked in the dark across the street to the Valleau Cemetery, which is between East Glen Avenue and Franklin Turnpike, one of the original Colonial roads in Ridgewood. We all thought we would be walking in the Dutch Reformed Church cemetery next to the museum but they later told us that there were insurance problems with doing that.
Off our troop trekked across the street to a lantern flank paths through the cemetery to well-known residents of Ridgewood’s burial sites. It was interesting as many of the local residents who were business people that schools and buildings were named after were pointed out. What the interesting twist was to it was they had students and members portray the person buried there and did a bio on the person and their contribution to the town.
The Cemetery Tour of Valleau Cemetery in Ridgewood, NJ
The cemetery is less scary when it is light out
I have to say that I give many of the actors credit for playing the roles they did because that meant staying by the grave site until the event ended and that meant being along for about twenty to thirty minutes by a tombstone. I would have thought it was creepy. Our group followed the lanterns on the paths deeper into the cemetery to hear all sorts of stories.
We visited the graves of various movers and shakers in the town of Ridgewood over the last hundred or so years including many who had streets and schools named after them. The most interesting actor was the lady who portrayed Mary Elizabeth Rosencrantz, who was the last owner of The Hermitage (The Hermitage Museum that is located up Franklin Turnpike from the cemetery), who was left penniless in the end while the house crumbled around her in the 1970’s.
The actor told the story of her prominent family and the demise of the family fortune. Having visited The Hermitage in the past, it made it more interesting to see where she was buried.
The tour of the cemetery ended in front of The Schoolhouse Museum where we joined the staff for ghost stories and fresh apple cider and apple cider doughnuts that had been donated by Demarest Farms in Hillsdale (See TripAdvisor review). That was the best and people so happy for snack after the tour.
This interesting and engaging tour is offered by The Schoolhouse Museum in the middle of October and should not be missed. For the $10.00 donation for the tour, it is well worth the visit. On the weekends, check out their current exhibitors. The museum mounts wonderful shows. The museum is open on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1:00pm to 3:00pm and Sundays from 2:00pm-4:00pm.
Another interesting Halloween event I attended was The Hermitage House Museum’s Annual Midnight Tour and Séance on October 30th. The Hermitage House Museum at 335 North Franklin Turnpike in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ is featured on my blog, ‘VisitingaMuseum@wordpress.com’ and I have visited the museum several times during the year (See review on TripAdvisor). The house was the home of Theodosia Prevost and her second husband, Aaron Burr, when they married in 1782.
The Hermitage Mansion at Halloween (preparing for Christmas)
The evening featured a 10:00am ‘ghost tour’ of the house and a séance at midnight to start Halloween day. Frankly, I thought the thing was over-hyped. I have toured the house twice and have never seen or felt anything but hospitality in the house.
I arrived at The Hermitage House Museum at 10:00pm on the dot after I gave my Midterm to my class (I am currently teaching business students at Bergen Community College), so I was already tired. Listening to someone including the tour guide, who was a medium, talk about a house being haunted made me a little skeptical since the price for the event was $50.00.
Taking a night tour in a creepy old house was interesting and the Hermitage is steeped in so much history that I seriously suggest taking the tour in daylight and enjoy the grounds. The families that have lived here bring so much to the story of the house. The original owner of the house had invited General George Washington to stay at the house in response to the fact that her husband was fighting on the side of the British and she did not want to loose her home. Marrying Aaron Burr helped as well.
The next family that owned the house expanded it and lived in it for almost a 100 years. It became the modern New Jersey version of ‘Grey Gardens’, when the last owner ran out of money to run the house and the whole place overgrew. She ended up sick and when she died she left the house to the State of New Jersey.
With a history like that, you would think that you really might see something. All I saw was an over-weight bullshit artist who worked everyone up. I admit I would not like to spend a night alone in an old house like this but he got everyone so worked up that I believe that people thought they were seeing things. It got to the point where he kept asking everyone if they felt a cold spot or did they see a shadow. The house was old and drafty, that’s it. I got a kick out of one women saying she saw a rocking chair moving by itself and then another women walk by it and the loose floor board moving it. She looked embarrassed.
The worst was when we entered the parlor where Mary Rosencrantz, the last owner of the house, along with her sister and aunt used to serve tea during the 20’s to raise money to keep the house up. We all sat around the room in a semi-circle trying to communicate with the dead. All he did was rattle off a bunch of names and types of people he felt might be in the room. He was called out when he said someone named “Rose” was trying to reach him and then asked us did anyone know a ‘Rose’. When one guy said he did and it was the name of his 93 year old grandmother, the medium practically swooned and asked when she died. He answered that she was alive and living down the street from him. That almost crushed the medium.
For the price of the event and the time of night it is at my suggestion to anyone wanting to visit The Hermitage Museum is to visit it during the day and take a formal tour with a docent for $7.00 and enjoy the house for its history and beauty.
The highlight of Halloween for me is volunteering for the Halloween Parade in NYC. That is a lot of fun and its a comradery builder working with all the other volunteers. This was fourth year working on the parade and I am assigned working the gate where all the volunteers and performers walk through to check in. I have never seen so many people try to bullshit their way into the parade. They just want to see the parade from our route. I have to turn angry people away every year and do they get nasty. Is it my fault there is a major parade going on and you can’t get to a party three blocks away?
People walking up Sixth Avenue the night of the parade
The Halloween Parade took even a weirder twist when we had a terrorist attack just a few blocks from the parade route. Some guy took a truck and ran down joggers and bikers on the park path a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. I was shocked when one of the guys from the FDNY pulled me aside at 5:30pm to tell me. Even though it had happened a few blocks from the parade nothing beats down a New Yorker. They show resilience and the parade continued as if nothing happened. Like myself, if no one had said anything I would not have known.
The Halloween Parade marching up Sixth Avenue
The parade route was mobbed with people and I have to say that the costumes are getting more creative every year especially this year. There were a lot of ‘Dump Trump’ signs all over the parade route including many people dressed like the President doing all sorts of strange things. (I have to admit I may not agree with all the things he says but he is still our President and should be respected.)
There were all sorts of political undertones to the parade as there always are such as the Gun Lobbying Zombie’s, The ‘Dump Trump’ characters, all the LGBT groups fighting over the problems they are having in the military and comments over the immigration policies. I have not seen this much political rhetoric since the ‘I am peach Bush’ costumes that I saw about nine years ago. People were saying their piece this year.
Looking up Sixth Avenue the night of the Parade
I have also seen a bump in foreign tourists as they kept asking where things were located and did not know where Canal Street was located. Some said they came to New York City just to see the parade. I was floored by how many families brought their children all the way to the U.S. to see the parade. It was an exciting site to see all the bands, unusual costumes and towering puppets. There were skeletons and serpents on the parade route. The puppet makers go above and beyond when it comes time for the parade. The dancing Pumpkin people were new to the parade added that air of creativity to the event.
I usually end up watching the full parade on YouTube but I get to see the parade from the ground up. By working the gate, I get to see all the people in costume coming into the route. Ever since the 20th Anniversary of the ‘Thriller’ album, the ‘Thriller’ dance routine has gotten bigger and I swear they get so into it. We have dancing zombies all over the place. I see so many bands going through the gate and everyone comes in at once. I swear the three of us saw so much that night.
The Thriller Dance:
So here is my Halloween experience this year. Full of ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. BOO!
Happy Halloween!
(For those of you who are reading this and want to be in the parade next year, please go to Canal Street to line up. Don’t come to the gate and drive us crazy. We are busy enough.) Use the Number 6 subway to get to the parade route.
The Halloween Parade 2017
The Halloween Events:
Halloween in the Park
Every second week of October in Hasbrouck Heights NJ
Check out the Hasbrouck Heights Recreation Department Website
The Halloween Parade is every October 31st in New York City lining Sixth Avenue
(The picture is of the three of us working the gate. Mark Schuyler and I are twelve cousins once removed by the marriage of Mark’s GGG Grandfather to my GGG Grandmother, who was a member of the Beekman family by my Step-Grandmother. We like to kid around a lot about it.)
I took a walking tour of Roosevelt Island with the American Museum of Natural History today. The island is located right off the Upper East Side and is one of the many islands in the New York County area. Roosevelt Island has had its share of problems living there in the past.
Many articles had been written about the island in the 80’s with lack of good housing, lack of stores, the tram not working and not much to do on the island. This has changed like the rest of the city in the last 40 years. There has been so much development and new housing plus on top of the tram, you do have a subway stop in a renovated station. The nice part about the tram is that you can use your subway card to ride it and what a view!
I took the F Train over that morning to meet the rest of the group. I toured with the same tour guide who led us through Inwood two years ago. Unfortunately, his get up and go is not there much these days and he looked like he packed on about 25 pounds since the last tour. Still, we took a geological tour of the island, so I got to see the island in its developed stages as well as the modern stage.
Roosevelt Island Tram from the Manhattan side
In 2022, it had been five years since I visited Roosevelt Island and there had been changes in construction, businesses being opened and closed since the pandemic and there was now a sense of optimism on the island since visitors were able to return. I did see a lot of tourists on the island which I would have ever thought they would be interested in coming here.
Tramway Park where you pick up the tram to Roosevelt Island at East 59th Street and Second Avenue.
I took the tram over to the island in 2022, which was an experience as it began to rain. The clouds opened up a couple of times while I was touring the island but luckily there are a lot of indoor things to do on the island. I have to say it is quite the view at any time of the year. Looking over the Upper East Side and Sutton Place from the air is very interesting and gives you a different perspective of the Manhattan.
Arriving at Roosevelt Island offers great views.
Video of the Ride over to Roosevelt Island form the Upper East Side:
Walking around Roosevelt Island only takes about an hour (or two if you want to just relax and take your time). We started our tour outside the Roosevelt Island Historical Society Center Kiosk on West Road. Here we met the head of the Historical Society and were invited to visit later on after the tour.
On my tour of the island in 2022, I stopped back at the kiosk to talk to the guides and bought a map of the island ($1.00) which I recommend as it is a good guide and a great souvenir. It shows you the location of everything on the island and things you might miss.
The Roosevelt Island Visitor Center
The history of Roosevelt Island is interesting. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Island was originally called Minnahannock by the Native Americans and Varkins Island by the Dutch settlers. The island was acquired by the Blackwell family in the late 1600’s, who renamed the land Blackwell Island. The Blackwell’s lived on and farmed it before selling it to the City of New York in 1828 for $30,000 (Wiki/Roosevelt Island Historical Society).
Roosevelt Island in the beginning
In the 19th century, the island was used by the City for institutional facilities, including the Workhouse Penitentiary, Lunatic Asylum, City Hospital and City Home and given the name Welfare Island in 1921. The island was for residents that were out of site out of mind. These institutions gradually being relocated to areas more easily accessible to public transportation.
In 1969, this two-mile island was lease to the State of New York for 99 years. Under New York State’s Urban Development Corporation, Welfare Island became a beacon for the affordable housing movement within the city. Construction of the island community was completed in 1975 with four housing developments. In 1973, the island was renamed Franklin Delano Roosevelt Island (Wiki).
Today, Roosevelt Island has a small town feel with approximately 20 buildings and 14,000 residents. The island is home to six landmarked structures and proudly houses Four Freedoms Park, one of the original visions for the island (Judith Berdy, President Roosevelt Island Visitor Center).
The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd at 543 Main Street
Designed by the prominent architect Frederick Clarke Withers, the chapel was begun in June, 1888 and completed the following year. It was the gift of New York banker George N. Bliss to the New York Protestant Episcopal Mission Society and was intended for use by the inmates of the Almshouse (Roosevelt Island Historical Society). It now serves as a community center and housing.
Our first part of the tour was visiting the new Cornell Tech campus on the southern part of the island. This new complex of four buildings is the wave of our university’s urban campus to soon be joined by a new hotel and another tech building (both opened and operating in 2022). The area has been replanted and a new lawn and gardens has been built on a waste deposit site. It’s hard to believe that it is built on a trash mound.
The entrance to the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island.
The tour guide explained that this is all reclaimed land. The campus is beautifully set on the island and is located right near the tram and subway station. I got to tour the Bloomberg Building and walk through their new restaurant.
In 2022, I stopped at the Café at Cornell Tech for a snack. It had been so hot outside that I went in for a cool drink. I ended up buying some of the college’s homemade ice cream from the Agriculture School that is made fresh on campus. The Mango Sorbet ($3.00 for a half pint) really cooled me down and I was ready to go again (See review on TripAdvisor).
Just outside the Cornell campus, I noticed another interesting statue entitled “The Blue Dragon”, a whimsical statue that was designed in an interesting form. It was created by artists Ulla and Gustav Kraitz. The work was meant to be engaged by children to climb on.
Ulla and Gustav Kraitz are Swedish born artists. Gustav Kraitz graduated from the State Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Ulla Kraitz was educated at the College of Arts in Sweden. The two met when Mr. Kraitz moved to Stockholm in 1960. They are known for their stylized sculptures of animals and fruits in lustrous and vivid colors (Artist bio).
Past the Cornell campus is South Point Park and the Smallpox Hospital, which is currently laying in ruins. The city is now refurbishing the building, but it will never be reopened as a fire did damage to all of the building. It was behind scaffolding and was not much to look at except for the architecture itself.
The Smallpox Hospital is a Gothic Revival structure designed by American architect James Renwich Jr. and opened to the public on December 18, 1856. It was the first hospital in the country dedicated to treating smallpox, a highly contagious and deadly viral disease.
The original footprint of the Smallpox Hospital was the rectangle central bay, which measured roughly 100 feet by 40 feet and was three stories in height. The building was constructed of granite quarried on the island and was built by prison labor. In 1875, the hospital was renamed Riverside Hospital and in 1886, the building was converted to a nursing school called the Home for the Nurses of the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School. The northern and southern wings were completed in the early 1900’s in order to provide additional space for classrooms, laboratories and dormitories.
In the 1950’s, the nursing school closed, and the building was abandoned. It was stripped of floors, windows and stairwells. The Gothic ruin has been emptied ever since. What exists today is largely its shell (Roosevelt Island Historical Society at http://www.TheRuin.org).
After the picture taking at the hospital, it was on to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. It is amazing park located at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island with the most fantastic views of the City. On this clear sunny day, I could see all the way downtown. It was nice to just sit on the steps and just look out on this sunny day.
This is where the tour ended with our guide. I swear the guy looked exhausted and we had only walked the southern part of the island. Our group went on their way while I decided to see the rest of the park and walk the entire island. I started with walking the park.
The Hope Memorial sign
I admired the FDR Hope Memorial in which the statue of the President reaches to a young girl with a disability herself. The statue offers encouragement to those with a disability and the power to persevere.
The statue was designed by artist and sculptor Meredith Bergmann, who herself was inspired by the photos and stories of the President (FDR Hope Memorial).
Artist Meredith Bergmann (Cooper Union Alumni Picture)
Ms. Bergmann is an American born artist with BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and attended Parsons School of Design and Wesleyan University. Her public works explore history, social justice, human rights and disabilities (Author’s bio).
Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Points Freedom Park is the first memorial dedicated to the president in his home state of New York. Located at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in New York City. It is the last work of Louis I. Kahn, an iconic architect of the 20th century.
FDR Four Freedoms Park
The memorial, which opened to the public in October 2012, celebrates the four freedoms, as pronounced in President Roosevelt’s famous January 6, 1941, State of the Union address: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
(Park’s Mission: As a steward of this civic space, Four Freedoms Park Conservancy advances President Roosevelt’s legacy and inspires, educates and engages the public in the ideals of the four freedoms.
The bust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Conservancy does this by:
*Safeguarding the memorial as a space for inspired use.
*Fostering community and understanding.
*Igniting conversation about human rights and freedoms today.
The park is built on land filling from on-island demolition and this extended the island on the southern part.
(New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Society).
The sign right in the middle of the park.
From the park, I walked the path around the exterior of the entire island taking in the view of the coast of Queens. The shoreline of Queens is slowly changing too. New apartment buildings are going up in Astoria and Long Island City not to mention the coastline of Brooklyn as well. Much of this is built around parks that line the East River. This is not our parent’s outer borough.
The Long Island City shoreline
The pathway around the island had its twists and turns around the many parks and housing complexes. Some of these you could tell were built back in the 80’s and were the housing developments that were bitched about in New York Magazine so many years ago. Now these apartments have become desirable and have been spruced up. They are surrounded with newer, modern buildings that are attracting new younger residents.
The pathway with its breezy views attracts the island joggers and fisherman. It turned out to be an 81-degree day and everyone was out enjoying the unseasonable warm weather. The leaves were just starting to change colors so there was a new view in the parks on the island and in the parks across the river.
The east part of the pathway on the island took me to Lighthouse Park on the northern tip of the island. This was the park I had seen a few weeks earlier when visiting Carl Schulz Park by Gracie Mansion. The lighthouse was built in 1872 by inmates from the penitentiary with stones from the island and it was designed by the architect who designed the Smallpox Hospital.
Lighthouse Park Roosevelt Island at 910 Main Street
The lighthouse was built to guide ships through the treacherous waters of the East River and Hellgate. Now decommissioned, the park is a perfect place for picture taking and for picnicking. It has the nicest views of the Upper East Side and Randall’s-Wards Island to the north. It really is a nice place to take pictures or just relax, sit and enjoy the breezes. It was funny to now see the people from across the river. They seemed so much smaller.
Next to the lighthouse is a monument of faces dedicated to Nellie Bly and to women who have faced hardship entitled “The Girl Puzzle”. The sculpture was dedicated to journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, pen name Nellie Bly, who wrote about the abuses in the mental asylum on what was known as Mental Island at the time. She wrote the full report “Ten Days in the Mad House” on the abuses of patients.
“Girl Puzzle” by artist Amanda Matthews (Artist Bio)
The piece was created by American born artist Amanda Matthews. Ms. Matthews graduated with a BA in Studio Art from the University of Louisville and had studied abroad in Europe. She is known for her work that honors women and celebrates diversity and inclusion (Wiki).
The history sign on Nellie Bly
Each sculpture is a interpretation on Nellie Bly. It really is an interesting sculpture.
The Girl Puzzle One:
The Girl Puzzle Two:
The Girl Puzzle Three:
The Girl Puzzle Four:
The Girl Puzzle Five:
The northern part of the island is dominated by the Coler Rehabilitation Center and many of the patients were out and about on the pathways with their families enjoying the warm weather. Be careful when walking the western part of the island as you could be nipped by a passing wheelchair.
Passing the hospital is the Octagon Apartments. The front of the building is the original Octagon building that was part of the Lunatic Asylum was built in 1834 and designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis.
This is where Nellie Bly wrote “Ten Days in a Nuthouse”, a famous piece describing the conditions in the building. Now it is a luxury eco-friendly apartment building. The parks next door to it have the nicest playground and a fantastic view of the Upper East Side.
Other newer apartment buildings line this part of the island of which have views anyone would envy. If you are going to live in New York City and want a view, this is the place to go. I passed by the Roosevelt Island Garden Club garden but it was closed that afternoon.
The Roosevelt Island Garden Club at the end of Main Street
As I was leaving the area, I came across a tiny statue of a woman entitled “Sabrina” right behind the Octagon apartment building. This is a bronze recasting of artist William Calder Marshall’s 1845 statue that has been part of the Amherst College tradition of pranking over the last hundred years.
Mr. Marshall was educated at the University of Edinburgh and was known for as a prolific sculpture of poetic subjects and many public commemorative works (National Galleries.org).
The nicest part of the walk was the water sculptures by American and Kansas born artist Tom Otterness entitled “The Management of Money & Real Estate”, which are two cute looking sculptures that depict the combination of money and real estate and how they affect one another. You could see this when each one of the sculptures were dunked in the water. You have to take time out and really look at these. It is really reflective of an island where mixed income seems to work. You also notice the irony when you look to Manhattan with its gleaming towers and then you look towards Queens with the public housing projects next to newer apartment buildings.
Mr. Otterness came to New York City in 1970 to study in the Arts Student League and the Whitney Museum. He is considered one of the best public sculptors in the Art world (Artist Bio and Google.com).
Tom Otterness “The Management of Money & Real Estate”
The happy couple
Money lost to Real Estate
Real Estate lost to Money
As I rounded the Promenade in 2017, I had to stop for some lunch. There are not too many restaurants on the island but the ones who are there look pretty good. I ate at Piccolo Trattoria at 455 Main Street (See review on TripAdvisor) for a slice of pizza. This is the only place to get a slice of pizza on the island.
The best part is the restaurant is really good. I had a slice of their Sicilian pizza ($2.50), which had just come out of the oven. It was really good. Their sauce is excellent, and one slice is enough to fill you up. There service is friendly as well. I needed it as I was ready to walk the interior of the island. The second time I came here in 2023, the pizza did not taste the same. I think they have new owners.
The Sicilian pizza here can be hit or miss
In 2022, I was in the mood for something different and had wanted to try the Chinese restaurant on the island, but it only accepted cash. So, I tried the new Zhongzhong Noodles at 568 Main Street. I had the most amazing meal there. The noodles and the Soup Dumpling that I ordered were made fresh on premise for me and you could taste the quality in every bite (See my review on TripAdvisor).
The Za Jiang Noodles were made with a minced pork and fresh vegetables in a sauce that when mixed together had the most complex and delicious taste. The Soup Dumplings were juicy and tasted wonderful in the soy dipping sauce.
The beautiful gardens by the Blackwell House in Downtown Roosevelt Island.
After lunch, I walked in interior of the island and walked both side of the main street. There are some interesting restaurants, historical sites, a brand-new school and the original Blackwell family house that was built in 1796 and sold in 1823.
It was closed in 2017 when I visited the island for much needed renovations but had finally reopened in 2022. The only problem was there was not much to tour once you were inside the house. It had been given a renovation but not a historical restoration, so the interior looked like a modern-day McMansion.
The very modern looking Living Room in the Blackwell Home
The tour guide explained to me that the house had been gutted and renovated and the only thing left of the original home was the stone foundation which he opened the basement door to show me. These had been quarried locally and had historic significance. That and there were some historical pictures around the house including one of Captain Blackwell of Revolutionary War fame who built the house but not much else that looked historic. I think they need a curator to come in and add some historic touches to the home. It looks really nice, but it loses its historic distinction.
The historical pictures of Roosevelt Island
General Blackwell’s portrait is the only historical item in the house
By the Motorgate building, there was a Farmer’s Market going on that afternoon. In 2017, I was able to walk around and see all the different vendors.
It seems to be a great place to raise children. The public-school PS/IS 217 looks like the type of school where the parents really support it. There are some interesting programs going on at the school and an active PTA. There is also an active theater down the road and a new library. There is a lot to do for a small neighborhood.
The Roosevelt Island Main Street
The gardens in the middle of the downtown area.
The tour of the island has a lot to do and see. There is a nice mix of historical buildings and brand-new architecture that blends together. Everything mixes well and has created a very livable and vibrant neighborhood. There is a lot to do and I am not sure if the rest of Manhattan knows what they are missing.
I left the island on the Tram and the nice part is I did not need to use a special ticket. It was part of my subway card and all I needed to do is swipe the card and I was on my way.
What a view! I do not care how touristy anything is the view from the Tram on a clear sunny day is the best. You can see all the way up the island and you really see the beauty of the island of Manhattan. To see all the buildings and parks and the river I think of the people who see this view in pictures and never get to experience this and I am right here seeing it. If anything, you have to take the Tram once. Being crowded in is well worth it.
The views from Roosevelt Island are amazing!
The Roosevelt Island Tram from the ground
Dinner in 2017 was at Dorrian’s Red Hand Restaurant on 1616 Second Avenue at 84th Street (See review on TripAdvisor), which I had mentioned before when walking through Yorkville. It is old-fashioned bar founded in 1960 and is a true Upper East Side ‘preppie’ bar. Everyone was pretty dressed up and the games were on.
Dorrian’s current menu in the Summer of 2024 (the UES Burger is no longer on the menu)
I ended up staying to watch the Michigan State versus Indiana game. I swear I had to calm down because it was a nail biter and I had to deal with rugby players constantly blocking the TV. That last minute touchdown really helped (that and the fact that Cornell beat Brown at Homecoming was nice). Michigan State won our Homecoming Game!
The food here is excellent. You have to try their UES Burger, which was a version of a ‘breakfast’ burger with bacon, artisan cheddar and a fried egg. The combination really worked, and it had a salty savory flavor to it. The French Fries were perfectly cooked with lots of salt. Everything just worked. The place was packed with Syracuse fans watching their game, so I was the only green and white in a sea of orange and blue. These games got close. I ended the win with a piece of warmed apple pie which hit the spot.
The hamburgers here are excellent
Back on the Q subway at 96th Street again to go home but on a warm night it was nice to walk around Second Avenue and look at everyone else eating outside and enjoying the warm evening. It was a great day in New York and my first trip to Roosevelt Island.
Go Green & Go Red!
Transportation to Roosevelt Island:
Take the tram (Cost of a subway ride with pass) between 59th and 60th Streets on Second Avenue in Manhattan or the F subway line.
I had another beautiful day in the city. I can’t believe this is fall with the 82-degree days. It is so funny to see so many people in outdoor cafes this late into the season. It reminded me of when I was walking Morningside Heights in February and it was 82 degrees then. The weather has been very wacky this year and everyone says there is no Global Warming. That’s hard to believe.
I finally managed to sneak into the city to walk the Avenues of the Upper Upper West Side. I had spent the morning in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen again and they put me back to work in the kitchen. By the time I left chopping loads of chicken breasts up for the next day’s lunch, I was exhausted. With Thanksgiving around the corner, it is going to be busy in the prep kitchen. I had been in the prep kitchen during the holidays, and it is a lot of work.
I started my walk this afternoon by relaxing with lunch at Zhong Hua Chinese Restaurant at 23 West 100th Street (See review on TripAdvisor), a tiny hole in the wall Chinese restaurant I passed when walking Manhattanville. This is right on the border at the official end of the Upper West Side meets the Douglas Housing Projects. I could tell most of the customers came from the housing projects by the customer base walking in. They must be very loyal because the staff knew who everyone was and said hello.
There are a couple of tables to sit at in the restaurant and it is not the fanciest place, but the food is not bad. I had a Sweet & Sour Chicken lunch special. It was okay. Typical Chinese American cooking. It tasted like fresh Chicken McNuggets with a standard red sweet sauce and served with white rice. The combination lunch special was $6.00 with a Coke and was not bad. Not the greatest but not bad. It filled me up for my long walk around the neighborhood.
The Sweet & Sour Pork was okay
Columbus Avenue was my first part of the walk. Columbus Avenue was the new trendy avenue when the city started to gentrify in the early 80’s through the crash of ’87 and now has settled into a more upper middle-class street with a combination of upscale stores and chains. There are so many banks on the avenue that I do not understand how they survive.
This was at one shining moment the center of the island with all the new innovative restaurants and shops opening up here starting with Museum Café opening right across the street from the American Museum of Natural History (it now houses a Shake Shack ten restaurants later). As someone noted in New York Magazine, it looks like a suburban mall with the parking (which is true for most of the island now).
In the upper 90’s, Columbus Avenue has turned into a series of large apartment buildings that must have been started in the late 90’s. It has changed the complexity of the neighborhood which was once all low-lining buildings. The border shared with Manhattanville gets even weirder with a Whole Foods and new luxury shopping one block from the Douglas Houses. It is a strange move, but it seems that everyone is using the Whole Foods from all over the neighborhood, so some marketing person was thinking.
The transition of the Upper West by the Whole Foods and the Douglass Houses
Once you cross over to the 80’s blocks, the architecture turns back into the more traditional low-rise buildings of the turn of the last century which is what gives the neighborhood its charm. Like the rest of the city, there have been a rash of small business closings around the block as the twenty-year leases that were signed in the 90’s when the neighborhood was still transitioning have come up and the complaints that the rents have tripled and quadrupled. The mix is now around the museum bunch of extremely expensive restaurants and realtors. This is not the West Side I remember.
One store that does stand out as being different is the Wild Bird Feed at 565 Columbus Avenue that seems more a hospital than a retail store. It saves pigeons and doves and brings them back to health. The rest is a combination of chain stores and expensive decorating places.
Amsterdam Avenue is pretty much the same as the parts in the areas above 90th Street is new apartment buildings and stores. Most of the chains have moved up to this area with the new buildings. As you move to the lower 90’s, Amsterdam Avenue becomes a series of neighborhood stores and restaurants that are strictly local. There are many great ethnic restaurants as well as all the services from laundry places to shoe repairs and drycleaners. They have really kept Amsterdam Avenue for the neighborhood.
At the corner of 84th and Amsterdam Avenue again is the Urban Assembly Garden that now is producing fall vegetables. It is amazing how everything changes in just two weeks. The kids were out cleaning up the beds when I visited again, and the teachers are eager for you to see what the kids are doing. Try to stop by the stand and at least say ‘hello’ to the kids.
Urban Assembly Garden on West 84th Street and Amsterdam Avenue
Across the street from the garden is West Side Kids at 498 Amsterdam Avenue which was mobbed with families who were shopping after school. There are some small restaurants a few doors down that were loaded with families. I could tell the parents here like their East Side counterparts really look after their kids’ education and welfare.
West Side Kids is now located at 201 West 84th Street
Broadway from 96th Street to 84th Street is a series of chain stores and independents. This part of the avenue is quite nice because it has the island in the middle of the road with trees and flowers still holding on from the summer months. It is being lined with brand new apartment buildings that are sprouting up all along the avenue. I have never seen a block so in transition. This is Broadway from 110th Street straight down to Columbus Circle.
When you turn the corner onto West End Avenue, it is a whole other world. This is the land of prewar apartment buildings, old brownstones and single-family homes. The side streets are unique brownstones where it looks like no two houses are the same. It is straight out of an exterior shot of ‘Sex and the City’.
If you are in the city for Halloween, there is a great holiday display outside the brownstone at West End Avenue and 90th Street. All sorts of movable ghouls and ghost are on display with a pumpkin demon flying up the side of the house. Someone is in the theater business here.
Halloween on the Upper West Side, the owner is very creative
There is a beautiful, tutored mansion that is being renovated on the corner at 274 West End Avenue and 95th Street that you have to see. It looks like a traditional German home attached to a prewar apartment building. This is the side of The Pomander Walk complex.
There are pillared twin mansions on the opposite corners of West End Avenue between 91st and 90th Streets with matching brownstones in the middle of the two homes. Both are being fixed up and the owners are very lucky to own such a beautiful, graceful homes. They look well-maintained and a little out of place with all the apartment buildings on the block.
West End Avenue has many architectural treasures
The Swan House at 95th and West End Avenue is a elegant old building with interesting landscaping around it. People do love their potted plants. The fortress like apartment building at 645 West End Avenue has the most interesting light features on the outside. They look like a giant is holding lanterns. It is straight out of the late 1890’s. I have never seen a light feature like this one. The building was designed by architect Gaetan Ajello and was built in 1912 (City Realty).
The very unique light fixtures outside the building
These are so beautiful
At West End Avenue and 84th Street, there is a plaque to the famous composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who lived in the building from 1926 to 1943. He did some of his most famous work when living in this building. Word of advice don’t linger too long reading the plaque. The doorman will give you funny looks.
There is another gorgeous mansion on the corner at 272 West End Avenue and 91st Street that has been fixed up and again harks back to the time this was an exclusive neighborhood (more so than then now) and lined with private homes. This beautiful, designed home was built in 1920 (City Realty).
This whole area between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive from 66th Street straight up the west side of the island is lined with interesting apartment buildings. Each one is more unique than the other. It is a real change in these two blocks both in the architecture of the buildings and the feel of the neighborhood. It seems quieter and more reserved and the people walking along the streets seem more serious than their neighbors one block away. I just got that impression on the people living there by walking around at all hours of the day.
Dinner that night was at Cheesy Pizza at 2640 Broadway on the corner of 100th Street (See the review on TripAdvisor & my blog DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). The pizza is excellent made wonderful by their delicious tomato sauce. I get so disappointed by many of these pizzerias in these neighborhoods that I pass. They look so good and end up having tasteless food that makes it a disappointing meal.
Not at Cheesy Pizza. The pizza is full of flavor and loaded with their delicious sauce and loads of cheese. They have some excellent deals with eight specials available all day long for $5.00, which is a steal in this economy. I had the personal pizza with a Coke, and you got four nice slices of pizza that is freshly made for you. I was not only impressed with the quality but with the friendly service as the guys behind the counter seemed happy to see me. I guess it’s the cop thing again. This place warrants a few more visits.
The Cheese Pizza here is wonderful.
Before I headed downtown, I made a special trip to Silver Moon Bakery at 2740 Broadway and 105th Street for dessert (See review on TripAdvisor & my blog DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). The pastries here are excellent and rival their counterparts in other parts of the island. The nice part is they are very reasonable. Nothing is over $5.00. The quality is excellent, and the staff is not snotty like some of the bakeries on the East Side where they want to charge you $20.00 for a cake that costs about $3.00 in materials. I know rents are high but come on.
Silver Moon Bakery at 2740 Broadway (Closed March 2025)
Silver Moon Bakery is the home of the Crumuffin, which I have talked about before. I got a little boring and got a Linzer Tart. It was excellent. The cookie itself was so buttery and tasted like it had just come out of the oven. The raspberry jelly was tart and sweet and the cookie broken apart in my mouth when I ate it. Like a piece of heaven.
The selection at Silver Moon Bakery is wonderful.
That is the one thing about Silver Moon Bakery unlike their uptown competition. The product has not been sitting out all day long. The items are obviously bake in small batches throughout the day. Make the trip on the Number One Subway to 103rd Street to visit the bakery. It’s worth the travel time.
The Crumuffin at Silver Moon Bakery is the most amazing pastry!
Overall, I covered a lot of the Upper West Side, revisited a few haunts that I wanted to see again and got to relax and explore Riverside Park. The Upper West Side has so much to offer, and I will see more when I walk the streets in the neighborhood.
Read my other Blogs on the Bloomingdale neighborhood:
Day Ninety-Three: Walking the Borders of the Upper Upper West Side:
I always try to spend part of my birthday doing some form of community service. So I spent the morning of my birthday cutting vegetables for the next few days meals at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen.
I spent the morning cutting three big bags of potatoes, a crate of sweet potatoes and several heads of lettuce for salads plus cleaning up the kitchen after everyone. We need to prepare prep for several dishes in advance and several cases of fresh vegetables were coming in so the old ones had to be used first. Needless to say, I was exhausted as usual when I left for the afternoon.
My afternoon was spent walking the ring of the neighborhood, the Upper part of the Upper West Side. Since this area runs from 96th Street to 59th Street, I will be breaking it up into two parts. Years ago, one did not dare venture over 86th Street on the West Side. Then it became 96th Street in the 90’s. Today though, the whole Upper West Side from 59th is really nice all the way to the tip of Inwood. There are some patches above 145th Street as I have mentioned in the blog that are still a little on the rough side but every month seem to get better.
Now that I have finished walking around Yorkville/Carnegie Hill and Manhattanville/Bloomingdale neighborhoods, it now time to tackle the Upper West and East Sides. This stretches from 96th to 59th Streets on both sides of Central Park and line both the East and Hudson Rivers. It will be a lot of walking.
My day starting by taking the subway back up to Morningside Heights for lunch. I had passed several restaurants along the way on Broadway on my days walking this neighborhood and there were still a few I had wanted to try. My choice was Bettolona at 3143 Broadway between LaSalle & Tiemann Streets (See review on TripAdvisor). The food is wonderful and very reasonably priced.
The beauty of Bettolona is the exposed walls and the open air windows that face a quiet side of Broadway to cars but noisy once the Number One subway passes. It was one of the warm, sunny October afternoons at 82 degrees so it was nice to sit by the windows and enjoy lunch. What impresses me about the restaurant is the unusual art up on the walls by the local artists, the calm jazz music and the laid back service. Everyone was so nice without knowing it was my birthday.
Bettolona Restaurant at 3143 Broadway (Closed June 2022)
I had the Linguine Bolognese, which was excellent. Fresh pasta with a generous portion of a veal ragu on top. The sauce, the owner explained, was made with fresh tomatoes and spices. It had such a nice rich flavor to it. You could taste the red wine in the sauce.
The food was wonderful that afternoon
For dessert, I had the Crepelle with Nutella and banana, which I highly recommend. The dessert was two freshly made crepes filled with Nutella hazelnut spread and freshly sliced bananas. A sweet light treat and the perfect way to end the lunch. I enjoyed it while watching students and members of the Columbia community walk by. I highly recommend the restaurant if you are in the area.
St. Clair Rose Garden when it is in bloom
After lunch, I wanted to walk off my fullness and turned the corner onto the extension of 125th Street to the St. Clair turn into Riverside Park to the West Harlem Piers Park to look over the Hudson River and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. The West Harlem Piers is a small park inside Riverside Park that faces New Jersey and offers the most spectacular views of the Hudson River and the Cliffs of Englewood Cliffs and Alpine on the New Jersey side. It is a nice place to just sit, relax and think. I do some of my best writing here.
After I rested and digested, it was off to walk the fringe of the Upper Upper West Side. This encompassed 5th Avenue along Central Park to Riverside Drive facing Riverside Park from 96th Street to 84th Street. It was a large area but packed with interesting pre-war apartments, two large popular parks, loads of small local businesses and a few pocket parks along the way.
The Brownstone neighborhood of West 95th Street
This area unlike Manhattanville to the north of 96th, is starting to get a little more upscale as people with money are beginning to move above 86th Street, the traditional border of the Upper West Side. The area like the rest of Manhattan just keeps morphing quickly. You will never know when you turn the corner when another business will close and one replace it.
West 96th Street and Riverside Park in the Fall
On the way down Broadway, I passed on the Columbia Campus a memorial plaque dedicated to General Garret Hopper Sticker, who led the New York City defense during the War of 1812. This was the location of the McGowan Pass in Manhattanville, which was a major travel artery on the Post Road to the Northern parts of New York and New England.
The McGowan Pass before the park
Fearing invasion by the British, the city rebuilt old Revolutionary forts and this area was home to the Barrier Wall to protect the travel route. It saw no action during the War of 1812, but this important piece of history is noted on the Columbia campus as the McGowan Pass still sits at the northern end of Central Park.
The one thing that I can note about both Central Park and Riverside Park that day is that all the leaves were still green. The vestiges of the fall had not turned color yet and with the unseasonable warm weather still felt like summer. Central Park was crowded that day with people playing Frisbee and walking their dogs. Many tourists were still in the city wondering around the park. It leads me to ask, are any of us still working full time? I wonder.
I had already walked all of 96th Street already, passing the artist Joy Brown statues on Broadway at the subway stop (which run from West 117th Street to West 72nd Street until February 17, 2018) and the now familiar McDonald’s that has been my haunt for snacks and drinks when walking up here. I proceeded to walk down Riverside Drive through Riverside Park to enjoy the foliage and walk through a park still locked in the summer. It was so nice to pass couples walking their dogs or biking through the park. There is so much life going on here and people just enjoying nature.
The homes and apartment buildings that line Riverside Park are from sign from the turn of the last century. There are still some mansions that line the park in the lower 90’s that are currently being refurbished. These you really have to look over for the 1880’s architecture. The loop around 84th Street will either take you to 83rd or 85th Street so opt for the lower one. Take your time and really walk-through Riverside Park and see the foliage and the view of the Hudson River.
Between 90th and 89th Streets, take time to explore the Soldier’s & Sailors Monument on Riverside Drive and look over the monument. It was built to honor the Union Army & Navy during the Civil War. The monument was designed by the firm of Stoughton & Stoughton for the City in 1900. It was dedicated on Memorial Day of 1902 with President Theodore Roosevelt overseeing the event. The monument has seen better days and like Grant’s Tomb, could use a refurbishing. Check out the detail work and the statues. It was well-designed and detailed.
Rounding 84th Street leads you into the former edge of the Upper West Side. Back in the 90’s, one did not venture higher than 86th Street and then it became 96th Street. Now it is all the way up the west side of the island to the very tip. This whole area is being polished up and new chain stores are being opened along the Broadway corridor.
Broadway between West 105th and West 106th Streets
On the corner of 84th and Amsterdam Avenue this is a patch of green in the way of the Urban Green Space Garden run by The Urban Assembly School for Green Careers. The students run this urban garden where tomatoes, cucumbers and root vegetables are grown next to one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. The kids take a lot of pride in this stand so try to stop in and look over their produce. They are a welcoming bunch and the teachers are very encouraging as well.
I walked the remaining parts of the border of the neighborhood along Fifth Avenue and then crossed over the park to the East Side where I ended up at the 96th Street exit. I ended my walk at the El Museo del Barrio a, a Latino themed museum at the edge of the Museum Mile at 1220 Fifth Avenue to see visit the museum for the first time (See reviews on TripAdvisor & VisitingaMuseum.com).
What an interesting museum. I visited all the exhibitions as the museum is rather small and the displays are very intimate. The ‘Nkame’ exhibition was very interesting dealing with a local religion on the island that it pays great respect. It is interesting in the use of black and white used in the art. Another exhibition that really hit the economic attitude of the island was the ‘Debtfair” exhibition that explained how the island got into its financial straits and how it can be worked out. They also have a nice restaurant and gift shop that you should visit.
I took a quick tour around the Central Park Conservatory at 1230 Fifth Avenue (See reviews on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com). The garden was still in bloom with early fall flowers and green trees. Even at this time of night the conservatory was still busy. I really like the formal gardens to the south of the garden and the fountain.
My evening ended with a lecture on ‘Rising Waters around NYC’, a discussion of how the rising sea levels affected the city during Hurricane Sandy and in the future. This discussion was at the Museum of the City of New York at Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street across the street from the Central Park Conservatory at 1220 Fifth Avenue & 103rd Street (See review on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com).
Don’t miss their ongoing exhibition on ‘Core New York’ on the history of the city through the ages. It is really interesting and needs several trips to really see the exhibition in full.
The Museum of the City of New York at 1220 Fifth Avenue
I finally finished the Avenues of the neighborhood and started walking the streets. It can be a tiring process since it is a nine-block walk in the lower parts of the neighborhood. My first day in the Yorkville/Carnegie Hill section I covered everything from 96th Street to 90th Street. It also rained part of the afternoon which is no fun.
As much as it was a gloomy day, watching the kids let out of school that day boosted my energy. I forgot what it is like when a long day of school is over. These kids come out of the building with so much pent-up energy. All the laughing and yelling brought back a lot of good memories.
I took the Q back up to 96th Street and made a roundabout down FDR Drive to 92nd Street to start the walk. I knew I would not have time to do the whole neighborhood and wanted to break it up into two parts doing the neighborhood above 90th Street first.
As I turned the corner, I could feel the energy from the students who were leaving MS114 on 92nd Street for the afternoon. There was so much noise and excitement after a long day at school. It seems that this neighborhood is loaded with excellent schools both for high school and the lower grades as well.
Yorkville is home to many public and private schools. While walking around between 90th and 92nd Streets, the neighborhood is home to some of the best schools in the city. Hunter High School, The Dalton School, Nightingale-Bramford, Spence School and Chapin School are all located closer to Central Park. All of these schools have had excellent reputations since I was in high school in the eighties. Even the public schools in the neighborhood such as MS-114 have some of the best reputations in the New York City.
No matter the kids, they are still excited and noisy when they leave school and all have their cliques. They fill the smaller neighborhood restaurants and bodegas after school and yell at each other when crossing the street. It is a very lively neighborhood after 2:00pm in the afternoon between the students and the parents picking some of them up. It is nice to see parents who still give that independence to their kids to walk alone in the neighborhood with their friends. They travel in packs anyway. Ten to one these kids know how to handle themselves.
There is a nice pocket park at 92nd Street and Second Avenue to sit and relax. Located between the buildings on 92nd Street, it still has traces of the summer left with flowers blooming and the trees are still green. It’s a nice place to take a breather and watch the neighborhood go by.
This is a neighborhood with a real family feel to it. Something I did not experience in the neighborhood before school started, when the streets were quiet as people were still on vacation but now that school is back in session, it has really changed.
I can see by the number of parents, both men and women, talking time out to pick up their children from school and talk with them on the way home that they are very involved in their children’s lives. Some of the conversations I overheard were a little mature for kids that age, but I have always found the city kids to be a little more ‘hip’ to things than their suburban counterparts.
There are some great children’s stores in the area and loads of family friendly restaurants in the neighborhood. One store that I stopped at was La Librairie des Enfants at 163 East 92nd Street. This quirky little bookstore sells the most unique French language children’s picture books with a small selection of American books. It reminded me of ‘Shop Around the Corner’ in the movie, “You got Mail”.
La Librairie des Enfants at 163 East 92nd Street (closed in April of 2024)
Beautifully decorated with pretty displays and set up for the avid reader. The French salesman was very talkative to me and knows his merchandise. This is the perfect spot for local children and tourists looking for that unusual gift.
La Librairie des Enfants inside play area
Watch this interesting video on this store
Another store that is a neighborhood staple is Children’s General Store at 168 East 91st Street near Second Avenue (Closed as of 2019). This whimsical store is a hark back to when kids actually had an imagination and did not look at a cell phone all day. This is for the creative child who likes board games and arts & crafts, make believe castles and all the great little items that we as adults would call ‘stocking stuffers’. If I was a kid again, this is the first place I would visit. It has a great selection of toys for the young at heart.
As you walk the side streets of the neighborhood, you can see that on the Avenues of the neighborhood, brownstones are giving way to large newer apartment buildings but on the streets in between them are still elegant, graceful brownstones lining the streets of the upper 90’s some of the most beautiful between Lexington and Park Avenues.
There are some beautiful wooden homes lining the streets between Lexington and Park Avenue on 92nd and 91st Streets from a day long ago. To see these buildings still standing and in perfect shape is a testament of the care they receive and how well they were built in the early 1800’s. All four of these homes have special plaques on them and you should take the time to admire the work on them. Their owners have kept them in excellent shape.
As I walked around the high 90’s by 1st, 2nd and FDR Drive around the Isaacs Housing, the area is being knocked down and rebuilt with more luxurious apartment buildings and stores to match. Here and there, there is still a sprinkling of stores and restaurants that cater to people in the housing projects but this area around the housing projects just keeps changing and getting more expensive. Like the rest of uptown that I walked, many people don’t seem to have a problem living across the street from the projects.
The new plan for the Isaacs Houses with luxury buildings
What the neighborhood has that caters to everyone is the number of parks in the neighborhood. You have Central Park to the west, Carl Schurz Park to the East, Asphalt Green playground by York Avenue past 92nd Street as well as the Isaacs and the Seaburg playgrounds on 96th Street as well as a few pocket parks in the 90’s.
Walking on York Avenue in the summer of 2025
There is plenty of places for kids to play sports or just hang out and enjoy the playgrounds. The public bathrooms do still need to be worked on in these parks.
Stanley Myer Isaacs was one of New York City’s great lawyer’s and civic leaders and was Borough President of Manhattan. He helped Robert Moses; the great Parks Director build East River Drive (now FDR Drive). Judge Seabury was descended from one of the original settlers of New York and the first Bishop of New York, Dr. Samuel Seabury III. As a public servant to the City, he helped fight corruption within Tammany Hall and lead many reforms in New York City (NYCParks.org).
In the 90’s, there are also a few important museums that you should check out. On the corner of Fifth Avenue at East 92nd Street is the Jewish Museum at 1109 Fifth Avenue.
The museum was originally started in 1904 as a gift from Judge Mayer Sulzberger to the Jewish Theological Society and has since moved to the Warburg Mansion in 1944 and the museum was opened in 1947 as The Jewish Museum. I went back into the neighborhood for a visit later in the year to visit the Leonard Cohen exhibition (See reviews on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com).
The Leonard Cohen exhibition at The Jewish Museum
On the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 91st Street is the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum at 2 East 91st Street. This is housed in the old Andrew Carnegie Mansion, one of the few surviving Fifth Avenue mansions from the Gilded Age. The museum was founded in 1896 by granddaughters of Peter Cooper for the college and it fell under the Smithsonian in 1968.
The Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum at 2 East 91st Street
I went in recent to see the ‘Nature-Cooper-Hewitt Triennial’ exhibition and to walk around the grounds. The exhibition was excellent but the house itself is fun to walk around in. Take your time to visit all the floors (See review on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com).
The Triennial was nice, but the house is amazing!
Walking down York Avenue in the summer
The evening of the first night walking the streets of Yorkville, I ate at Timmy’s Restaurant on 91st and York (See review on TripAdvisor-Closed in 2018). It is a wonderful little neighborhood restaurant with outdoor seating and an extensive American menu across the street from Asphalt Green playground. I could hear the kids across the street playing soccer and screaming as they played.
Timmy’s Restaurant in Yorkville (Closed in 2018-Now Cafe Nick)
The weather had finally cleared and it was a nice warm night out, perfect for sitting outside and enjoying the breeze. What had caught my eye on the menu was the fresh soft-shell sandwich that the restaurant was running as a special. It was excellent. A lightly breaded and fried soft-shell crab on a soft brioche roll with lettuce and tomato and fresh French fries and onion rings on the side made the perfect meal.
The crab was sweet with the crunchiness of the perfect sauté. The service is friendly and very welcoming, and I highly recommend the restaurant while it is still warm out. It is nice to just sit outside and watch the world go by.
I started my second day in the neighborhood by walking the streets between 90th and 84th Streets. The weather during these two weeks really changed. One day it was boiling hot at 90 degrees and the last day in the neighborhood, it went down into the 60’s as September moved into October. I have never seen such a drastic change in a week and a half.
After another day of working the Bread station at the Soup Kitchen, it was off to the lower section of Yorkville/Carnegie Hill. I walked the top part of 84th Street between Fifth Avenue and East End Avenue, admiring the brownstones and small parks along the way. It got to be that time of the day and school let out. I have never seen such a swarm of children before.
Walking this part of the neighborhood, I noticed more that there is a large concentration not just of private, public and religious schools but all of the seem to be the best of their categories. These are not just the best in their categories in the city but in the state and country as well. The neighborhood that stretches from 96th to 84th Streets has such a great variety of schools that would make the rest of the country envious.
As I have said on previous walks, the conversations between parents and kids are always interesting to hear. These school kids sound so much more mature than their age. These kids talk politics, sports and current events just as good as any adult.
Between East 89th and 88th Streets is the Guggenheim Museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue. This Frank Lloyd Wright designed building is a treasure trove of contemporary art. The museum has been closed for renovations.
The Solomon Guggenheim Museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue
The lower parts of the streets from about 85th to 87th Streets really show old New York at its best with rows and rows of majestic brownstones and old apartment houses. Some of these are starting to get decorated for the Fall holidays noting the change in weather and October approaching. Pumpkins and haystacks are starting to replace the summer wreaths and pots of flowers.
Brownstoners really decorate their homes nicely at the holidays
Who says decorating is just for the suburbs
I started my tour of the neighborhood with a nice lunch at Arturo’s Pizza on the corner of York Avenue and 85th Street, 1610 York Avenue (See Review on TripAdvisor) for their lunch special. They have three really reasonable lunch specials until 3:30pm, one a meatball sub, another a sausage sub and the last being two slices with a Coke for $5.00. It was quite a deal.
Arturo’s Pizza at 1619 York Street is good for great lunch specials
The food is good but could be better. Yet they give you a nice size sub for $5.00. The meatball sub was loaded with fresh cut meatballs which were a nice size with tomato sauce on excellent fresh chewy bread. As big as it was it just did not have enough flavor. The sauce needed more spice and the meatballs more salt and cheese. It just did not taste like anything. It was the same two days later when finishing the walk of the neighborhood after a disastrous Chinese meal.
The meatball sub at Arturo’s was okay.
I had the two-slice special and found the pizza to have no flavor because there was no zing to the sauce. It was also oily and should have been heated up more. The food here should be better since they seem to take pride in it. It warrants a third trip as the portion is worth the money when you are hungry. They do need to concentrate on their tomato sauce though and add some spice to it.
The Cheese pizza did not have that much flavor in the sauce.
There are more great stores for kids in the lower part of the neighborhood as well. I passed Baby Bubble at 240 88th Street, which specializes in cleaning anything kid from strollers to clothes. I was impressed by the one stop shopping. Another great little store for young women is Let’s Dress Up at 345 East 85th Street #1. This is a place where you can princess for day and be treated like royalty at your own catered birthday party. Another clear idea for the creative child within.
Walking down East 84th Street in the summer of 2025
When walking through the side streets between 84th to 87th Streets between York and Third Avenue, you really see ‘old New York’. Rows and rows of beautiful, graceful brownstones line the street with their small outside gardens and potted plants. It is a step back in time to another era until you hit the Avenues and see the large modern apartment building.
East 84th Street in the Summer of 2024
Their are some apartments on East 84th Street have unique details to them. You really have to look behind the trees and around the tops of the buildings to notice the curves, spirals and faces that look out at you. This set of brick apartments stretches from 312-318 East 84th Street and were built in 1910 (StreetEasy.com).
I passed several fire stations along the way in the neighborhood. Engine 22; Ladder 13, Battalion 10 is located on 159 East 85th Street. The plaque on their fire station said that they had lost nine members on 9/11. These brave men sacrificed so much for us and still do every day making their neighborhood safe. Another old-fashioned non-functioning firehouse is Hook & Ladder 13 at 159 East 87th Street.
Founded in 1865 as a ‘suburban’ firehouse, this is no longer the firehouse for the company which has been moved. The company’s fame comes from being involved in the deadly explosion on Park Place in 1891. Kudos to these brave members of the FDNY.
Hook & Ladder 13 in Yorkville at 159 East 87th Street
As you continue down 87th Street, there is a creepy set of brownstones between 337-339 East 87th Street. The motifs on the outside of the building look like devils or ghouls and do give you the chills. It looks like a place where ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ lived when it grew up. I would love to pass these building on Friday the 13th or Halloween night.
337-339 East 87th Street-The “Rosemary’s Baby House”
This creepy looking brownstone was built between 1886-1887 by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh for the Rhinelander estate and what is interesting about the story is that the 329-335 were knocked down for the apartment building next store and the motif of this devil looking motif is carved out of 337 East 87th Street (Starts and Fits). Very interesting.
337-339 East 87th Street-The Rosemary’s Baby House
Don’t miss the ghoul like carving at 439 East 87th Street. I don’t think that one is as old. This menacing face adorns that archway of the brownstone of this two-unit home that was built in 1901.
The street art on the wall of East 87th Street and First Avenue
The street art of East 87th Street
I had to stop at Milano Market at 1582 Third Avenue on the corner of 87th Street and 3rd Avenue to cool down. The place is so beautifully set up and the prepared food section is picturesque. It is a nice place to just stand and take a breath. The place is heavily air conditioned and on a humid day, it is a great place to just walk around. The online reviews are not too pleasant for as good as their food is most of the reviews talk about rude service. I will have to go back and try it out to be fair on them.
Another place to chill out and relax on a hot day is the Church of the Holy Trinity Garden at 316 East 88th Street near Second Avenue. This beautifully landscaped garden surrounded by shade trees is the perfect place to relax on a long day. It really does offer solitude from the city and is an escape from the rest of the landscape. It was still warm, so the flowers were out and the trees offered a lot of shade.
Ruppert Park is the same located at Second Avenue between 90th and 91st Street. Named after the famous German Brewer Jacob Ruppert, the park is part of the tower complex that surrounds it. Mr. Ruppert was one of the first co-owners of the Yankees and co-owned Yankee Stadium.
This is a wonderful park to watch the dog walkers pass by and converse with one another. This is a true neighborhood park where neighbors talk and swap stories and debate politic, seniors come to relax and watch the neighbors go by and the dogs engage with one another. It is a great park for the dog walking set. I have never seen so many small, pampered dogs walking around one neighborhood.
Another great place to visit is Henderson Place at East End Avenue across from Carl Schurz Park and between 86th and 87th Streets. This is part of the Henderson Place Historical District located facing the park is what is left of the original 32 houses (24 survive today) that were built between 1881-82. They were built for people of ‘moderate means’ meanwhile now these rare little townhouses with their arched hallways and small gardens and rare parking lots are now worth about $4.6 million when one went on sale recently. They were built in the Queen Ann style of architecture and look so elegant at night when walking on the park side of the street.
Henderson Place Historic District at 535 East 86th Street
I stopped at Glaser’s Bakery at 1670 First Avenue (see review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC-Closed in 2018) and all I have to say is YUM! I love discovering new bakeries around the city especially one that has been around since 1902. Everything here is delicious and very reasonable. In this hyper-gentrifying City, it is nice to see a piece of ‘old New York’ alive and well. Both afternoons I came here the place was mobbed.
Glaser’s Bake Shop at 1670 First Avenue (Closed in 2018)
The pastries are mind blowingly good! The first time I went I had to get one of their black and white cookies ($2.25) are the rage of the internet. Everyone was not kidding. They are excellent. Not the usual fondant icing but more of a butter cream frosting they literally melt in your mouth. They have this Danish called a Crumb Cookie ($3.25) that is loaded on top with sweet cinnamon crumbs and lots of icing on top. It is so big I had to bring the rest home.
Their doughnuts ($1.50) are worth the trip alone. The jelly doughnuts are filled with a sweet currant type jelly and their sugar doughnuts are loaded with a layer of cinnamon sugar. Do not miss this bakery when visiting New York City.
On the opposite note, I ate dinner that day at Five Luck Chinese restaurant on 1834 Second Avenue (see review on TripAdvisor-Now Closed) right near the new Q subway line (Closed in January 2020). It was the worst Chinese meal I had ever eaten! I had no idea that food cooked by Chinese could be this bad. First the place is old and depressing to eat in and I have eaten at loads of these little hole in the wall restaurants all over the city. If anyone from China ate here, they would laugh and then cry it is that bad.
I ordered a Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce with fried rice with a pork Egg Roll. Now when I think of Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce, I think of sliced pork loin sautéed with brown Hunan Sauce with garlic and ginger. I got this gloppy roast pork with a pile of uncooked vegetables with a side of yellow rice with a ton of bean sprouts in them. I had no clue what I was eating. I ate the egg roll, and it was barely passable as a frozen egg roll.
The dish was worse than any middle school cafeteria version of Chinese food. I ate three bites on it and handed it back to them and said to the owner that it was inedible. Rather than fight over a dish that cost $4.85 or ask for anything else, I walked out and never looked back. Avoid this place like the plague. I went back to Arturo’s for their pizza.
Rounding the corner at Fifth Avenue and East 86th Street is the Neue Museum at 1048 Fifth Avenue. Neue Galerie New York is a museum devoted to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design. Located in a landmark mansion built in 1914 by the architectural firm of Carrere & Hastings, the museum offers a diverse program of exhibitions, lectures, films, concerts and other events.
It was that afternoon I finally got to see the famous painting, “The Woman in Gold” made famous by the movie. The museum specializes in German and Austrian art (See reviews on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com).
The famous “Woman in Gold” by Gustav Klimt
As I walked down East 84th Street, I noticed the beauty of each block while getting closer to the river. The streets were so beautiful while in bloom.
Sitting quietly in the middle of East 84th Street is the tiny NYU Institute of Study of Ancient Art at 15 East 84th Street. This branch of the New York University Art Department specializes in Ancient Art and offers a scholarly approach to the ancient arts of European and Middle Eastern Art.
Don’t miss the NYU Institute of Study of Ancient Art at 15 East 84th Street near the Met
When I last visited, they were showing the “A Wonder to Behold: Craftsmanship and Creation of Babylon’s Ishtar Gate” exhibition on Ancient Mesopotamian art.
They were showing Ancient Middle Eastern art when I visited
I finished my last day of my three-day trip relaxing in Carl Schurz Park. Carl Schurz was a very interesting man who did a lot for his country. Born in Prussia, he fought during the Revolution and escaped the country to immigrate to Paris when he was on the losing side.
He and his wife immigrated to the United States in 1852. Here he served as a Brigadier General in the Civil War, after the War he served as a U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes working to fight corruption in the Office of Indian Affairs and after his stint in the government, went back to his newspaper work (Wiki).
Mayor de Blasio must have been having a party because everyone in the park could hear the band. On this warm night every dog walker and child with a parent must have been in the park. Even at twilight, the place was mobbed as well as the river walk with people admiring the river views. It is still summer and I got a nice taste of it today. The park is beautiful anytime of the year (See review on TripAdvisor and VisitingaMuseum.com).
What a beautiful neighborhood to live in. The park is particularly colorful in the Spring when the Cherry Blossoms are in bloom. This is a family’s dream. Access to the neighborhood: The 6 & Q subways. Stop at 96th Street.
The park in the Summer of 2024
The park’s gardens in the Summer of 2024
The park in the middle of the Summer of 2025
The park in the summer months
I had the opportunity before my tour of Gracie Mansion to walk along the esplanade and see the views of the Hudson River. It was such a beautiful day to walk along the river side.
The riverfront and Hellgate in the summer
The gardens in Carl Schulz Park
The beautiful walkway
The view of the Queens skyline
The view of the river walkway in the middle of the summer
Check out my blogs on walking the Yorkville/Upper East Side neighborhood:
Day Eighty-Nine: Walking the Avenues of Yorkville/Carnegie Hill/Upper East Side:
Open: Sunday 11:00am-5:00pm/Monday 11:00am-6:00pm/ Tuesday and Wednesday Closed/Thursday-Saturday 11:00am-6:00pm
Café and Shops have various hours. Please check the website for these.
Fee: General $22.00/Seniors (65 and Older) $16.00/Students and Educators $12.00/Children under 12 are not admitted and Children under 16 years old must be accompanied by an adult. The museum is open on First Fridays from 6:00pm-9:00pm. Please visit the website for more information.
After a long day in the Soup Kitchen prepping vegetables for future meals, I started my day uptown at the Samuel Seabury Park on 96th Street off the 6 subway line. It is a good place for a bathroom break in the area with the other being the Samuel Isaacs Park on 96th Street and 1st Avenue. There are not too many public bathrooms in this area.
The one thing I might want to mention that I am beginning to notice and it is not just in the poorer areas is that number of empty store fronts as well as the closing of many older businesses that I had seen in the area from the 80’s and 90’s. I guess the 20 year leases are coming up and they are jacking the rents up sky-high in some areas. When Ottomanelli’s Restaurant, which had been in this neighborhood since 1902 closes, you know there is a problem ( I think they may be camping further uptown now).
The businesses again change closer to the housing complexes with smaller more reasonable restaurants around 2nd and 1st Avenues. This is not a section with lots of upscale shops and restaurants though I think some of the prices at the restaurants are due to the ongoing raise in the rents in the area.
The neighborhood is very diverse in its housing stock depending on the block and in its businesses. Being so close to Central Park gives you a sense of green though there are many nice smaller parks in the neighborhood. Though it is an expensive neighborhood I am sure it is not as expensive as its southern neighbors on this side of the park.
The number 6 subway will take you directly to Samuel Seabury Park at 96th Street, the start of many bathroom breaks. When you are walking the Avenues on the East Side, you need to know where the public bathrooms are located. This is a very active park during the school year. I would think that the city would have these bathrooms in better condition though.
The park is named after the late Judge Samuel Seabury who roots laid in Colonial Manhattan and had fought the corruption of Tammany Hall. Who knew a late Judge could still be so helpful many years later.
Madison Avenue has its unique boutique-ness to it especially further downtown. Above 85th Street, it is more localized shops and restaurants. I had discovered that many businesses from the early 90’s like Sarabeth’s Kitchen were still operating (at much higher prices than I remembered). This location closed with the closing of the Hotel Wales in July 2020.
Sarabeth’s Kitchen at 1286 Madison Avenue (Closed in July 2020)
One of the most beautiful and unique buildings on Madison Avenue is the Hunter College building at East 94th Street, which looks like a castle. The building is now used for the Hunter College High School and Elementary School, considered one of the best public schools in the city and you need a special test to get into it.
The Squadron A Armory is now part of the Hunter Campus 1345-1355 Madison Avenue
The building itself, built as the Squadron A Armory in 1896 by New York contractor, John F. Johnson, previously called the Madison Avenue Armory building, resembles a castle. It is constructed out of red bricks and was partially demolished in the 1960’s but bought by Hunter College for the expanding school (Wiki). Take a good look around the grounds, there is a real beauty in this enchanted castle housing some of the brightest kids in New York City.
Madison Avenue from 96th Street to 84th Street houses lots of local boutiques and restaurants and a few smaller hotels tucked here and there. The buildings are mostly prewar apartment buildings with some new construction thrown in here and there. Its the Upper East Side without the pretension.
Park Avenue is what Park Avenue does best below 98th Street, is an elegant enclave of prewar and turn of the last century apartment buildings with very little business or retail outside of the doctors offices. The Avenue is lined with elegant, old-world buildings with the well-manicured gardens of the street ‘mall’ going from the top of the railroad tracks on 98th Street down to the border of the neighborhood on 84th Street. The mall was ablaze with red and white flowers for the late summer blooms. I don’t think this area has changed much since the 1920’s.
The Park Avenue Mall
The Avenue was quiet that afternoon less the preppie teenagers walking with their sports gear and mom’s and nannies wheeling kids around. There is always a certain feel to this part of Park Avenue, quiet, elegant and sedate. I am sure its not that way in real life but that is the way it appears to the average person walking down the sidewalk.
One standout building on Park Avenue amongst all the elegant apartment buildings is the Lewis Gouverneur House at 85th Street. The house was named for its owner, a failed investment banker who was related to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The house was designed by architect Ernest Flagg and designed in red brick neo-Federalist building that was completed in 1914 and it stands out amongst all the apartment buildings in the area (Wiki/Daytonian).
The latest article I read is that the house is up for sale for $8 million dollars, but I swear that I saw a cook and maid looking me over when I looked over the house, so I am sure it has been sold by this point. Someone was even hanging over the windows cleaning them as I passed.
I had not noticed on a recent trip all the beautiful historic churches along Park Avenue. I walked past Loyola Church at 980 Park Avenue and Park Avenue Christian Church at 1010 Park Avenue. The churches were closed for the day but I was able to admire the architecture from the outside
The Church of St. Ignatius Loyola was built in 1900 by the architectural firm of Schickel & Ditmars in the German Baroque and Classical Revival style. Park Avenue Christian Church was designed by the architectural firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson and was designed in the Gothic Revival design. The church was built in 1911 (Wiki).
After turning the corner at 84th Street, I walked over to Lexington Avenue, and it is night and day to the enclaves of 5th and Park Avenues. Talk about a busy commercial street. This is where you are seeing changes in the feel of the neighborhood. Many of the retail spaces that I have remembered that were there for years when I moved back to the area in 2001 are long gone.
A lot of the neighborhood has been knocked down and many new residential and office buildings have replaced them. Some of my favorite bakeries and pizzerias are also long gone. Still my favorite Panera on 86th Street is still there for the Asiago and Cinnamon Crunch bagels that I love to snack on while on my way to the Met (Closed in 2018).
Here and Third Avenue is where you start to see the ‘For Rent’ signs. It is sad that so many businesses that have been here for twenty years, the leases are coming up and the rise in rents is just sky high for the new owners. I have read more articles on the prices that they want in rent and there is no way the average business can handle this. Even some of the chain restaurants have left the area. If you do not own the building, forget it. This shopping area is transforming again.
Third Avenue above 90th Street, you will start to see a lot of new construction, as a lot more buildings are going up on both sides of the street. The Upper East Side is slowly crawling into this area and a lot of the older smaller buildings are starting to disappear. The store fronts between 90th and 93rd are starting to empty as all the older restaurants have closed their doors.
Second Avenue is changing as well in the area of 90th Street and above. This has a totally different feel then the neighborhood above in East Harlem. Slowly though, these neighborhoods are starting to merge as new construction on Second and First Avenue below 96th Street changes from housing projects to private apartment buildings. Even the brownstones are giving way to larger apartment buildings, which is starting to change the character of the neighborhood. It’s a lot of sameness.
I ended the second day in the neighborhood having a late lunch at East Garden Chinese Restaurant at 1685 First Avenue & 88th Street (See review on TripAdvisor and DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). This little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant has lunch specials for $5.95 and a very nice variety of dishes.
Don’t miss East Garden Chinese Restaurant at 1685 First Avenue (Closed May 2024)
I had the General Tso’s chicken combination plate with fried rice and a Coke that cost $7.00 with tax and I just about finished it. The chicken was excellent. It was well cooked and the sauce had some pinch to it. The fried rice was less to be desired but overall the meal was very good for the end of this first long walk of the neighborhood.
Their General Tso’s Chicken is excellent
On the second day of the walk, I revisited Second and First Avenues and covered the rest of the neighborhood that include York, Henderson and East End Avenues as well as walking around Carl Schurz Park for a second time.
Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side is a real treat
I finished up Second Avenue for a second time, looking over the businesses and parks. Slowly I noticed as I looked at menu’s of restaurants and the types of stores opening up that a lot of the mom and pop stores are giving way to more chains and the restaurants are getting awfully expensive even this high up.
The Upper East Side in the summer of 2025
There are a few hold outs in way of Chinese restaurants especially closer to the Samuel Isaacs Complex on 96th and First Avenue but even around the projects there soon won’t be too many affordable places to eat. I mean come on, $16.00 for a hamburger? Its a hamburger at the end of the day. For a reasonable meal, you will have to walk up above 100th Street.
There are several little surprises as you walk around the neighborhood. Behind the Ruppert Apartment Buildings on Third Avenue is the Ruppert Park between 90th and 91st Streets, which offered a place of rest after walking around. This block long park must have been a negotiation between the city and the developer to build these huge apartment buildings and the neighborhood really benefited from it. The park was named for Colonel Jacob Ruppert, the first co-owner of the New York Yankees and a brewer and public official.
Colonel Jacob Ruppert, the first co-owner of the Yankees
It is a nice meeting place for residents to talk and walk their dogs. Many of the neighborhood seniors seem to like to sit on the benches and talk to their friends. The playground is nice for the kids as they were out in full force before the first day of school started a few days later.
Tucked away on a side street on 91st Street across from the park, this is a plaque dedicated to James Cagney, the actor and singer, who later played tough guys in the movies. He must have lived in this area growing up.
First Avenue is starting to give way from brownstones to apartment buildings in the 90’s and up. On the lower part, the chain stores are starting to dominate while the mom and pop stores still are holding on. There still are a few German restaurants in the neighborhood but they seem few and far between on the Avenues. Its mostly small businesses and a few small shops.
York Avenue and East End Avenue are both tucked below the Asphalt Green playground and recreational area below FDR Drive and 92nd Street. The three days that I walked around the neighborhood, Asphalt Green was crowded with kids playing all sorts of sports, basketball, soccer or even playing Frisbee. The shocking part was getting an ice from the lady selling Spanish ices. Below 96th Street, they start charging $2.00 instead of $1.00 like above 100th Street. I guess they see us coming.
The Asphalt Green playing fields on the Upper East Side
York Avenue is one of those places that looks like New York City with the combination of apartment buildings that look like they are out of the 70’s, elegant but not pretentious and the area looked lived in like the residents have lived there for 40 years. There is a mix of building types that gives the Avenue some character and tucked here and there are small apartment buildings and brownstones.
The brownstones around East 84th Street
East End Avenue is dominated by Carl Schurz Park where Gracie Mansion is located. Around the park, there are several beautiful brownstones especially between 86th and 87th Street that give the park that extra graciousness. These brick buildings are carefully maintained and beautifully landscaped and mirror the park across the street.
Carl Schulz Park in the summer
Carl Schulz Park in the summer
The small side streets south of the park such as the extension of 84th Street (Gracie Place) house old apartment buildings with excellent views of the park and very nosy doorman, who watched me watching them. Sometimes I wonder what impression I give these people that they stare so much at me or maybe after a year in Harlem, I am getting used to the inquisitive looks.
The neighborhood near Carl Schurz Park is very elegant
As I finished up the Avenues in Yorkville/Carnegie Hill, I just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon in Carl Schurz Park, looking at Randalls-Ward Island and Astoria Queens in the distance and admiring the breathtaking view of the river. This section of the park along the river walkway is so picturesque and relaxing. Labor Day had such wonderful weather and it was such a clear sunny day, that is was nice to just sit on a bench and watch the world go by.
All along the river, jet skis zoomed by and an occasional sailboat passed by as well. It was one of those afternoons you see in movies about New York City but sometimes never experience. All I could think about as I was watching the world go by is that this is what people think New York is and they are right.
The inside of the park
The bend in the river at the esplande
This location on the bend of the river on a nice day you have to experience for yourself to understand how great it is. What was a nice touch was that two people playing the cello and the violin came into the park to perform and collect money. That’s the real New York.
Carl Schurz Park with Roosevelt Island in the back
The view of Roosevelt Island
I ended the day eating a late lunch/dinner at a restaurant on Second Avenue named Shorty’s at 1678 First Avenue (See review on TripAdvisor), which is known for their Philly Cheesesteaks. It was pretty good for New York City, where you have to hop the Acela down to Center City for a Cheesesteak at Carmine’s in the Reading Market. Here the bartender told me that they import the hoagie rolls from Philly and cook it on the flat grill and top with Cheese Wiz (God, do I love that on a sandwich).
Shorty’s is at 1678 First Avenue for the best cheesesteaks in NYC (Closed in 2020)
For the $10.00 price and a side of Bay Seasoning fries, it was well-worth the money. It saved the $200.00 trip to Philly I would soon have to make, and that chewy cheesy sandwich was a great way to end my trip of the Avenues of the neighborhood. Now the streets await.
Shorty’s has the best cheesesteaks outside of Philly
The cheesesteaks are delicious and very close to the good ones I had in Philly.
Please read my other blogs on the Upper East Side/Yorkville/Carnegie Hill walks:
Day Eighty-Eight: Walking the Border of the Upper East Side/Yorkville/Carnegie Hill:
mywalkinmanhattan 