Mary Cassatt - Children Playing on the Beach
This series would not be complete without homage to the two activities that have followed me, once since my birth, the other since fifth grade: the beaches and bike paths of Brooklyn.
The things we did last summer, I’ll remember all winter long …
Petie removed to Long Island the summer we turned nine, I was abruptly planted into the unyielding concrete and asphault of a new neighborhood, a new apartment, and a new set of kid challenges. The one constant was my bedroom. This apartment had a long, dark hallway that led to an urban-dweller’s version of Siberia … and another closet-sized room with no door.
All things have a cycle; a beginning, a middle and an end. Today I revisit the middle, those changes that began the summer we moved from the neighborhood of Sunset Park.
What we would always call the “old neighborhood” would fade, trolleys in New York City vanish and everything in our lives turn inside itself.
Coney Island Trolley
I’ve tried so to forget, at times I do, and yet …
On the southern tip of Brooklyn, as you drive along Shore Parkway facing the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean, the land curves around the penninsula that stretches out for miles and ends at Montalk Point in Long Island.
Between the first beach community of Sea Gate, to the first ocean bays of Rockaway Beach in Queens, the Brooklyn landscape is dotted with wide beaches, fishing communities, and small enclaves nestled inside safe harbors, along salt marshes or huddled inside hundreds of newly constructed co-operative buildings shadowing the boardwalk.
The memory of you lingers like our song …
Sea Gate … is a private, gated community at the far western end of Coney Island at the southwestern tip of Brooklyn.
PICTURE OF SEA GATE
The Coney Island Boardwalk ends with one drop into the ocean, a fortified sea wall and a tall chain link fence … announcing the beginning of Sea Gate. Look but do not enter this very “private beadh” without a pass.
Although summer is when Sea Gate comes alive with people of all ages walking the streets in bathing attire, my most vivid memory of Sea Gate was not from summer, however.
It was during one violent Nor-easter that eroded this lovely little beachfront, damaged several houses … and while New Yorkers looked on in disbelief one house torn from its foundation … floated out to sea.
Coney Island … with its three miles of wide beaches was often my family and friend’s final destination … the last stop on the Sea Beach Express. Across Surf Avenue, plant your blankets on your favorite “bay,” and enjoy fun in the sun and surf.
It also houses the most famous hot-dog stand in the country, Nathan’s, an amazing amusement park, the Seaquariam a bandshell and … Oh, yes … I can’t forget the Cyclone.
Coney Island has many of its own posts and snippets that I will revisit during another round of City Scapes.
PICTURE AND REFERENCE FOR CONEY ISLAND
Brighton Beach … the second beach community connected to the Coney Island Boardwalk was the place we had to be as teenagers.
For decades it was an exciting ethnic and cultural mix of people, shops, great deli’s, and Mom and Pop candy stores. But like everything else in our great city, change is the only constant. The delightful mixture of culture we experienced in the shops and eateries of Brighton Beach, those of our Jewish, Italian and Greek neighbors has all but vanished.
The seventies and eighties brought radical changes in housing and one pronounced change in population … renaming our lovely beach community of Brighton Beach to “Little Odessa,” from Odessa, a city of Ukraine.
As many of my Russian neighbors in Washington Heights loved to point out, Odessa should not be confused with Russia because the Ukraine was partitioned into the Soviet Union.
Photo and reference credit.
Manhattan Beach … is a residential neighborhood bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, by Sheepshead Bay on the north and Brighton Beach to the west.
Adjacent to the beach, families could swim, put hot dogs on the “barbie” and enjoy a weekend picnic at conveniently located table and grills.
Traditionally known as an Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish neighborhood, it is also home to a sizable community of Separdi Jews and a large Russian Jewish immigrant population.
REFERENCE AND PHOTO OF MANHATTAN BEACH
Nothing remains the same … while all of life changes.
Two of the most radical ethnic shifts in Brooklyn have been the influx of Russians into Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Graves End and as far adrift as Sheepshead Bay.
The other amazing change has been the thousands of Asian, mostly Chinese, that now dominate the areas of Bensonhurst and Bath Beach.
My old neighborhood of Sunset Park is now known to many New York residents as Brooklyn’s China Town and the Italian, Greek, Scandinavian and Jewish shops and merchants where I shopped for my family, all replaced by Asian shops and merchants.
The things we did last summer, I’ll remember all winter long …
A little known fact about Brooklyn are our small boating and fishing communities. Happily, for those who live in the borough, a precious few of our “old neighborhoods” have survived and remain pristine examples of a lifestyle too many others have lost to the ravages of zealot housing development.
Sheepshead Bay … is a lovely fishing community snuggled inside a small inlet where fishing boats take anglars out for the catch of the day, or as the case might be, take them out for a day of beer and bad jokes. Mostly the men buy what the professional fishermen catch and tell tall fish “tales” their wives choose to believe.
Photo credit
Gerritsen Beach … The last beach community in Brooklyn, before the beginning of the endless waves and boarwalks of Rockaway and Far Rockaway beaches, is the beach community of Gerritsen Beach.
Located on a peninsula in the southeastern part of Brooklyn, Gerritsen Beach nestles quietly near Marine Park’s salt marsh, in a residential area split by the Gotham Avenue Canal.
Photo credit.
Gerritsen Beach is surrounded and dissected by waterways, lush brick houses, narrow sidewalks and a beachfront at the end of Gerritsen Avenue for anglers to fish, horseback riding, for people to walk and think, a place to enjoy peace and solitude. It is one of the serene pockets of the boroughs New Yorkers keep like a secret they fear too many will discover, over develop and destroy.
The early morning hike, the rented tandem bike …
Several neighborhoods follow the Brooklyn Narrows, under the Narrows Bridge, past the tall steeple of St. Michael’s Church, headed for New York Harbor. They are Bath Beach, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Red Hook, where a new Manhattan Ferry has begun operating to alleviate subway and vehicular traffic into the city.
In each of these neighborhoods there are beautiful bike paths that wind past giant oak and flowering bushes; such as can be found in Prospect or Owl’s Head Parks.
The lunches that we used to pack …
I love fat-tire mountain bikes (also known as beach cruisers) with wide seats and a basket to carry my radio and my towel. The kind of bike that uses only foot breaks, straight handlebars and peddle power.
Thousands of other New Yorkers share my love for and obsession with bikes, and have been the driving force behind dozens of great bike paths. Unlike the hills of Northern Manhattan or the long slopes along Riverside Drive, Brooklyn offers an endless cycle of flat terrane banked by our waterways.
BIKE PATH ALONG SHORE PARKWAY
Shore Parkway Waterfront Greenway, Bay Ridge – This greenway boasts some beautiful water front cycling with impressive views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
This was my haven for more than five years, and the last place in Brooklyn I lived with my children before moving to Washington Heights in Manhattan.
It also offers beautiful parks along the whole length of the route, including pier 69 at its North end and Owls Head Park just inland from the pier. At the other end sits Bensonhurst Park with ample grass, benches and the Breakpoint Tennis Center.
The Coney Island Boardwalk … Bike along the three mile Coney Island boardwalk. Once available to bikers any time of the day or night, this is now restricted to posted times before 9am and after 6pm. What a loss !!
Photo Credit
The boardwalk at Coney Island is yet another example of the demise of better times. City Planners have battled with local community leaders against covering the wooden planks along the beach with concrete:
“Perhaps in the future, a cost effective, durable local wood will become available. But the locally harvested wood options currently under discussion do not meet the needs of the Boardwalk and are not feasible. The Parks Department’s proposed recycled plastic and concrete solution best ensures the long-term sustainability and durability of the Coney Island Boardwalk.” Reference.
The things we did last summer, I’ll remember all winter long …
Whether riding along the ocean front, cruising along the Brooklyn Narrows or biking in the dozens of parks, one gets a different perspective of people and nature on a bike.
It is a slower pace, a more even keel than a car or motorcycle. The sensation of wheels rolling over pedestrian sidewalks or parallel with traffic, the bumps and jumps, the views of sunsets and the bright sun of a new day are part of the delight for those who love to ride.
Leave the car keys at home and take a bike out early in the morning and watch the fog lift off the water wake, ride out during the heat of the afternoon under the dazzling yellow-orange of the sun or roll into the purle-pinks of sunset, and commune with your natural habitat.
How about you, where do you frollic with nature?
What places are a safe haven for your kids to play?
_________________
Note: Song lyrics from: The Things We Did Last Summer. (Written by songwriters: Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. Full song lyrics.
Graphic credit.
Beginning Wednesday, July 4th and continuing for three weeks, you will be treated to three of my “authors in residence,” members of my RWA-Women’s Fiction On-line Chapter.
In alphabetical order, please be sure to join me in welcoming three talented writers; each with a unique voice and a different style: Marilyn Brant, Shelley Freydont (a/w/a Shelley Nobel), andKristina McMorris.
I will not review their books, nor will I delved into their fascinating author bio’s. I will, of course, link to both and urge you to take time to visit with each as you meet them here in July.
These are among the dozens of writer/friends fellow group members I have had the pleasure of reading. And I can assure you, there are a dozen good reasons why you should take the time to find their books and read them.
That being said, once more I exercise the subjective view of the people and things I love about writing, reading and our writerly life here in cyber space.
fOISinTheCity 