Sunday Afternoon in Canarsie: Mister Softee at Canarsie Pier

(Video courtesy n977ll)

Monday Afternoon in Bay Ridge: A Walk Along the Water

This afternoon, needing to clear our head, we took a walk along the water just a few blocks from where we've been staying in Bay Ridge: first along Shore Road and then over the Belt Parkway around and under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

It was a lovely walk, reminding us how we've loved this place forever. As we headed home, on 99th Street between Fourth and Third Avenues, we were startled to see two brick mid-century homes next to each other, each of which had a stained-glass panel with a vent that featured a sailboat, the same kind in our small bedroom in the house on East 56th Street where we grew up.

We were grateful to be reminded of this sailboat. We used to look out of the window a lot as a kid and think about the little sailboat.

Early Tuesday Morning in Bay Ridge: After Hurricane Sandy at the Narrows and the Verrazano Bridge

We survived the brunt of Hurricane Sandy in Bay Ridge without a loss of power. Going out at 8 a.m. to the walkway across the empty Belt Parkway by Gravesend Bay, the Narrows and the Brooklyn side of the closed Verrazano Bridge, the waters were angry and choppy.

When we got there it was close to high tide and the waters started going over the rail but it was raining lightly. It started to rain hard.

Here are some pics we took of the parkway entrance and Shore Road on our way back home.

Early Monday Morning in Bay Ridge: Watching Hurricane Sandy at Shore Road Park

At 7:30 a.m., With New York City shut down, we walked a few blocks from our new Bay Ridge sublet to Shore Road Park

to see what Hurricane Sandy looked like so far.

Since New Yorkers were warned to stay out of parks, this was either daring or foolish, as attested to by branches that had fallen.

Luckily none fell on our head.

Back on the safety of Fourth Avenue, we saw this poster for the young challenger to the incumbent Republican congressman. Democrat Mark Murphy is the son of John M. (Jack) Murphy, our old congressman from the 1960s, whom we used to write frequently during our years as an annoying teenager.

Back on Third and Fourth Avenues, the 24-hour Walgreens was still open, as were most of the mom-and-pop (mostly Bangladeshi) newsstands/delis (which have replaced the candy stores/ luncheonettes of our Brooklyn youth in the 50s and 60s) and the (very Greek) Athens Market.

Yesterday afternoon, after we braved the lines for food, water and supplies at Foodtown,

it seemed like everything was shutting down: the Starbucks on Third Avenue at 92nd Street;

Century 21 on the 86th Street shopping district, where the Christmas decorations already are up;

and of course the subway system, shown by this sign that went up in mid-afternoon yesterday at the R train terminus at 95th Street station entrance.

This morning we stopped in every place that was open except the laundromat and a tailor shop because we felt we needed to buy something.

Our umbrella never got opened because of the wind, but we had on a down parka with a hood (over just a Brooklyn College T-shirt). By the end of our hour's walk, the winds had picked up a lot from when we started out; it was definitely noticeable. At some crossings, the water was already making puddles. These sandbags were trying to stop a store's basement from being flooded.

It's a pretty anxious day in New York, but at the early hour, looking out over the Narrows to Staten Island, with light traffic still moving on the Belt Parkway and the Verrazano Bridge, it seemed quite peaceful and beautiful.

Tuesday Morning in Bergen Beach: Exploring the Woods and Wilds of Bergen Beach

This morning we again took advantage of the springlike and sunny weather to explore a haunt of our childhood: we went to see if we could find the wooded marshlands in Bergen Beach where we used to go with our bike in the late '50s and the '60s (ususally when we were playing hookey from Hebrew school, which we hated).

Surprisingly, we found exactly where we used to hang out and they're still wild.

We got the L train around 7 a.m. and took it to the final stop in Canarsie, the Rockaway Parkway terminus, and made two bus transfers, taking the B82 up Flatlands to Ralph Avenue.

In front of The Arch Diner where we had lots of lunches and dinners in the '70s, we got the B47 bus down Ralph Avenue to the end of the route by the Avenue U entrance to Kings Plaza, just a couple of blocks away from where we grew up.

There we got the B3 across Avenue U, getting off in Bergen Beach as it turned on East 73rd. We walked the few blocks east past Royce Avenue and then at Bergen Avenue, we came to the end of the line and the woods. There's a private yacht club property by Avenue U, but we were going south of that.

Houses line one side and woods the other.

We were worried there was no way to enter, but we found the old trails we remember from childhood. This area was much less built up half a century ago. Bergen Beach and Mill Basin were just being developed on swampy marshland on a big scale then (houses were known for "settling" - in other words, sinking). Around here there was a riding stables place where our stepcousin Merryl boarded her beloved horse back in the mid-1960s. Tragically, the Bergen Beach Stables were destroyed in a fire in 2000 which left 21 horses dead and makes us cry just to think about it.

Anyway, we wandered along the paths of the woods/marshland and found what we'd remembered. This place is really just north of the Belt Parkway and we used to come here on in the afternoon and explore. We see kids still must come here, given the evidence of a slightly deflated soccer ball.

We called these "bamboo" as a kid and we still dont' really know any better.

Here the ground got muddy.

And magically this morning, we found at the end of the path the one spot we wanted to see: where the woods opens up to the waters and you can see the Mill Basin Bridge of the Belt Parkway (soon to be rebuilt).

We were always here alone and thought it was our secret discovery.

We found another path we remembered, going north.

Here the ground turned from dirt to beach-style sand.

We found some greenish plant life. Ferns?

And some berries growing on the trees.

The last ten minutes, as we struggled to get out of the woods on the north side, we had to make our way through thick brambles. Where's that machete when you need it? Anyway, even without one, we managed to disturb a racoon and a feral cat as we attempted our exit, stage right, as Snagglepuss - a cartoon deity from back then - used to say.

We found ourself finally free of the brambles and emerging on the property of the yacht club. Nobody saw us and we scurried down Avenue U from the pastoral woods of our childhood to twenty-first century Brooklyn civilization: new condos for sale.

But it was a fantastic little journey back to what we felt was our secret place circa 1960, and we're grateful we were able to retrace our half-century-old steps. This part of Brooklyn was a great place for a kid to grow up then: we were city, suburbs and country all in one.