Sunday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Celebrating Easter, Passover and Spring at Grand Ferry Park

As the sun remained out and temperatures jumped into the 70°s on this Easter afternoon,

we headed out across Grand Street to the waterfront

and the joys of Grand Ferry Park, named for the 19th century Grand Street Ferry, which once carried farm goods and passengers across the East River to Manhattan.

One of the New York Times's most stylish reporters, Sarah Maslin Nir, had a piece in today's Metro section in which she wrote

Come the warm weather, New Yorkers become pleasure seekers; we’re an outdoorsy bunch — at least when the weather’s nice. . .

According to the calendar, it’s been spring for the past five weeks. But you could have fooled me. Since the vernal equinox on March 20, the official start of the season,

we’ve had nearly two weeks’ worth of days on which the temperature has not yet reached above 50 degrees. On average, this spring is two and a half degrees colder than usual.

And it has rained almost 20 of those days, making the season thus far 27 percent wetter than in most years (not to mention March 24, the day that shall live in infamy, when there was measurable snowfall). Still, dotted amid the gloomy days and the dreary ones have been a few bright, balmy afternoons

— fool’s gold, or so they’ve seemed. . .

Perhaps this afternoon was the real thing.

What we love about this spot is that you get a good view of all three bridges: the Williamsburg, the Manhattan and the Brooklyn.

We're grateful that it got as warm as 80° and that today's predicted thunderstorms held off

so that we could get out of that furshlugginer suit and tie and enjoy walking around Williamsburg in our T-shirt and shorts like normal people.

Sunday Morning in Williamsburg: Easter Mass at St. Francis of Paola

We attended Easter Mass this morning at St. Francis of Paola Roman Catholic Church.

Until a few months ago, St. Francis of Paola was its own parish -- which it had been since World War I -- but in the wave of recent consolidations in the Diocese of Brooklyn, it's been merged with St. Cecilia on Herbert Street in Greenpoint and and St. Nicholas on Olive Street to form the Parish of Divine Mercy.

It had been a while -- okay, years -- since we'd last been to Mass. But a certain persistent young person who can sometimes be petulant if we pretend to be hard of hearing asked us to attend.

Additionally, we were told to wear a suit and tie, which made us about as happy about as Bart Simpson usually is on Sunday mornings.

Okay, we got presentable enough to pass muster.

Walking fast for several blocks down Conselyea Street, we arrived for a packed 10:30 a.m. Mass with just a few minutes to spare. We were glad to see people were still going in when we got there because a certain person assumed we wouldn't make it on time.

When berated for coming in too late to get a seat up closer, we told a certain someone, the Holy Spirit is everywhere.

Including if you manage to sit on the aisle

although this was left over from the earlier bilingual Mass in Italian and English and wasn't all that useful to us now.

Ah, this was better.

We actually did enjoy the service a great deal

and had to admit it was sort of nice to be in church on Easter.

And we're glad we went to Mass today.

As we left church, someone said, "I told you so."

Happy Easter!

Sunday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Tightrope Walkers in McCarren Park

Among the many pleasures and myriad sights of a sunny, summery Easter Sunday afternoon in McCarren Park were these skilled tightrope walkers.