Friday Morning in Manhattan Beach: Good Friday Breakfast at Manhattan Beach

On this beautiful Good Friday morning we made it to Manhattan Beach in less than hour from Williamsburg, thanks to quick connections on the B48 bus at Lorimer and Metropolitan, the B train at Prospect Park, and the B1 bus on Brighton Beach Avenue after we got a bialy and iced tea to take to the beach.

So we were here before 8:30 a.m. and it was beautiful to smell the salt air and see the ocean again.

This was "our" Brooklyn beach in adolescence and our twenties and was pretty much the same for kids like us who lived in southeastern Brooklyn and were driving in our teens. We remember one time when we'd driven here alone when we were about 20 and started chatting up the two girls at the next blanket. Finally one said, "You don't realize how old we are" and told us they were married women around 30. (Of course they'd assumed we were about 17, not 20.) We have a June memory of someone's transistor playing Beatles songs, and later, "Band of Gold." Today the bare trees made it clear that it is not yet June.

We first came here with our ninth grade friends from Meyer Levin J.H.S. 285 on the Brooklyn Day holiday in 1966. Unlike Coney Island or Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach didn't have a subway right there, nor stores or amusements. In those days the B49 bus, which we took on our way back, to the Sheepshead Bay Road Q/B station, didn't go into Manhattan Beach but ran only to the end of Ocean Avenue, and we had to walk over the wooden Ocean Avenue bridge over the bay and then through the streets of Manhattan Beach (the neighborhood) to get to the beach.

It's a lot smaller than Coney and Brighton to the east, a little curved cove of sand. To us, it's the nicest stretch of beach in Brooklyn except for the little private beach slightly to the east on the campus of Kingsborough Community College, where we taught between 1978 and 1980. In those days our step-great-grandmother Bessie Shapiro lived a few blocks away along with her sister Etta.

Ordinarily the buses are jammed with KCC students on weekdays, but this is spring break at CUNY and that's basically why we came today. The beach actually didn't look so good, with something we'd never seen before:

trenches of water due to the deluge downpour a few days ago, and there was sand on the concrete walkway. The sand also seemed darker and coarser than we'd remembered.

Mostly older people were about, jogging and speedwalking and chatting in Russian (or a few in Chinese), along with a couple of bicyclists.

It was nice to hang out and look at the water. The beautiful Marine Parkway Bridge is faintly off in the foggy distance here.

Sunday Evening at Fort Tilden Beach: Hipsters Invade the Rockaways for Todd P's Acoustic BBQ 2009

After spending much of yesterday in Rockaway for the Rockstock & Barrels fest, this evening we went back over the Gil Hodges Memorial Marine Parkway Bridge to secluded, gorgeous Fort Tilden Beach for Todd P's annual unamplified Acoustic BBQ.

You probably know about the famous music promoter Todd P. We got regular email updates from him. Here's what he said on his website:

As beautiful and innocuous as the Acoustic BBQ is, it’s easy to forget that there’s a small political statement involved in what we’re doing out there. The Acoustic BBQ was envisioned as an artistic musical event stripped of every element that could be threatening or dangerous. Here’s what I mean: It’s not amplified so it’s so quiet no-one could complain that we’re disturbing their peace. It’s out in the open air so there can be no fingerpointing about “fire safety.” We don’t charge admission & we won’t be selling anything, so there’s no commerce to regulate. It’s in a public place so we’re not trespassing. We vigorously clean up and pack out our trash afterwards, so we’re not littering.

The reason for reciting all of the above is this: the Acoustic BBQ is always an experiment. We’ve reduced a show to its basest parts, just great music and an audience, with no amplification & no money changing hands, in a beautiful open air setting.

Todd P's 2008 Acoustic BBQ on Roosevelt Island

We spent the afternoon in our old 'hood, variously called Flatlands, Old Mill Basin, and Kings Plaza after the shopping center whose opening day in September 1970 we attended.

(Our family's women's clothing store The Pants Set, had a branch here, occupying a space now rented to Frederick's of Hollywood.)

We fortified ourselves for the Acoustic BBQ with dinner at the Kings Plaza Diner, just like in days of yore - and, yes, we know, our yore is probably not your yore.

Then we cut through the now-vacant-except-for-Capital-One-branch little shopping/office plaza to the Q35 bus stop on Flatbush Avenue. There once was a Bowery Savings Bank branch here, along with other stores and our first girlfriend's orthodontist. She wore full metal braces, and so did our first boyfriend, leading us to forever think that 18yo's with their teeth wired up look adorable.

Down Flatbush Avenue the Q35 went, past Toys R Us, the Marine Parkway golf course, the traffic-clogged Belt Parkway and Floyd Bennett Field - where a guy got off, mistakenly thinking there was some kind of ethnic festival going on - and over the bridge and offa da bus. Although we practically grew up in the Rockaways and know from Far Rock to Neponsit troo and troo, we don't head this far west so much.

We once were in Fort Tilden in the early '70s when our pal's National Guard unit had weekend maneuvers there. We drove out with a girlfriend to meet them, and Mark told us later a buddy had said after we left, "Wow, those two girls were cute," leading us to think he could have found a better way to avoid Vietnam than joining the Guard.

A few years later, one of our fellow Brooklyn College MFA students decided one night to ditch his old car by driving it on the deserted beach and into the water. It wouldn't go in and sink, so we set it afire and ran. An hour later, he got a call from the police: "Do you know your car is on fire on the beach at Breezy Point?" He feigned being shocked, but the attempt at insurance fraud failed. (Our own family, a bit smarter, had more success, like when our dad moved to Florida and didn't want to take his green Cadillac. Ya gotta know the right people.)

We walked down Beach 169th Street with two girls from Elmhurst who didn't realize that they should have taken the quick Q53 Limited bus to Rockaway and so went into Manhattan to get the A train and then the shuttle to Beach 116th, stretching a 45-minute trip into three hours.

Todd P's directions: "walk down Beach 169th St to the ocean, turn right at the 'Unsupervised Beach - no lifeguards' sign, walk along the beach past 5 breakwaters. We will either be there or will have a sign posted there saying where to go from there."

The other way is Riis Park, or Grease Park as we locals call it. Ask any gay man who grew up in Brooklyn before, say, 1970, and he can tell you about Bay One. Although that beach was not unprotected, our friends did a lot of unprotected stuff there back in the pre-AIDS years.

Walking down the five breakwaters, we stuck near the smooth dark sand close to the water. The two girls from Elmhurst said, "Wow, this is far."

Finally, we were there, in a crowd of several hundred hipsters, each and every one of them younger than us by at least 20 years. But, hey, all you need is a guitar, a drum, a human voice . . . and an audience not deafened by going to forty years of concerts like us.

A very beautiful topless woman walked over to the Acoustic BBQ with us but we didn't want to invade her privacy and objectify her, so we missed a nice pic. Some other girl sarcastically yelled out at her, "Take off your shirt!"

Everyone was having a good time, and we got that peace/love/Woodstock/flowers sentimental feeling. You can see better pics by more adept photographers at work 'n' progress, at Wasting Time and at bajapuntos' Flickr stream.

Our vote for best dressed goes to The Trashicist:

The bands started moving down to the water as the day waned. As far as we could hear, nobody introduced anyone, and when bands alternated, they sometimes passed on their instruments (we saw one exchange of prescription drugs, too). Anyway, here was the schedule for the time we were there:

–8:00pm :: Ninjasonik
–7:50pm :: Hospitality
–7:40pm :: Extra Life
–7:30pm :: Kurt Vile ———— from Philadelphia, PA
–7:20pm :: Aa aka BIG A little a
–7:10pm :: Talk Normal
–7:00pm :: Dinowalrus

This year's event was dedicated to the family of Kill Rock Stars artist Jeff Hanson.

Towards the ocean, once in the middle of a charmed circle, these three musicians used their heads and placed their audio over them.

These guys were particularly excellent. The maracas were a great touch, but castanets could have made their sound even better.

It's getting late, and people are starting to head home. Some take the beach route. . .

We noticed what we think was Todd P talking to the park rangers back by the rise where the beach begins (or ends). On our way out via the concrete path, we asked the park rangers if we could take their photos. No dice, not even for an alter kocker wearing a blue Rockaway Beach Surf Shop t-shirt. But the rangers, who tolerated the nude beach back in our day at least, said they enjoyed the day and had no trouble.

Thanks to Todd P, many people made new friends today. And some still hope to make friends with those spotted there, like this young lady posting on Craigslist's Missed Connections:

Todd P. Beach Show - Guy With Sunglasses, Boner - w4m - 23 (rockaway)

Below is the hipster remake of Buñuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. No, we're just heading home, taking the non-beach route. We spotted some guys taking a whizz in the cattails, but we found a porta-potty at the end of the road.

We're not sure what these cats we saw on the way out were up to, but some guy was filming them . . .

Brooklyn hipsters waiting for the Q35 bus, this pair used as beach mats the yellow ones from last year's McCarren Pool concerts, courtesy of TopShop. Is there McCarren Pool party nostalgia already? Were these guys spending the day sitting on what will one day be expensive collectors' items?

As you can see, the bus stop is just down from where near the cover of our book was shot. Sorry about the plug about this furshlugginer volume about when we were the age of most of the people at Acoustic BBQ, but you can read it at Google Books or Scribd without paying us a cent.

Whatever. The bus came on time, with the same woman standing next to the driver as our way over to the beach. We eventually got back to Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg, tired but grateful for our weekend in Rockaway. Muchas gracias for today to Todd P!

Saturday in Rockaway Beach: 3rd Annual Rockstock + Barrels - Surfing, Skating, Live Bands!

We love Rockaway and pretty much grew up there in the summers, with our family going way back on the peninsula:

Grandma Ethel Shapiro Sarrett on the beach at 17 in 1927
Our mom & dad, teenagers, met there in the summer of 1945

Here we are a decade later, at the bungalows of Lincoln Court between Beach 56th Place & Beach 56th Street, where we first came when we were just a few weeks old (and our Grandpa Herb Sarrett would complain, even we were in our thirties, how he had to schlep us to the boardwalk in the middle of the night because our crying annoyed the whole bungalow court)- but by the time we were 4, we just whined a lot

Another decade passes, we're 14, still at Lincoln Court, with our bro & mom (& a fading black eye we got in an under-the-boardwalk boxing rematch with a 12yo who had better luck than Sonny Liston)

On the boardwalk in winter 1969 (just like the opening shot in Wim Wenders' 1974 "Alice in den Städten"), by the apartment buildings where both sets of grandparents lived on opposite sides of Beach 105th Street

The house we grew up in was near the Brooklyn side of the borough's most underrated bridge, the Marine Parkway, and used to drive over to the beach in 15 minutes every chance we got

Our first apartment on our own, a rent-stabilized studio for $240 a month, was #5J at 129 Beach 118th Street, right on the boardwalk, and we have been writing about Rockaway since forever

So we were excited to get from Dumbo Books' Williamburg HQ out to Rockaway Beach for today's Third Annual Rockstock & Barrels festival of surfing, skateboarding and live music by the boardwalk, surfer's beach and sk8r park where our Great-Grandma Bessie Shapiro used to live in the 1970s. Rockstock is sponsored by the great Boarders Surf Shop on Beach 92nd Street and the surf fashions of St. James Clothing.

The most direct route to the Rock would be the L to Broadway Junction and then the A and shuttle to Beach 90th Street, where we used to watch the few surfers back in the Nixon administration.

But due to typical summer weekend track work, there was no Canarsie-bound train at Lorimer Street, only a shuttle bus.

So we settled for the fabulous G train to Fulton Street and made the usual trek past BAM to Atlantic Terminal for a MetroCard-only "transfer" to the 2 to the Junction, where we got the Q35, which we were taking back when it was still part of the Green Bus Lines, to the end of the line.

At Beach 116th Street, the new Rockaway Beach Diner may be temporarily closed due to the Board of Health (we miss the old Ram's Horn, torn down for an HSBC drive-thru) and the WaMu a few doors down from the Chase branch is shuttered, but familiar stores from our childhood like Brown's Hardware, Rogoff's Stationery and the Rockaway Surf Shop are still open for biz.

Grabbing a slice at Ciro's - like we did in the 1980s when we spent summers on the Upper West Side but visited Grandma Ethel every week - we were accosted by the rich old lady beggar from Neponsit who tried to get us to buy her a soda even though her family are millionaires. We encountered three other, poorer, panhandlers on 116.

Then we caught the Q21, got off just before the bus turned into the Cross Bay Bridge, used the men's room at the Peninsula branch library and walked down Rockaway Beach Boulevard to where Rockstock & Barrels started around noon. (The surfing contests began at 8 a.m.)

Last year's Rockstock & Barrels had more sun and heat, as shown in this pic of
Indaculture, a cool Rockaway band who also performed today.

It had been sunnier earlier, but by noon it was pretty much overcast and a good wind was blowing. Maybe that was good for the surfing competition sponsored by the Eastern Surfing Association.

There were about 100 to 200 people around during the couple of hours we were there. One thing we have always adored about Rockaway is that you can feel like you fit in even if you look like a mental patient - or maybe especially if you look like a mental patient. Today everyone just looked like they were having fun.

Rockaway is very diverse - we spotted bunches of houses flying the Puerto Rican flag, por ejemplo - but the Caucasians we saw mostly had the deep tans we used to get before ours came sprayed on. (The last time we saw Grandma Ethel, in 1993, she'd just had some earlobe skin grafted to her nose to replace what had been cut away for basal cell carcinoma.)

There were some booths from St. James and Far Rock's Gangplank, as well as other businesses that cater to surfers and skaters.

We watched some of the surfing heats, and were particularly impressed with a couple of very old and very young surfers. It was the summer of '69, forty years ago, when we first caught Endless Summer, watching it at the Brooklyn College student center with two Orthodox Jewish kids who gaped open-mouthed at the film's surfing action.

It was soon after that we watched our first surfing at this very spot.

Some Rockaway boys are surfers, some are skaters, some do both. We didn't see girl skaters, only girl surfers.

The other really good bands that played today included Walker and the Brotherhood of the Grape, Rat Trap Bumpkin, Daha, Symptom 7 and Imaginary Weapons.

Another thing we love about Rockaway is that we can feel like we're in Southern California without leaving the NYC limits. We had a good time today.

We left kinda early, due to our advanced age and long trip home, but we know that for some, Rockstock & Barrels is all about the after-party.

For us, the after-party was the Q22 and Q 35 buses and the 2 and G trains. But we hope to be back next year to Rockstock & Barrels. We're grateful to the sponsors, the surfers, the sk8rs, the bands, and to our beloved Rockaway Beach itself.