Governors Island
Bored of your usual Manhattan haunts? Like boats? Islands? The military? History? Well, have we got an island getaway just for you. No, it’s not Fort Sumter in South Carolina, nor the Dry Tortugas National Park in Key West. It’s called Governors Island, previously Nutten Island, and the home of military prisons Castle Williams and Fort Jay (sometimes Fort Columbus) and, as such, the site of much human intrigue. Military justice too: Not only did Governor’s Island serve as one of the city’s two Civil War prison camps, a Confederate privateer, John Yates Beall, was hanged at Fort Columbus on Feb. 24, 1865. This isn’t a story much talked about today, but it was controversial at the time, for if the US Army was going to execute Rebel prisoners, what might Confederates do? The distinction made then was that Beall had been acting as a guerrilla and spy, not a bona fide Confederate sailor or soldier, and so Beall was hoisted into eternity, and subsequently buried in Charles Town, WVa.—the same place, coincidentally, that radical abolitionist John Brown was hanged in 1859.
If this seems like a heavy trip to lay on you about that little island just off the south of Manhattan, well, that’s what Governors Island was, and remains, through all its various transformations: a place rich with history and hidden potentialities. Over the last decade or so, the National Park Service and the Trust for Governors Island have done an incredible job to make the island more accessible to more people than ever. Ferries from the Maritime Building in Manhattan and Brooklyn will get you there, where a wide array of recreational, cultural, and educational activities await. Pick Hits: Porch Stomp 2025 folk music festival, June 21; New York City Poetry Festival, July 13-14; and bird watching, bike riding, and running anytime. Bring the kids!
Wave Hill, the Bronx
718-549-3200
To pick just one Bronx destination to visit in the summer is an exercise in frustration. You go first with Yankee Stadium, and I say that my Aunt Rachel lived up in Highbridge, and her son had old Yankee Stadium bleacher seats on the fire escape (they gave them away free back then). You say the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage at Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, I say yes—the late, great journalist C.J. Sullivan, and still on the job NYPD legend Sergeant Johnny Moynihan, both grew up around there. The list goes with exclamations—Marshall Berman! Cynthia Ozick! Grandmaster Flash! Tito Puente! “Car 54, Where Are You?”!—from Mott Haven to Port Morris to Morrisania to Morris Heights to Morris Park to Orchard Beach and beyond—we’ll stop there, hungry, and rush over to Arthur Avenue in Belmont for Italian food, then to Liebman’s Delicatessen in Riverdale for pastrami, grabbing some machete-chopped Puerto Rican pernil and Senegalese thieboudienne along the way, even if we can’t eat it all now. Why? Because we’re going to Wave Hill, baby!
Set on 28 acres of gardens and woodlands overlooking the Hudson River, Wave Hill is among the great treasures of city life, including regular concerts on the Great Lawn. Highlights include: June 7, the Brass Queens, the New York-based all-female brass band; June 26, as part-Detroit-raised bassist Endea Owens performs with her band, aptly named for summer, The Cookout; July 16 brings the young Mexican jazz and Latin folk vocalist Lucía; July 23, the inventive Brooklyn instrumental and vocal trio Bandits on the Run, their name likely a play on Paul McCartney & Wings rather than a confession of criminality.
Staten Island
Those big yellow ferry boats are free so why not visit Staten Island, “the forgotten borough”? While it’s true that many of the most interesting places on the island are most easily reached by car—Fort Wadsworth, the Staten Island Greenbelt, Conference House Park, Mt. Loretto Unique Area, Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, Historic Richmond Town, etc.—St. George itself, where the ferry lets off, is well worth visiting. Marvel at the Richmond County Supreme Court building, enjoy walking the nearby steep hills, try some Sri Lankan cuisine, check out the commune-related Every Thing Goes thrift stores for starters. If you brought a bicycle on the ferry, fantastic—ride east to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden or west on Bay Street to the aforementioned Fort Wadsworth, which is administered by the National Park Service. Staten Island is vastly more diverse, culturally and ethnically, than its reputation suggests, but one stereotype is true: They have a lot of great pizza joints, including Denino’s in Port Richmond; Joe & Pat’s in Castleton Corners; Lee’s Tavern in Dongan Hills; and Seppe in Stapleton. Listen to such Staten Island-related music—early Wu Tang Clan, the New York Dolls or Living Colour—if you need a jolt of energy to finish the last slice and make it back to Manhattan upright.
Coney Island, Brooklyn
Last year Summer Guide sent its reader to Brighton Beach: no regrets, and all its virtues still stand. “One of the city’s most exciting, intriguing, polyglot neighborhoods,” we opined. And yet it left us a little uneasy. The assumption was everyone already knows Coney Island. Even through a century of drastic change, and for a while in the 1970s near dereliction, it’s famous beyond measure and therefore “self-recommending.” But was it, really? Recent developments there, including the tiresome threat of casino development (see also similar mendacious proposals for Manhattan and Queens) suggest that Coney Island today could use some advocacy, a little boosting.
Warm up for the trip by watching two classic films, Little Fugitive (1953) and The Warriors (1979). We might add Spike Lee directed He Got Game (1998), which is excellent but a little depressing, though that too is part of the Coney Island story. Don’t miss: Mermaid Parade on June 21, a spiritual successor to the old Coney Island Mardi Gras (which took place in September), and Coney Island Creek Park. Little known to outsiders and sometimes referred to as the “backside” of Coney Island (no tuchis jokes, please), this park is one of Brooklyn’s secret wonders, full of sand dunes, santería tributes, fishermen and -women and, not infrequently, ocean-delivered detritus of great mystery. Sea Gate is immediately to the west, and Kaiser Park to the east. Also, to the extent that it’s still a “creek” (really a tidal estuary)—before many parts were filled in, that’s what made Coney an Island. It’s true! Note to families going to Luna Park for the roller-coasters: you have to be 5 foot 4 tall to ride the Cyclone.
Rockaway Beach, Queens
Yes, Queens is vast and contains multitudes—nobody says it doesn’t. And yet, for those who know it, one destination, season after season, year after year, compels like no other: Rockaway Beach, and, really, the entire Rockaway peninsula, though its many subsections—from Far Rockaway in the east, to Breezy Point in the west—can be confusing and not all areas as attractive or welcoming as others. For the purposes of Summer Guide, let’s assume that you’ll take the subway or drive, with a few adventurous types riding their bikes or taking the ferry.
The last-mentioned mode is pretty pleasant, but it’s a long haul from Pier 11 to the Jamaica Bay side on Beach 108th Street—a pretty good place to be generally, but you still have to walk to the boardwalk and beach. Bicycling in from Brooklyn, crossing the Gil Hodges (aka Marine Parkway) Bridge is popular, and free (no tolls!), especially for those who intend to visit Fort Tilden, but for Manhattanites, this isn’t anything like a casual trip to the beach. While driving has many advantages, especially if traveling with a family, know that weekend parking can be competitive and, in western sections, where generations of firemen and cops have resided, quite restricted: You never saw so many “fire zone” signs so close to an ocean before in your life.
That leaves the subway, namely the A train, repairs to which are being completed as Summer Guide goes to press. Let’s pick Beach 90th Street as the “best,” because it’s closest to the surfing beaches (and surfing lessons), restaurants, cafes, the library, the handsome NYPD 100th Precinct building, and more. Seasonal preparation: re-watching Woody Allen’s Rockaway Beach-set Radio Days, noting the Playlands Amusement Park cameo and pre-Seinfeld Larry David as “Communist Neighbor.” Pick hit for foodies: the admirably named, self-explanatory Tacoway Beach, 302 Beach 87th St.—tell ’em Summer Guide sent you!