There are several books about places in the city that offer solitude and quiet, yet few mention one spot that offers not only isolation and a separation from the rest of the city but amazing views as well. One reason may be the difficulty getting to the spot, situated directly between the United Nations building and the Pepsi sign in Long Island City. It is a bit of a complex destination, but by bike it is easily found.
Starting under the Williamsburg Bridge, we started up through Willsburg on Berry (as Kent is an unpaved mess at the moment). Just past McCarren Park we turned onto Manhattan Avenue through Greenpoint and headed for the Pulaski Bridge. Stopping by the beach at Water Taxi Beach, the lure of a beer was countered by the blare of The Black Crows on the soundsystem. Heading upstream on Vernon Avenue, we eventually stopped at the Socrates Sculpture Park and checked out the new exhibition, Interstate: the American Road Trip. Opting not to smell up the Noguchi Museum, we instead headed to Costco, attemption to dine on samples and stocking up on five-gallon tubs of beauty cream fifty-cent bottles of Poland Spring.
Finally, we headed for our true destination. Crossing the drawbridge that leads to RoosIsle we decided to first find a spot to grab some food to take along with us. As our choices on the island's central section seemed to be Gristede's, Chinese, or Gristede's, we asked one elderly woman if she knew where we might find pizza. (Not that we wanted pizza, but we assumed that maybe there were more restaurants hidden away in the Stockholm-y seventies architecture.) Her reply was a befuddled, "Pizza? Pizza? Pizza. The train station is just down the road on the left." Assuming restaraunts were nearby, we headed in the prescribed direction, but found that her intention was that we leave the island for this strange thing, pizza.
Abandoning our search for food, we passed a man zooming in the opposite direction, rolling a hospital bed bedecked with a Puerto Rican flag. RooIsle is home to two hospitals, one of which specializes in amputees, so this is not an uncommon sight. (Oh, the detail that hospital-bed-speed-racer had no legs should be included.)
Finally we arrived at the gate that leads to the gravel path past the former smallpox hospital (no, it's not a former insane asylum, although RoLand did house one at one time) and eventually arrived at our destination: South Point Park (finally).
SoPoPa offers a panorama of Manhattan from the Queensboro Bridge down to the Williamsburg Bridge as well as the diverse industrial/neoresidential waterfront of Long Island City and a bit of Brooklyn. The Park is really no more than a fenced in grassy area, with no seating or other frills. What it offers more than anything though is a separation from the city while truly immersed within it. The cars of the FDR and music from Water Taxi City occasionally will come in with the right breeze but otherwise the soundtrack is water and wind. It's a secret spot. So don't tell anyone.
(Photos coming soon here.)
