Boston Trip Part 6: Escape to New York

As Monday progressed, temperatures rose and the precipitation stopped just as I entered Westchester County in New York state. Since I was stying with my my uncle in Manhattan overnight and I had a few hours to spare before he finished up with his work commitments, I decided to see a few sights on my way in.

My first detour involved dipping south through Queens. My goal was to visit the 1964 World's Fair site at Flushing Meadows. Most of the pavilions have been removed from the site, and some of the land has been annexed to build structures like Shea Stadium (and now Citi Field) or Arthur Ashe Stadium and the rest of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, but a few really cool structures remain that make up the core of what is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

It took a while to get there, most notably because I didn't know where the actual entrance of the park was located around the 1200-acre site. I wound up looping around for about twenty minutes between that and my lack of familiarity with the highway and surface street network. However, because of the fact that I had been driving for several hours, it is perhaps appropriate that the first stop I made once arriving at Flushing Meadows (and surprisingly finding free parking) was at a restroom, and it was even more coincidental that the toilet was located on the former "Avenue of Transportation."

The restroom was located near
the ballfields on the old World
Fair's Avenue of Transportation.

I walked past some baseball fields, across one of the highways that cuts through the park that I'd just driven on, and found my way to the park's most famous landmarks, the Unisphere and the New York Pavilion. Sure, it was cloudy, and sure, the Unisphere's fountain was drained for the winter, and sure, the New York Pavilion was closed for renovation - but man, those things were enormous and spectacular to see.

Check out that skateboarder just to the right of the
Unisphere's base for a sense of scale. That thing is HUGE.

After viewing the main attractions, I returned to my car and continued south towards Brooklyn. I questioned the GPS when it took me down some crazy yet impressive surface streets - driver behavior and aggressiveness when presented with 5 lanes of travel in each direction in addition to driveways and intersections for several miles is a sight to behold - but after consulting with my book map at a red light it really seemed to be the best choice. The road took me right along the shore of Jamaica Bay and down towards my next destination, Coney Island.

It was getting to be mid-afternoon, but since I'd skipped lunch I decided I needed to grab something to eat, and in my mind there was only one choice: Nathan's. I love hot dogs, and over the last few years I've grown all snobbish in that I almost exclusively eat all-beef hot dogs, and Nathan's brand are the cheapest ones I can find at my local store. Since I'm well aware that Nathan's started as a humble hot dog stand in Coney Island - they still host the world hot dog-eating competition there every July - I figured I'd make my way on down there.

At some point in my life I will come
back to Coney Island, if only to ride
The Cyclone.

The problem was that I had no idea where they were actually located. So I found my way down to Surf Avenue, the main drag right off the boardwalk, and drove until I found some amusement park relics from the heyday of the region. Right in between the old Parachute Jump and The Cyclone, perhaps the most famous roller coaster in the world. Since I love me some coasters, it's a shame that the park was closed for the season. And also that it cost $8 a ride, although considering that the ride is 84 years old and is still one of the fastest wooden coasters in the world, that's probably worth it. The ride's not that tall, but because it's so darn steep it still hits 60 mph in places. After snapping a few photos of the ride, I entered Nathan's and picked up a chili cheese dog.

Honestly? Packaged Nathan's hot dogs from my local grocery store are better.

As I digested the greasy monstrosity, I took a brief stroll down the boardwalk back to my car. The weather could have been better.

The Coney Island boardwalk during the offseason is
one of the most depressing things I've ever seen.

It's much easier to take a picture from
your car when traffic is at a standstill.

By this point, I'd wasted enough time that I was in danger of having to drive across three boroughs during rush hour, so I got in my car and cruised around the southern edge of Brooklyn to get into Manhattan. New York's parkways are somewhat unusual like that in that many of the roads travel close to bodies of water. This is because many of them were built on new land since there was simply no available space other than putting in some new ground. It's really quite scenic from your car but more than a bit problematic for the landscape and for people to enjoy the shore. Again, we can thank Robert Moses for his emphasis on the driving experience over all other land uses.

Traffic was heavy but moving as I drove under the Verrazano Bridge and towards the Battery Tunnel. I had several options to cross the East River, including the tunnel, the Manhattan Bridge, and a few others, but to me there was but one option:

Brooklyn Bridge all the way.

I crossed the river on the fantastically storied Brooklyn Bridge, taking time to admire its gothic stay towers and its iron stiffening trusses and its curious but effective combination of suspended and stayed cables.

If you want to hear me gushing on and on about how completely awesome all the sights I saw on my 52 mile drive through The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, including trips under the Verrazano Bridge, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and around and around Flushing Meadows, the latest entry in my Tales from the Road is exactly what you're looking for:

Eventually, I made it to my uncle's apartment in the East Village. We caught up a bit on conversation, walked around through the local park (there are over 1700 parks in New York City!) which was very nice and tasteful in the relatively temperate weather, and finally went out to dinner at a fancy ramen noodle place. I didn't even know those existed.

The kitchen at Momofuku Noodle Bar from our seats.

In the morning, I decided I would attempt the most ridiculously thorough tour of Manhattan ever completed in under 8 hours in a style reminiscent of of the grand city tours I completed on my European adventure over the summer, so it was time to turn in for the night.

But that story will be contained in Boston Trip Part 7: How to See Manhattan When You've Only Got 8 Hours, in which I walk 22 miles through the urban jungle to see every famous site I could think of.