Return to City Island, Horn of Plenty

The elephantine amongst you will recall my first sojourn to City Island and my solemn promise to come back with funds and appetite. Today was the day. Armed and determined to wrap my lips around fried clams, I suited up in spandex and headed out along the Boston Post Road, through New Rochelle and Pelham, past the oddly placed New York Athletic Club, and on to the island.

After checking out a couple of menus, I settled at Sammy's Shrimp Box, conveniently placed across the street from Sammy's Fish Box, Sammy's Take-Out and Tropical Bar, and Sammy's something else. While waiting for my meal I was plied with goods which indicated that noone around here had heard of skyrocketing food prices. Just look at that picture. A loaf of bread with a hunk of cheese knifed into it. Cornbread. Olives. Crudities, along with pickled cauliflower, peppers, carrots, and so on. A salad (who cares). When all was said and done, I ate about 1/5th of what they brought me, and was sad I was on a bike and could not haul the rest away.

After lunch I checked out Orchard Beach, built in the sixties in classic Robert Moses fashion by hauling in 1.2 million cubic yards of sand from New Jersey and Long Island. It is now a little derelict, at least on a Friday. Big-assed accordion MTA buses came and went through the big bus staging areas with 0-2 passengers each. A parking lot a good 200 meters across was 1/10th full if that. The big pavillion area was all scaffolded up, and there was lots of standing water.

There was lots of handball and racketball being played, though, by guys who looked as if they might actually be in the employ of one of those Italian groups they like to make movies about.

And there were lots of cops aplenty, well equipped with guns and flashlights and everything. And three SUVs of them hauled off to talk to one guy with long hair and a bike at the end of the beach. Suspiciously close to where a rather hot-looking woman was bathing topless.

And there was a nature walk down at the end which looked rather nice, though -- from the way Hispanic men plunged at high speed into the woods on their mountain bikes without looking around them -- I couldn't help but think that, like the Rambles in Central Park or the area of Riverside Park along the river and above the basketball courts at 105th street, that this was an area where consenting males both consent and act. So maybe we won't bring the kids.

All in all I must say that the overall impression of Orchard Beach can be summed up in two words: "wasting asset." It's a pretty nice facility, and it could be nicer even if the city managed it wisely. Like promote it. I've been coming to the nabe for almost 15 years and it's not even on the radar screen here.