- $2.75 (or $116.50; depends on how you take your Metrocard)
- 2 miles
- Only 1 pharmacy
- Only 1 grocery store
- Only 2 churches
- Only 1 Starbucks
- An outdoor gym with outdoor gym machines
- A fleet of red trolley busses
- Carrot jam
- Remnants of a smallpox hospital now riddled with cats
Instructions
What do FDR, Gristedes, and New York City's 6th oldest house have in common?
BOOM: TRAM.
TRAM.
TRAM.
Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I meant
ROOSEVELT ISLAND TRAM.
Roosevelt Island is an island-- one of Manhattan's many small, seemingly sparse, sometimes forgotten moons. It doesn't have a beach and you shouldn't expect mojitos and daiquiris on the reg'. But it does have only one Starbucks, and that's enough to get me listening.
(Of course I know that the line for that one Starbucks must be annoying as balls-- Gosh!!)
If you haven't ever been to Roosevelt Island, what are you doing. Seriously. What are you doing right now that is more important than visiting a hidden gem of history, mystery, beauty, privacy, Mayberry? A "new town in town" (quote from the '60s) where everyone knows your name (gross generalization we made today)-- where, as a visitor, you run into the one sole person you know that lives on the island within your first 10 minutes there. That is actually true. And the island does actually have remnants of a smallpox hospital now riddled with cats. And merely one Duane Reade. And, as its primary/only grocery store, a Gristedes-- how very Manhattan. It's indeed part of the borough of Manhattan, actually-- didja know that?
Didja know that NYC bought the island in 1828 to create a "city of asylums," including a prison and a building literally called the Lunatic Asylum? That, in the Lunatic Asylum, famed journalist Nellie Bly way early originated the plot of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by posing as an "insane" Cuban immigrant and then publishing "Ten Days in a Madhouse?"
Didja know that the one of the island's previous owners' great-great-grandsons, Jacob Blackwell, built the Blackwell House, which is now NYC's 6th oldest house? And that Great-Great-Grandpa Blackwell's wife was another previous island owner (John Manning)'s daughter, and that Manning was banished from NYC to his own island on charges of "cowardice" due to surrendering Fort James while the governor was away?
Didja know that you can buy Carrot or Beet or Rosehip Jam in Polish Foods section of the "Mega" Gristedes?!
Didja know that the tram only costs ONE METROCARD SWIPE?
Anyways, back to the Mayberry-esque feel of Roosevelt Island: the population of 11,551 seems very large for what we saw. Folks milling about Main Street (the only street; how jaw-dropping cute), families darting on playgrounds, couples relaxing on the park lawns, a Subway being the only fast food. We saw one Chinese place, one Italian, one Japanese, and one all-around American restaurant-- + one NYC-normal street-fruit stand, one hot dog/pretzel cart, and one subway station. The population number almost matches my hometown's, which is a suburb of a suburb and owner of a movie theatre with one screen.
Alright, I've now fallen asleep approximately 3 times whilst trying to upload some sweet ass pics from my FDR Island Adventure today, clearly to no avail. That's what happens when you only take 1 narcolepsy pill but walk a 2-mile island in the 90-degree heat under a blazing sun. I'm even chewing gum to keep me awake-- yeah, chewing gum while accidentally falling asleep in uncomfortable, unnatural positions... My writing involves a fair amount of personal risk. Physically dangerous. Some might call it a choking hazard.
And this is what daily blogging looks like.
"If you like piña coladas, and getting drunk in the rain..." "It's five o'clock somewhere..." "Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama... I wanna take you down to Kokomo. We'll get their fast and then we'll take it slow. That's where we want to go-o-o... Way down to ROOSEVELT ISLAND USING THE AERIAL TRAM."
Get there now. It's an island with one Starbucks, and I'm not going to say it again.
(Oh, here we go: Team Tram!)
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