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The Holistic New York City
It’s been about two years since I moved to New York City, and in that time I’ve seen a lot. Sometimes more than I’d have liked in fact! But one thing I’d never seen was a little ol’ place called STATEN *EFFIN* ISLAND! Actually, the much more surprising thing is that I’m not even close to alone in this. It seems that virtually none of my contemporaries who live and/or work in the city have been to this “Forgotten Borough.” With that in mind, I’ll start with a (very) brief history lesson compliments of Wikipedia.

Fast Facts About the Fifth Borough
- There are nearly half a million people on this island. That’s about the size of Wyoming for you trivia buffs.
- Staten Island is also known as Richmond County
- But it used to be called Aquehonga Manacknong and Eghquaons by it’s 16th century Lenape inhabitants.
- The island became a part of our fair city in 1898

Island Hopping
One of the major reasons most New Yorkers haven’t bothered with Staten Island is it’s relative inaccessibility. Yes, you can drive there, or take the bus, or walk if you’re really brave or are stranded around the southwestern edge of Brooklyn, but given the average New Yorker’s utter reliance on the subway system, this is by far the hardest borough to reach for most. The only reasonably efficient way to get there is via the Staten Island ferry, which is a trip in itself!

The ferry runs from Battery Park about every half hour, but not necessarily on the half hour as promised. We went on Sunday and with the flood of foreigner tourists staring out in awe at the Statue of Liberty, speaking anything but English, it reminded me of what I imagine the immigrant experience might’ve been like. Except less smelly and arguably more annoying.

Is This New Jersey?
When we disembarked from the ferry we immediately were aware that the 90,000 people on there with us had somehow disappeared. We got turned around a bit trying to overcome my fear of city buses, but once we got on and started into this enigmatic and impenetrable island, we learned that it was actually…basically like New Jersey. There were trees, and grass, and roads that twist and curve over rolling hills instead of going in straight lines! And those roads, do you know what they did? They took us directly to pizza.

Joe and Pat’s Pizzeria
Right off the the 61 bus is a Pizzeria call Joe and Pat’s, which was honestly well worth the trip. In fact, it was one of the best pies I’ve had in the city! Fresh, simple, crispy but not crackery, I was really impressed by this unassumingly appointed Italian restaurant. It had all the standard fair, and some specialty pies, and all were excellent. Service was good, and the atmosphere was quiet and inviting. I’d go back, maybe not any time, but eventually.

I Bleed Marinara
My love of Italian food came in large part from my mother’s cooking, which would seem only natural, IF my mother weren’t 100% Irish… But if you think that ever stopped her from making some world-class meatballs, sausage and pepper sandwiches, or chicken parm, you’d be sadly mistaken mister!

Anyway, since moving to New York City, I can’t get my mom’s amazing cooking too often, but a man still has needs! In my two years of city-dwelling, I have managed to find a few places that satisfy me, but since I live so close to Little Italy now, I decided that this weekend I would explore that neighborhood a bit further.

Just to add some background, Little Italy used to be a significant residential neighborhood for ethnic Italians, but it has lately been encroached upon by Chinatown to the point where it exists along only a few city blocks between Canal and Broome (according to gonyc.about.com).

Il Piccolo Bufalo
Despite the area’s diminishing size, there are still some gems worth visiting. In my humble opinion, Il Piccolo Buffalo is real diamond in the rough. Unlike several other Little Italy restaurants, the staff here is exceptionally friendly and helpful, and the food is excellent. I went there with a lady friend of mine on Saturday, and in this instance, I got a pizza called the Piccolo Diavolo, which is basically a good spicy sausage pizza with hot peppers and capicola. Delicious! And considering the portions and service, very reasonably priced!

Ferrara Bakery and Cafe
Afterwards, we decided to get some coffee, so we headed over to a fairly well-known Italian bakery nearby, called Ferrara. This place is pretty upscale as far as bakeries go. Marble floors, hardwood facades, and suited waiters and waitresses that could easily go serve a high society ball or wedding without a wardrobe change, all come together to make this place a very classy experience. The prices are reflective of this, of course, but once you get a table you can sit and enjoy coffee, dessert or a nightcap in peace and comfort. One thing they most definitely don’t do at Ferrara is rush you, so take your time and relax!

The Bottom Line
The bottom line for Little Italy, in my experience, is this: choose your battles. A lot of the shops and restaurants here have degenerated into tourist traps that get you in the door with sweet promises of authenticity and deliciousity that ultimately don’t hold up under even the most casual expectations. With a little trial and error, however, you’ll find that there are a few places worth visiting, and may find yourself coming back again and again!

If there is one thing I’ve learned about New Yorkers, its that they want to get the hell out of New York. Maybe not forever, but with sunny beaches just a couple of hours away in New Jersey and the Hamptons, who among us can resist the urge to pack up and roll out to the suburbs for a weekend or two? Not I of course!

Going Down
People often say that there’s nothing better than having a beach house, except for having a friend with one. In my case, it’s my uncle who resides on Long Beach Island in New Jersey who provided me with a much needed place to crash for the weekend. So I headed up to the bus station and grabbed a ticket. The bus ride is $31 round trip and takes about 1.5 hours each way, but to go the distance you really need a car. Fortunately I got picked up from the bus station by my uncle and an hour later we were on the Island!

Having Fun on the Island
There are lots of ways to have fun on LBI, but the most obvious one is right in the name, the beach. The island is approximately 18 miles long, and almost every inch of the sea side is covered in sandy beaches. Lifeguards supervise until 5pm and make you wear a beach badge, but after that, it’s all open sand and surf. So go ahead and play paddle ball, take a walk, or a little dip by moonlight if that’s your fancy.

There’s still more on the bay side, with sailing, motor-boating, water-skiing and jet-skiing available for rentals as short as an hour or as long as a full day if you’d like. I wouldn’t recommend bay side swimming however, as the beaches on this side of the island are sometimes slimy with silt and seaweed, and often host considerable numbers of horseshoe crabs.

If the water isn’t really your thing though, the island still has plenty to offer, including a cool little amusement park called Fantasy Island, complete with a giant ferris wheel, bumper cars, funnel cakes and an arcade with skiball (oh yes, it really is the Jersey Shore). Right next door to that is a giant waterslide and an 18 hole mini-golf course, one of many on the island.

How I Spent My Time
Drinking at the Sea Shell Hotel right on the beach, sunbathing and reading on the sea side sands, swimming in the still chilly coastal waters, eating pizza and assorted Italian meats and cheeses, playing shuffle board, and enjoying the company of a beautiful girl.

The Bottom Line
While this was perhaps my best weekend of the entire summer thus far, there are several key barriers to overcome in getting here. First, you need a car to get onto the island, and second, you need a place to stay, and with the booming tourist industry, this will be neither cheap, nor easy unless you already know someone with a place here. If you can manage the trip however, you won’t regret it. Go ahead and splurge (you’ll have to, since the island is somewhat expensive) and enjoy everything LBI has to offer, including great seafood, beaches, bars, and even some good old fashioned family fun.

I recently got turned on to the idea of scavenger hunts in and around some of our fair city’s most fascinating locations. One that stood out, and incidentally has captivated my imagination for quite some time, is entitled Murder at the Met. As the name suggests, the event is based around a (fictional) murder in the Metropolitan Museum, which the guests have to solve by finding clues related to pieces of art in the museum.

The Mystery
Now if you’ve ever been to the Met or at least read my previous post about it, you’ll know that a scavenger hunt involving clues strewn across the museum’s many wings of fabulous art and sculpture is no small task, but that’s not all! Using the sheet of notes provided to get you started, combined with an answer sheet to write down your clues, and a numeric cypher, you have to guess not only the murderer’s identity, but also their motive. All within the time limit of 2 hours.

To get us started, each team was given a clue to start with, along with a guide for getting to the next clue. We were thankfully given the first clue to start with, so our journey was more or less by the numbers. Over the course of our search, we traversed the museum many times over, occasionally having to “be resourceful” about finding clues or rewriting directions when a particular wing of the museum was closed off. I’m proud to say that my team did exceptionally well despite getting totally lost looking for some 18th Century American portraits.

Eventually, we arrived at the Temple of Dendur, a massive hall with the remains of an ancient Egyptian temple, much of it still kept whole despite the long intervening centuries between its construction and subsequent excavation. We still had a few minutes which we used to run through the clues and make our guess about who among the multiple motivated murder suspects was the actual killer. Unfortunately, despite getting nearly every clue correct, we couldn’t figure out the cypher, and finally just guessed at the culprit, though we did manage to parse out the precise motive from the notes and the clues we’d gathered.

The Museum
The Met itself was no less impressive the second time around, and the added aspect of finding clues in the art gives you an excellent means by which to explore and scrutinize many of the museum’s permanent collections. On the downside, you get caught up in the competition and will probably find that you don’t have time during your hunt for clues to linger too long in any one place, so your opportunities for leisurely examination of any particular piece will be limited. If you still have the energy after the hunt ends, however, the price of admission to the museum is included in the cost of the ticket, so you can stay as long as you like to look at other exhibits.

The Bottom Line
Do it! But plan well in advance. The Murder at the Met series occurs several times a month but at times, you may have to book up to a month in advance. Perhaps by luck, when I finally did resolve to go, I was able to book tickets for the event only two weeks ahead of time. The tickets are a bit pricey at around $40 for an adult, $32 for students, but since they include price of admission to the museum, you can get a lot of bang for you buck, plus the event itself is totally worth it. A great way to spend a few hours on Saturday night!

This weekend wasn’t a big production really, just a lot of walking around downtown and incidentally running into a couple of landmarks, like Ice T doing an episode of SVU in Tribeca, and the Ghostbusters firehouse from the movie. Okay, I have to admit, the firehouse was pretty awesome to finally see, even if it was basically just a firehouse. It did have the Ghostbusters sign up inside though, so you know it’s authentic

I also checked out another pizzeria, John’s on Bleecker, so here’s the lowdown:

The Pizza: 6
John’s pizza is definitely a good, solid brick oven pie (no individual slices). This pie put, in my opinion, greater emphasis on the cheese than the sauce, and while neither aspect of the pizza was jaw droppingly wonderful, I did enjoy the combination and ratio. The crust was on the thinner end of the spectrum as I’ve come to expect from most brick oven pizza’s, and was nicely charred, with a distinct ring of crispiness around the edges while the middle remained soft and delicious. Foldability was high as well, but overall this pizza wasn’t quite what I have come to expect from the city’s top pizza joints.

The Toppings: 7
We got some fairly extensive toppings on this pie, including peppers, mushrooms and sausage, all of which score excellently for quality as well as for making a distinct contribution to the pizza’s flavor. You could tell that the ingredients were really fresh, and they were baked into the cheese, integrating nicely into the overall scheme of the pizza.

Other: 8
I’d heard that this pizzeria would be exceptionally packed, with a long wait at the door and no reservations possible. Pretty much par for the course with the pizza greats of NYC. But when I arrived, I found quite the opposite was true. There was no line, and we were seated immediately. Once we ordered, the pizza came out in an almost absurdly short period of time, and the waiter was very nice and helpful. For the specialty pizza, two drinks and the rapid and responsive service, we dropped a little over $30 bucks, which I consider quite reasonable.

The Bottom Line
This place seems like a top neighborhood pizza place, but is not necessarily worth a trip to the Village in its own right. Good service and a tasty pizza will draw me back if i’m in the area again, but probably not before.

As I mentioned in the Grimaldi’s post, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to continue my pursuit of the perfect New York Slice. You can get on the bridge at city hall (take the R,J,M,Z,4,5,6) and walk or bike across it, but be prepared cause it’ll take you maybe 15-20 minutes (estimated) to get across on foot.

The New York City Boardwalk
The first thought that occured to me as I started walking over the wooden slats that suspended us over the traffic zooming below was that the Brooklyn Bridge is a lot like a boardwalk on a beach. You get a great, unobstructed scenic view of both Manhattan and Brooklyn as you walk across, as well as a view up and down the East river and Governor’s Island. There are people selling bottled water on the bridge for a dollar a pop when it’s hot, but be aware that it can get pretty windy and cool up on the bridge, even in the summer.

Getting Off
The weird part of the excursion happens when you reach the Brooklyn side of the bridge. It’s walled in by traffic on either side, so they give you a choice: walk straight ahead and into what I like to think of as The Mystery Tunnel of Doom, or veer off to the right and nearly double the distance of the trip as you walk between concrete barriers separating you from high speed traffic. We chose to take the long, above-ground route and finally were spilled out on an unfamiliar cross street. Fortunately there was a map. Unfortunately, we were totally unfamiliar with the area, so we couldn’t effectively read it, so we wandered off until we found our final destination, Grimaldi’s!

The Bottom Line
The Brooklyn Bridge is a pretty cool site seeing adventure, but also a relatively short one if you don’t count the long additional penalty walk for not taking The Mystery Tunnel of Doom at the Brooklyn end. If you want to feel really touristy/boardwalky, grab a hotdog or pretzel at the City Hall end and munch as you look out over the river and take in the sites. It’s free, so it’s definitely worth a look if you’ve got a do-nothing Saturday afternoon planned. Just make sure the weather is going to hold up, or you might find yourself unpleasantly stranded in the middle of a thunderstorm.