Roosevelt Island

There’s nothing really on Roosevelt Island, but if you want to sit in the park overlooking the river, it’s very quiet and private. Walking around the entire island makes for a good walk, too. Just don’t come here expecting bars and restaurants. In fact, if you don’t care about those things at all and just want to get away from all the silly vanity that New York can be, go to RI.

It’s only worth visiting so you can see the difference between there and Manhattan, and it’s nice for walking around in. I don’t think I’d go back unless I had a good reason, though.

I went here with YogaGirl a year ago. The tram is outside my window at work, and I’d always wondered about it! We didn’t find it too exciting. We wandered around and then had dinner. The vibe is definitely different from the City! I really liked the tram ride, but, of course, now…ha ha

I took the bridge over from Queens (easy to do), and rode my bike around the entire perimeter of the Island. At the Southern tip there is a lighthouse and a lovely casual park, where people bring barbecues. There were lots of families and kids, and old guys fishing. It’s hard to believe that Roosevelt Island is so close to Manhattan. It has a lovely peace to it. When I was a kid, my cousins lived here, and we roamed around unsupervised, as though we were in a small town. The playgrounds are great, and weird. They don’t just have swing sets, they have abstract art for climbing. There used to be a really scary abandoned Mental Hospital almost underneath the Queens Borough Bridge, and our cousins told my brother and I ghost stories about it. It has been torn down to build condos since (of course), but there is still a strange collection of dilapidated octagonal connected buildings that seem to have some medical purpose. When I pedaled by last week, the patients were all sitting out by the water on benches underneath the cherry trees, which were in full bloom and stunning. Maybe this is where people go when Manhattan drives them crazy?