Orchard Beach in Summer

Park Odyssey's first trip to Orchard Beach was on a chilly spring day in the early throes of the pandemic. We returned this summer for an Urban Park Rangers tide pool walk, which started at the Nature Center. While there, we made it a "beach day" too. Which, for us, usually means an hour or two at most, taking turns going in the water.

Down the middle of the photo below you can see the transition between the sparsely populated section with no lifeguards (on the left) and the crowded part of the beach where the swimming zone starts (on the right). The lifeguards were pretty strict about keeping swimmers out of the water outside the zone.

The beach is a long curve of sand built on landfill at the innermost armpit of Long Island Sound. The water's very calm, with no waves to speak of. And you can go quite far out and it's still only up to your waist.

But back to our main plot: Armed with nets supplied by the Nature Center, our group walked out towards the rocks at a point far from the crowds.

Did this tide-pool excursion mostly draw parents with their kids? Sure. But clearly we, Mr. and Mrs. Odyssey, are in a certain way kids at heart.

After catching, viewing, and releasing a whole assortment of small sea creatures temporarily stranded in tide pools (tiny fish, clams, etc. – even a jellyfish), we took a mini-hike to a spot at the edge of one of the adjacent former islands (now attached by landfill) to look at the hermit crabs scuttling in and out of their holes in the sand.

When the party broke up we headed to the beach to partake of the sun and sand, and do a little "swimming." Other beachgoers, though, were enjoying the grass and trees – or partying like it was Labor Day weekend.

Condé Nast Traveler recently named Orchard Beach one of the best beaches near New York City. But there's a caveat: There are no fewer than 17 beaches on the list. So, is Orchard Beach really New York City's "Riviera"? It depends how far you want to stretch your imagination. For sure, though, the Bronx's only beach stretches a long mile-and-change, fronts swimmable waters, and is absolutely right here in NYC.

All photos © Oren Hope

Manhattan Beach Park

I've been to Coney Island and Brighton Beach plenty of times over the decades – in the case of Coney, since I was a wee kid. Still I had never sojourned further east on that same peninsula to Brooklyn's Manhattan Beach Park. This lapse was finally remedied on Labor Day Sunday, thanks to Mrs. Odyssey who knew the lay of the land (and sea).

Far fewer folks hit Manhattan Beach than crowd its better-known neighbors, in part because this beach is a bit of a hike from the nearest subway station (Sheepshead Bay). But that's where the adventure begins, with a walk down lively Sheepshead Bay Road, ending up at Emmons Ave. which runs along the northern edge of Sheepshead Bay (the bay itself).

The bay is really more of a channel cut into the bottom of Brooklyn, frequented by water birds (including swans) and home to leisure craft and chartered fishing boats.

A long, clattering wooden footbridge clad in fading blue paint takes you across the bay to Manhattan Beach, the neighborhood.

The Hidden Waters Blog reports that the bridge has the rather funny-sounding distinction of being the "longest pedestrian-only bridge across a waterway that is inside a borough."

The same post has a drawing of a much more substantial bridge, never built. Probably the residents of the tony Manhattan Beach neighborhood wouldn't have welcomed Coney Island-sized crowds scrambling down its streets on the way to its beach. Manhattan Beach, I am told by a reliable source, is one of New York City's five most expensive neighborhoods.

The strand was sparsely populated although it was a warm late morning on Labor Day Weekend.

Few concessions had yet been conceded.

But slowly more people arrived.

By the time we left two hours later the lunchtime crowd at the picnic area had started to take on a festival atmosphere.

Walking through the park's eastern side back out towards the street, we encountered a tree that really, really wanted to be playing handball, a field of rocks that was a pure mystery, and a little boy hoping against hope to be hit by a tennis ball.

There's actually another, tiny beach even further out near the end of the peninsula called Kingsborough Beach, but it's restricted to the good people of Kingsborough Community College.

The sun got hotter and hotter as we headed back to town along Shore Boulevard Mall – also a Parks Department responsibility.

Signs on a building visible from the elevated subway station broadcast the multiethnic nature of Sheepshead Bay. A Russian tailor, a Turkish Hair Salon, and a law firm with Italian roots doing business in English and Spanish.

Finally: To partake of that festival atmosphere I mentioned from the comfort of your domicile, please enjoy John Philip Sousa's "Manhattan Beach March."

Rockaway Beach

When I think about city parks, I don't usually think of the beaches. Maybe it's because I grew up on Long Island, where the obligatory summer rite of going to the beach was its own species of activity, distinct from "parks." Parks meant grass, playgrounds, jogging trails, fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But New York City's beaches are some of its most important parks. I've been to a few of them for this blog: Jacob Riis Park; the iconic New York City beach and boardwalk of Coney Island; Pelham Bay Park in The Bronx which includes Orchard Beach. Today: a quick post on Rockaway Beach, which, thanks partly to The Ramones, is NYC's second-most-famous strand.

Despite its location on a strip of land that looks map-wise as if it ought to be part of Brooklyn, Rockaway Beach is in Queens. You can take the A train there, so you don't need a car. The part of the beach by the Beach 105th St. stop – the second-to-last stop on the line – is, theoretically, less busy than other spots, so that's where we headed on a bright day in early August.

Kites fly at Rockaway Beach

Compared to Coney Island – and compared to my expectations – the water was very clean, and incredibly refreshing.

Other stretches of Rockaway Beach are closer to the good, fun food vendors. But there's food at the concession stand near Beach 105th St., if you can handle long lines on busy days.

The other great thing about Rockaway Beach is that it's tremendously long. Sure, it gets crowded, but not Coney-Island claustrophobic.

So grab a blanket, sunblock, and your MetroCard, pack a sandwich and some fruit and something to drink, and head for the Rockaway Peninsula. You won't find a finer beach than Rockaway for many a mile.

All photos © Jon Sobel, Critical Lens Media, except where noted

Wolfe's Pond Park

With a beach, freshwater ponds, a forest, lots of recreation facilities, and even a Battle of the Bulge memorial, Wolfe's Pond Park covers more than 300 acres on the south shore of Staten Island, split across the middle by Hylan Boulevard, one of the island's main thoroughfares. The park includes part of the Staten Island Bluebelt, a huge storm drainage and landscape architecture project that's still in progress.

A Bluebelt sign greeted us as we made an initial stab into the park from its northern end, thinking we might be able to find paths all the way through to the pond and the shore.

The trail was clear, but with neither a map nor the right footwear for the terrain, we decided to drive down to the beach end instead.

If you see berries that look like the ones in the next photo, do not eat them. It's pokeweed. Pokeberries are deadly poisonous to humans, although, according to Outdoor Life, birds and deer and other animals can eat them with no problem.

Can dogs eat pokeberries? Outdoor Life doesn't say. They can have a good time in the Wolfe's Pond Park dog run, though. Because of the clean-looking wood-chip surface (and the absence of dogs) I didn't even realize it was a dog run until I noticed the POOCHES sign on the shed.

Walking a winding path through the high shrubbery gave us our first view of the beach, which looks pretty nice, even though this summer a New Yorkers for Parks report rated it the worst of eight city beaches. (Like other Staten Island beaches, it suffered damage during Hurricane Sandy.)

Basketball courts, tennis courts, even a hockey rink were in use. Absolutely not in use was this fenced-off, overgrown playground . The equipment doesn't look old. Hurricane Sandy shut off the "lights" here, I believe. There's a notation on the parks department website that restoration of the playground and surrounding paths is underway.

Out of nowhere the Plaza of the Battle of the Bulge appears, with its striking memorial. Its dichroic glass star is said to change color throughout the day.

Partly funded by contributions from Luxemburg and Belgium, the memorial, built in 2001, pays "tribute to the 600,000 American men and women who participated in this epic [1944-45] battle," as the Parks Department website explains.

We made our way towards the pond itself across a big grassy area strewn with families and groups of friends. There seemed to be roughly as many ethnicities as groups.

At last, Wolfe's Pond.

The city acquired the area for a park in 1929, but it was already a popular spot for waterside recreation. Prior to that it was owned by the state, which used it as a quarantine site for sick immigrants. Before that, a man named Joel Wolfe who had come up from Virginia farmed it until 1857 (credit goes to an old Forgotten New York post for that hard-to-find tidbit). And before that, Native Americans used the shells of the Quahog clams they found here (later given the wonderful scientific name Mercenaria mercenaria) to make valuable wampum.

The freshwater pond extends south to where, pace the little dam, it sometimes connects to Raritan Bay – and floods with seawater. How fresh, salt, or brackish is the water this summer I have no idea.

Looking northward, you could almost be in a pristine wilderness.

Looking at children chasing geese, well, it's a wild scene, but maybe not so pristine.

One goose had found a more protected spot. Though if it came down to a real fight, I suspect the children would need more protection than the geese.

These guys had secured a quiet little eden too, a shady spot by the water where they listened to one of their number sing and play a stringed instrument. Is this a saz? If anyone knows for sure, please let me know in a comment below.