More boats were around as we were in a more populated area and it was Labor Day weekend. We had been wanting to go to City Island for a couple of years. Its reputation intrigued us as it is very small with a lot of boaters, a real sense of neighborhood, and the home of residents whose families have been there for generations. We planned to get a mooring at the Harlem Yacht Club, one of the country’s oldest.
We arrived promptly and the launch came to greet us. After we got situated, we called it to take us to shore where we had lunch at the yacht club’s comfortable restaurant. City Island is very small, one and a half miles long by a half mile wide. With only 4500 residents living in mostly modest, well kept dwellings, City Island is more like a small New England shoreline village than a New York City enclave. It was originally part of Westchester, NY but is now part of the Bronx.
We strolled down City Island Ave., the main drag and found our way to the City Island Nautical Museum. There, a friendly docent told us about the history of City Island. Interestingly, it had been a major boat building center with several well known yacht manufacturers located here. Many America Cup yachts were built in shipyards here including several winners of that most coveted award. Sadly, all of them are now closed and the primary industry is tourism, specifically, seafood restaurants.
We had the obligatory ice cream at Lickety Split, a cute little place with mediocre ice cream and after strolling through half the town, we returned to Zendo where we had dinner onboard.
The next day we took the bus to the New York Botanical Garden located in the Bronx right across from the Bronx Zoo.
What an absolutely beautiful garden! We spent the entire day wandering around.
A fantastic exhibit was underway featuring the work of Roberto Burle Marx (a noted landscape architect and conservationist). This was particularly relevant to us because he was the landscape designer of the sidewalks next to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts that extend all the way down Biscayne Blvd. in Miami. The exhibit was was gorgeous and because he is Brazilian, several of the exhibit sections had Brazilian music playing in the background!
Before leaving we watched a Brazilian band perform in a courtyard where they got everyone on their feet, including us, to dance to the intoxicating rhythms!
On the way home we stopped for dinner at the Lobster House, one of the aforementioned seafood restaurants on City Island. It was packed at 5:00 on Sunday and we had to wait at the bar to be seated. The servings were so plentiful that we that we split a broiled seafood dinner and took enough home for a second meal!
We expected to leave the next day but stayed an extra night because the weather window had shifted. So on Labor Day itself, we took the launch into town to go to the grocery store which, fortunately, was open. Jonny wanted to find a hardware store to buy some marine caulk to fix our leaky window but none were open. Instead, we took a long walk exploring the other half of the island and in so doing found the home where the movie, City Island, that we had just watched, was filmed.
Later that afternoon, we met Dora, a friend of our friend Cathy Tisdale, who Lynn had met at Cathy’s 60th birthday party. Dora lives on City Island in a 100 year old home. We met for a drink at the yacht club and had a lively conversation getting to know each other and learning about her fascinating career.
That night we took the launch back to Zendo, ate the remainder of our seafood dinner from the Lobster House and enjoyed yet another gorgeous sunset.
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