Today we extended our adventures to another borough. The Bronx.
''...You see New York is being overwhelmed by British tourists buying up everything in sight. People know that so they jack up the prices to make a killing off the tourists. However native New Yorkers don't want to get ripped off so they make up stories, that if you travel into the Bronx your car will blow up, you will be robbed and shot, etc. This is to scare away the Brits so that New Yorkers can go up there and shop without getting ripped off...''
''Is scotland all foggy, wet and cold all the time? Why believe untruths about other places? There are many world renown places in the Bronx that are beautiful. The botanical gardens are some of the best in the world as is the zoo. Many famous people grew up in the Bronx Ralhp Lauren,Martin Scorsese etc.''
The Bronx is the northernmost borough of New York City, and the only one located on primarily on mainland. The Bronx is the third most densely populated borough of New York State, and it has the third poorest congressional district in the entire U.S, however on the contrary to those facts much of The Bronx is open space including the largest park in New York and certain parts of The Bronx are full of waterside mansions and private properties that are in the Long Island Sound (the estuary between Connecticut and NY Long Island) area and Westchester county border. Today we visited Pelham Bay Park and Orchard Beach. At 2,666 acres Pelham Bay Park is the largest public park in New York City.
The park played an important part for the British in the American Revolutionary war becoming a safe point between English held New York City and rebel held Westchester. Since then (and the fall of the British, which if we've heard once from the Americans we've heard a hundred times!!!) the park has been commercialised and the 115 acre Orchard Beach was manmade by Robert Moses in 1888. This process involved filling about a third of Pelham Bay with landfill (similar to the construction of Coney Island) followed by 1.2million cubic yards of Sand bought in from New Jersey and Queens. The area is connected to several islands, the most notable being City Island which is famous for its seafood restaurants and private waterfront condos. In recent years, work has been done to improve the promenade with shops and restaurants, however as we visited on the 7th January everything was shut and empty as it was winter season!
We took the no.6 subway all the way to it destination to get up to the Pelham Park station and area, we then caught our 2nd bus ever in New York into the park, we walked through congregational areas with people flying remote control helicopters and playing baseball, through the park land and onto Orchard Beach.
At 16degrees Celsius today, our coats we're redundant as we relaxed on the sand of the deserted beach looking out over the water. This marks our 3rd January beach getaway, Fowey, Brokenhurst and now the Bronx! However never has it been such good weather! Apart from a couple of dog walkers and numerous Seagulls we were the only ones on the beach.
Spending all afternoon on the beach, with our mini picnic and very strange complimentary lactose and gluten free cookies...(?) we began to head home just before sunset, with the sun setting as we returned underground on the Subway, arriving back in Manhattan at night time! An odd sensation.
Who'd have known that two days ago it was -3 degrees C and Rosina purchased her onesie...
And today it was going to be 16degrees C and we were on the beach!
Oh Global Warming...you keep us on our toes!
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