Picking the Fall to Pieces, So you don't have to


Best Walks

Broadway/Upper West Side
Now that they’ve done up Columbus Circle with seating and flowers, (can’t do anything about the big black hole to the left) it’s a perfect spot to begin a walk north, up towards Riverside Park. Grab coffee along the way and breathe crisp air. Of course this year we’re missing the market at 72nd Street (where did it go?) due to all that construction, but the Upper West Side remains a favorite for any reason. Fairway, Citarella, H&H, Zabar’s – if you don’t have a chef’s kitchen, it’s cruel and unusual punishment. But hey, an apartment dweller can dream, can’t he?

The Boardwalk
It doesn’t matter which way you approach it from, but I prefer Coney Island, because Brighton Beach is ultimately a little more friendly after Labor Day. And besides, just because it’s October, doesn’t mean everyone’s packed up and gone home. Truthfully, November afternoons might look as busy as July – the clientele is just a little older and more reserved. More’s the better. At the end, Mrs. Stahl’s beckons, but for some reason I always liked the sweet potato better than the regular. If you’re exceptionally lucky, there’ll be dancing in the yard next to the senior center at the very end of the boardwalk.

Brooklyn Heights/Farmer’s Market
Tuesday’s and Saturday’s, you can at least count on hot spiced cider and apple cider donuts, not to mention apples and juice to take home. But for now, the hot cider and donuts will do just fine for a stroll through one of the city’s great neighborhoods. If the winds aren’t too brisk, the Promenade is of course, a given. It all seems so, well, refined. Totally unlike Brooklyn.

Washington Heights
We’ve been over this before (see Best of 1999). But the fact remains, the people who live up along the Fort Washington spine near the Cloisters are some of the luckiest people in the city. So much drama in the landscape – the George, cliffs on all sides, the beautiful museum and surrounding parklands, the Palisades across the water. The charming little neighborhood around 187th Street includes old fashioned sandwich places, tobacco shops and a handful of groovy hangouts. Hike down under the bridge to the Red Lighthouse and sit on the rocks spilling into the Hudson River. Bring a coat.

Road Trips for Poor People
Route 28, Catskill Park
In my day, many a Sunday afternoon was spent in the back of the family car going to Grandma’s in Mount Tremper, back when the Fall went on forever. Just head northwest from the Kingston exit of the Thruway. It’ll look good soon enough – it’ll look even better past Phoenicia. Incidentally, there are plenty of cheap eats down in that tiny mountain burg. Don’t turn around too quickly, it’s damn near spectacular once you get to Delhi. And unless you’re returning to campus at Oneonta, you’ll probably want to make a u-turn right about now. Views on the return equally stunning. Guaranteed.

Metro-North to Poughkeepsie
Trust me, it’s better than it sounds. Price of admission? Less than 20 bucks. If all that riverside serenity bores you, jump off at Cold Spring and stroll around. Cafes, antiques, the like. If you don’t feel like strolling, don’t expect anything when you come to a dead halt in Poughkeepsie. About the only thing in Poughkeepsie worth seeing is the Galleria. At least that’s what we thought as fifteen-year-olds. I’m not sure things have changed. Honestly, maybe turning around in Cold Spring is a better idea. Yeah, definitely. Cold Spring.

Vacation Idea for People with Time and Money

Midwest Northwoods
It is at this time of year that my heart begins to ache with longing for the good old days, when I lived in the sticks of Ulster County, a mere child I was. This will be my second fall in the city, after spending four previous living on the North Side of Chicago, which was plenty distant from all forms of nature, save Lake Michigan and it’s unforgiving winds. The spindle-like saplings on my unhappy block never quite made it to any type of color change before succumbing to death, swirling on the street, commingling with fast food wrappers and empty beer cans.

Thinking about all this makes me long for the mountains. Growing up a stone’s throw from the Catskills, two enormous ridges fenced us in, behind our property along the Hudson. One only had to step outside the house and drink in the symphony of fall rising high behind us, the smells of ripened fruit and cider presses from the neighboring orchard property, smoke from the neighbors leaf fires, rustling forest-floors – city be damned – this is to truly know euphoria.

While residing in the Midwest, I was able to indulge childhood memory for two short weeks each year, spending a blissfully simple and quiet 14 days in our shared vacation home in a pint-sized town off of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula region of Michigan – the U.P. (eh).

Closer to Canada than Chicago, both in mileage and local color, it never failed to be a refreshing escape from the strains of urban living. We drank surprisingly good coffee in a local café contained within a converted double-wide which stands in a vacant lot along the state highway, went hiking along the shore, and snuggled under quilts on aging couches and watched old movies in our wood-frame home with the floors that creaked and the doors that were too warped to close properly. We played Hearts, Sorry, Monopoly, and drank more coffee which we brought with us from our favorite local roasters and cooked fantastic dinners in an enormous kitchen and played soccer on the lawn with the bored local teenagers who thought we were all faggots since we came from Chicago.

We don’t have that kind of beautiful simplicity out here. Everything’s so developed, and you go to the mountains upstate to try and get away from it all, and save for the state land itself, you can’t walk a yard without bumping into New Yorkers or foreign tourists and locals who want you all to go away.

May I suggest the Upper Peninsula? Not so much to live, but to visit, again and again. In case I haven’t made it clear, I wish I were there right now. Quick, before cold sets in. Perhaps it already has -- winters can come early there, you know.

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com

Next Update: 20 Oct