My Town Monday: Rye Playland

Nan handled our MT Novel Monday last week, so we're doing a regular-old one. While the park's ice rink and some arcades are open year-round, the first official day of Rye Playland's summer season was this Saturday. On Sunday, though there were a few attractions not yet in full swing, we finally got to see the whole park with people and music and leafy trees. Lovely.

Playland in Rye, New York is about 40 minutes north of Manhattan on Long Island Sound (10 minutes from my house) and is the only facility of this type owned and operated by the U.S. National Park Service. Being open since 1928, it is the prototypical amusement park. Fortunately, it's been well looked after. The buildings maintain their original art deco style with fresh coats of paint and lots of neat gardens. There's a treelined green midway between twin promenades of arcade games and rides as well as food vendors. My inaugural funnel cake of the year was delectable! (click any picture to enlarge. gray day, though, sorry.)

In addition to wonderful kiddie rides, there are full-thrill roller coasters, including The Dragon, which is also one of several rides dating from the inception of Playland. Its age also means certain things are as they are, like the car dimensions. More 18th century than 21st. Read the warning above. Awesome.

There's also a year-round ice rink and an outdoor mini golf course. But Playland isn't just carnival-style fun. There's a wide strolling boardwalk with telescopes and benches and an enormous outdoor pool, as well as a sandy beach for bathing. There's a lake at the park's north end for short rented cruises or paddle boat rentals. Another terrific thing: since this is a public park, admission is free. There's local bus and train shuttle service available, but you'll pay between $5 and $7 for car parking. Most rides require buying ticket cards, and you'll have to purchase your own food-on-a-stick (beer, too), but access is open to all locations and to he beach and pool. The prices for boat rentals are around $10 and mini golf is $4. The prices are very reasonable for such fun, and I was happily stuffing quarters into the SkeeBall and Galaga games next to the shooting gallery. We earned enough coupons for happy-face stickers, a Chinese finger trap, and a yellow plastic duck that clicks. Cool!

Bonus Trivia: This 1988 movie used an old fashioned fortune telling machine at Playland in an integral role.

See MTM innovator Travis Erwin for links to more towns, books, and Mondays.

Home in the Rockies – My Town Monday with a Mystery Twist

"New" mystery novelist, Beth Groundwater lives where I’d like to: Colorado Springs. What a breath-taking place! (Not just because of the high altitude.) That area of Colorado looks like God’s creative laboratory – filled with massive swaths of experimental mountains – some are sky-high murderous slices of stone split apart; others are gigantic boulders strewn about the land; and still others look like dribble castles where titans hide. One location after another, each appearing totally alien to the next. Travel a few miles and you’re in the Garden of the Gods. Then head for Manitou Springs. Estes Park, anyone? What a setting for a mystery!

Beth’s Colorado based mystery, A REAL BASKET CASE, won broad attention as an Agatha Award Finalist for Best First Novel. In this up-and-coming series, the amateur sleuth makes baskets and fills them with native-based elements: turkey feathers, wildflower honey, blue cornbread and a teasingly dangerous “Scorned Woman” salsa/hot sauce mouth-burner. Can you taste the setting? Need a glug of beer or some of Colorado’s carrot-apple juice with protein powder to restore your lost electrolytes? Beth’s got them all close at hand.

The sleuth’s home is nestled among scrub oak and ponderosa pine. Beth uses that setting to capture examine her protagonist’s mood. “A squirrel scampered along the rail of the redwood deck. The creature seemed to know what direction to take – unlike herself.”

After the sleuth witnesses a climber falling to his death in the Garden of the Gods, the vision haunts her like a foreshadowing of her fate. Cruel and absurdly cool.

I plan to revisit Colorado Springs often, with Beth’s help. Care to join me?

(Thanks to Travis Erwin for inventing this opportunity to wallow in settings. To read more, link to Travis’s blog: http://www.traviserwin.blogspot.com/.)

MTM: City Island, The Bronx, New York

I often boast that I was born and raised in The Bronx, the only one of New York City’s five boroughs to actually be part of the mainland of the United States of America. To a kid in the 1950s that was very important because when The Bomb was dropped on New York City, we wouldn’t have to cross any bridges to reach the safety of Middle America. I was sure that my cousins in Brooklyn would be goners, while we Bronxites would just walk until we reached a cornfield somewhere. We kids knew all about The Bomb because in those days families watched the evening news together and world events were common dinner table conversation.

My beloved Bronx is home to the New York Yankees, home to the oldest Municipal Golf Course in the United States, located in Van Cortlandt Park , and home to tiny City Island, only a mile and a half long, and barely a half mile wide. The Island is surrounded by the waters of the Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay and is connected to the rest of the Bronx by the one road out, one road in, City Island Bridge.

Originally inhabited by the Siwanoy Indians, City Island was first established as an English settlement in 1685. Since it was in a perfect location on the route schooners traveled between Manhattan and New England, the Island became an important ship building and yachting center.

World Wars One and Two brought about a necessary switch to the construction of submarine chasers, P. T. Boats, landing crafts, tugs, and mine sweepers.

Following World War Two, the Island shipyards began constructing pleasure craft once again, including 12-meter sloops that became increasingly popular, especially in yacht racing. Several America’s Cup entrants were built on City Island, including the 1977 contenders the Independence, the Enterprise, and the 1977 winner, the Courageous skippered by Ted Turner.

Today, the presence of yacht clubs, sailing schools, sail makers, marinas, fishing boats, and marine supply and repair shops reflect City Island's historic role as a nautical community. City Island Avenue is lined with antique shops and sea food restaurants. There are no hotels or motels but Le Refuge Inn is a very elegant French Inn and Restaurant located in a nineteenth century sea captain’s house.

I am always surprised at how many New Yorkers have never been to City Island. When I can, I drag them on the grand tour and usually wind up at the Lobster House . To see some of the wonderful views that bring diners back time and again, click here.

My personal favorite place to eat is an old coffee house turned restaurant called the Black Whale where I brunch with my old friends from high school a few times a year. We talk about the past, as in “Why did we get detention for that?” the future, as in “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you retire?” Someone always remarks how terrific it is that the City Islanders continue to fight against development, struggling to keep the village atmosphere for generations to come.

Sometime this Spring, my oldest grand daughter will be going to City Island with her first digital camera and will probably take pictures in the same niches where I took them when I got my first Brownie camera fifty-three years ago. Hopefully, she won’t cut off nearly as many heads as I did.

For a quick trip around the world via My Town Monday links, please visit Travis Erwin’s blog, where it all began.

Terrie

KHAN!!!!!! A 2-sentence Postscript.

I forgot to include this great picture which shows (again) how widely graphics are being used, but I couldn't stand thinking about hashing around the original long and mangled post. So, here's a rack of philosophical, historical works in graphic form from the For Beginners book series.

P.P.S. Faked you out with that 2-sentence stuff, didn't I?

P.P.P.S. We shall see...


UPDATE: What the heck? Here they are. I read:
She was her Staten Island cottage, the shining bay, the sailing ships, a sanctuary from the sense-numbing city. Imagine unlacing her every night. - The Midnight Band of Mercy by Michael Blaine.

I wrote: There wasn’t a flexible-enough cover identity, except possibly as an especially naive journalist or NGO staffer, which each had limitations. No one but a minister would drag his wife to these places, which left Franklyn the role of someone’s girlfriend, a status too often translated in locals’ minds to being the Westerners' whore.

Please share any two you read and wrote in the comments, or let us know where they're posted so we can provide the link.

Travis Erwin's inspirational and whitewashed twos.

Britta Coleman likes to post her 2x2s on Thursdays. A sweet one.

KHAN!!!!!! Wait, I mean Con

Star Trek Inspirational Posters found here.

Sure I don't live in Manhattan anymore, even if I'm darned close, and sure it's really Tuesday at this moment, but I've always been broad-minded about My Town Mondays.

This weekend was the 3rd Annual NY Comic-Con (vention). I've been to all three and it's ballooned in size and scope every year. While things keep improving, other problems of scale arise and need tweaking. After such a short run, that this is already the second largest event after Comic Con Int'l in San Diego shows that the East Coast was hungry for its own local venue. Sensible, too, since so much of the publishing is in NYC.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but Blogger's been more evil and obstreperous handling pictures than usual, which is really saying something. The order and shape will have to stay what it is (click to enlarge) and I'll notate around the edges. Yuck.

Above- The Javitz Center indeed has a soaring atrium and many kinds of other merchandise, like this case of figurines, are on display besides comics books and graphic novels. There's statuary; toys in both vinyl and plush; clothing and thematic accessories; non-picture books; lots of original artwork; games on boards, cards, and video; and exhibits from not only from 2-D producers but studios like Disney and Nickelodeon and SciFi who screened piles of related previews and trailers. Don't forget the funnel cakes.


The 2 top pics in the group above show the main problem in this year's show. The mob scene between cement walls is not the exhibition hall, which was, for the first time, a room large enough to walk in wide aisles without getting poked by horns and light sabers all the time. (Yay!) However, the downstairs hall where the panels were presented, including popular media previews, had no flow and inadequate capacity. A set of escalators leads to and from it from above, and the pic with the shiny tile floor is THE LINE FOR THE ESCALATOR simply to get into the mob! I didn't see a single panel, because of the schooling crowds that blockaded every inch of floor space. The media shows should be in a large, open access amphitheater set-up. On the biggest day, Saturday, it was disappointing not to get to attend any of the discussions or presentations. However, last year the capacity was lean enough they sold out of tickets, and lots of traveling attendeed couldn't even get in. So this is improvement. Also above is the quintessential comic dealer set-up, boxes with issues in plastic sleeves for browsing. There are fewer of these type of booths than you'd imagine, fewer than the first years. I think. It's more about the splashy spectacle now.

The last of this chunk above is a truly sad sight to educate any writer. WARNING: RANT FOLLOWS. See that tiny table on the blue carpet in the image's center? The one with a few books that's slapped against the back of another, much grander booth? Whoever the publisher, they set up a space with signing slots in this lousy spot, and the dispirited author was spending his hour just sitting there, slouched so far back you can't see him in my picture. I almost went back at least to examine his book out of pity, but frankly, there was plenty of traffic (as you can see) walking that row if he'd come out from behind the table! Stopped waiting for people to approach him! The place incites sensory overload, but... Meet the other exhibitors in your row. Most people working in the field are also fans. They may buy a book, send people your way, or at least help you pass the time in bonhomie. Meet attendees! Ask them how the day's going, what they've seen so far that's cool, whether it's their first con, etc. Regular people like having interest shown in them, just like authors do : ) And they may even buy your book or tell a friend who will. It takes energy to be outgoing, but at an event like this (especially if your slot's only a hour or so), enthusiasm teems in the candy-colored oxygen supply. Don't just mope and liquify, feeling bad about your admittedly horrible placement and pathetic display. Time's a wastin' while potential readers flit by. If you wrote the book, you're part of the product and more potentially compelling than any long table, pleated draping, banner, or vertical shelving unit!

The scene has echoes of Mardi Gras and elaborate tailgating parties. You'll notice lots and lots of costumed people and become inured to them. This year (also a yay), security was way less draconian about the 'weapons' people had with them. How you gonna make Gandalf give up his staff? Some of the outfits are very professional, some are more home-grown, but cosplayers and civvies are all cavorting together. Even the non-costumed tend to wear gear that proclaims their superheroic or thematic allegiances. It's a colorful, good-natured scene, polite and pleasant despite the apparently horrible and martial characters that populate it. Most of the costumed are not only happy, but positively eager, to have their pictures taken. Above left, the X-Men Women had just finished taking pictures with the excited girl CatWoman, if that's how to phrase it. Bad news for all the scantily costumed: Next year's con is in early Feb. again, and the coat check issues were myriad during the last winter event.

Of course, no convention's complete without Stormtroopers. Trust me on this. Half of this pair, once the helmet was off, was revealed to be a 30-ish woman with a chestnut bob and granny glasses who would've looked right at home behind any circulation desk. Cons Rock!

My Town Monday: Peternity

A few miles from my house is Hartsdale, NY. It's not technically my town, but within my normal orbit of operations, so I'm counting it, and Hartsdale boasts the nation's oldest and largest pet cemetery. All the images posted here are ones I took myself yesterday. (Click to enlarge.) Pardon any formatting weirdness. With this many photos, Blogger burps.









In 1896, a prominent NYC vet, Dr. Samuel Johnson, offered his apple orchard in then-rural Hartsdale to serve as a burial plot for a bereaved friend's dog. From this single act of sympathy, the site grew and now is the resting place for almost 70,000 pets.



The park is run by the descendants of the family that founded it, which included relatives of famous designers and sculptors such as Robert Caterson, who was chosen to do its WWI War Dog Memorial. I don't know how I managed to miss a picture of that, but above I snapped the memorial of Tanne, a seeing eye companion, and Skippy, a fire hero.










The monuments come in all sizes and expressions of grandeur. The arch above for Pekoe and Lady Lu provides one of the landmarks of the park, as well as the practically human-sized monument to Toodles Walsh . The monuments span the eras and even the small ones are full of personality. Sometimes, the pet names are the best part, and many have mounted photos or elaborate etchings. There are so many more examples of creative commemorations then I'm even showing, and the place is full of flowers. Whether placed by the families or planted by the park's staff, this place is blooming and green. And they're not species snobs here. Look for two examples of other honorees, occupying the "peaceable kingdom" among the dogs and cats.

I've collected the facts from the cemetery's well-developed website, which has tons more links/images of notoriety and interest (seriously!) as well as a slide-show tour. I've always been a fan of graveyards, finding them fascinating and lovely, and this one struck me as a faintly goofy but extremely sweet place.


However, concerning this last one, may I add my hopes that the family are breeders, or that these names all belong to goldfish?

Queens County Farm Museum

In keeping with the newest blog craze, started by our pal, Travis Erwin, this post is part of the My Town Monday series.

New York City. A place full of glitz and glamour. We got Times Square. We got the Empire State Building. We got Yankee Stadium. We got the Queens County Farm Museum. That’s not a typo. In the city of skyscrapers and yellow taxis, we have a forty-seven acre working farm museum.

New York is a big city, covering 321.8 square miles in a very lopsided way. The borough of Manhattan, which has been called The Island at the Center of the World, is not at the center of the City. It is a narrow island bound on the west by the Hudson River and across that river is our neighboring state of New Jersey. The other boroughs, The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, all spread out to the north, the east and the south.

Long before the American Revolution, the Adriance family owned and farmed a parcel of land about twenty miles east of Manhattan. The farm passed out of the family in 1806 and for the next 120 years was farmed by these families: Bennum, Lent, Cox and, finally, Stattel. By the time Daniel Stattel died in 1926, the surrounding area of the Borough of Queens was being rapidly developed into one-family homes and garden apartments. A real-estate investor named Pauline Reisman bought the farm and in less than six months sold it to New York State for use by the patients of nearby Creedmoor State Hospital. The staff and patients operated the farm for many years, and then the State offered the land for sale as surplus in the 1970s. A local civic leader, James A. Trent, brought experts to view the house and farm land and it was soon discovered that the original rooms of the house were built by the Adriance family in 1772, with rooms added by the Cox family in 1855.

Today the farm is owned by the New York City Parks Department and operated by the Colonial Farmhouse Restoration Society. The staff tends to a variety of animals and also plants, harvests and sells crops. Farm fresh eggs and raw honey are for sale every day. The grounds are open to the public daily and free of charge unless one of the specially sponsored events is scheduled, such as the recent Barnyard Easter Egg Hunt, which included games, a hayride, and hunting for those colorful eggs. Upcoming events include the Thirtieth Annual Antique Auto Show, to be followed by Farm Fest, which includes sheep shearing, cultural exhibits and pony rides.

If you want to rent the orchard, or the pavilion in the planting fields , or even the barn for a private event, give a call and your farm party is a go. And yes, I’m sure. My son and daughter-in-law held their wedding reception and the Christening parties for each of their children in the barn pictured here.

The information and picture in this post came from the Queens County Farm Museum website and from the website of the Historical House Trust an organization that works with the Parks Department and supports twenty two historical houses in New York City.

Terrie

(Not) My Town Monday

(My Town Monday is a project conceived in the darkest corners of Travis Erwin's brain.)

My current work in progress is set in St. Martin, in the French West Indies. It's half an island. Or, to be more precise, 20 square miles of a 37 square mile island. The other half of the island is Dutch. I'd say the island was in the Caribbean, but only half of it is--other coasts are washed by the Atlantic. And, now that I think about it, only half the book is set there. The other half takes place in New York.

I've been going to Saint Martin/Sint Maarten since I was a kid, for thirty years, and my husband and I own a couple of timeshare weeks there. (We inherited them from my parents after Hurricane Luis destroyed the island in 1995, leaving the timeshare development in ruins. It took 5 years to find someone to take the place over because the original owners ran off with the insurance money. My parents moved on to a livable space for their vacations and passed their weeks--completely worthless at the time--to us.)

Half a book is a lot of words, but it doesn't cover a lot of time, and there's no way my characters could go to all the great spots I've been on the island. But a few days a year isn't long, either, and I now give you three spots I've never been. The signs, though, the signs are priceless.



and the place where they take care of all your sleeping needs...forever....

Diversions

Who was the author who claimed to lock her office door not to keep the world out but to ensure she stayed inside? I know I'd do well to follow her advice. But my real distractions - if you don’t count food in the kitchen and gunk in the shower stall - aren't outside the room. They're outside the window.

In a black cherry at the bottom of my hill there's a pair of nesting hawks, and to the north – no joke – I can see fifty miles to Mohonk’s Sky Top ridge. But my most recent distractions are the two equine occupants of a small barn on a neighboring eight acres.

When they arrived a few weeks ago, the temperamental pony did her best to evict her full-sized roommate. Ever seen a horse jump backward, hind legs kicking? By now she's adjusted to sharing quarters. When they're let out of the barn every morning, they prance the perimeter of the paddock before settling to graze. There's a black lab working up the nerve to herd them, but so far he's kept a safe distance.

In March the wind sometimes blows like a hurricane on our ridge. The day it whipped a skylight off our roof, the horses were stuck in the barn. I missed them, but resolved to accomplish a fair bit of writing. Until I discovered that by leaning forward in my chair, I could see their noses through the stall windows.

It's hopeless. I’m considering moving my desk to the basement.

I can see why Michael Connelly writes the occasional novel in a windowless room. Why, according to Joanne Palmer in Write Blindfolded, Steven King wrote on a typewriter squeezed between washer and dryer, and Andre Dubus parked his car in a cemetery to write The House of Sand and Fog.

There are certainly alternatives to writing at home. I do like libraries (I recommend Nyack’s). I’ve gotten into the zone on trains, although I once nearly missed my stop at Secaucus Junction. Cafe's sometimes work until I get to know the regulars. (See Best Places to Write/Work in NYC for one writer's recommendations.) But as Clare pointed out, it's spring. The jonquils are ready to bloom. I'm expecting bunnies in the yard any day now.

This time of year, can anyone honestly claim self-discipline? What's your secret? Maybe a sturdy set of window shades.

- Lois

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

In keeping with Travis Erwin’s My Town Monday series, I bid you

Cead Mile Failte (A Hundred Thousand Welcomes) to New York City on Saint Patrick’s Day, Monday, March 17.

Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland as well as the Patron Saint of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

I am the direct descendent of ancestors, all having surnames the likes of Farley and Dwyer and Duggan and McGuinness and O’Brien and Kealey and Keating and McMullan, who were born on one of two islands, Ireland or Manhattan.

Is it any wonder that the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a constant in my past, present and future? I’ve marched or stood as a spectator in snow and rain and on gorgeous sunny days for more than fifty years. When my children were young, I pulled them out of school every Paddy’s Day so they could participate in this yearly shout-out to their heritage. It’s important to know from whence ye came.

As is true of so many things in America, the history of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade has its roots in European politics. During hundreds of years of British rule, Irish music, Irish language and the “Wearing of the Green” was forbidden in Ireland as was land ownership by Irish Catholics and any sign or practice of the Roman Catholic religion. Not so in the American colonies, perhaps because no one thought to do so.

The first march of what was to become the oldest Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in the world was held in 1762, when a group of Irish immigrants and some Irish soldiers serving in the British military here in New York, decided to march along lower Broadway on Saint Patrick’s Day. Many wore sprigs of green in their hat bands as they sang Irish songs and played Irish music. They marched each year, their numbers steadily increasing.

Over time the parade was formalized by the Irish fraternal organizations. New York City grew, exploding with new immigrants landing every day, first at Castle Garden and after 1892, coming in through Ellis Island. Still more immigrants arrived by routes unknown and, perhaps, not quite legal. No matter how they came, millions of immigrants came from Ireland.

As the Irish-American population grew, so did the parade. Today approximately one quarter of a million marchers will assemble to strut along the fine green line painted down the center of Fifth Avenue. Upwards of two million spectators will surge into Manhattan, early of a morning, to find their spot for the best view. There are no fancy floats. The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade is a parade filled with marching people and marching bands. And bagpipes. Lots of bagpipes. And clusters of Irish Step Dancers twirling along with stiff arms and knees up, keeping time to a jig or a hornpipe.

The famous Fighting 69th Regiment of the New York National Guard, with Irish roots going back to the American Civil War, has led the parade for as long as I can remember. And the line of march goes on forever. The FDNY, the NYPD, and is that the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh going by? Here’s Cardinal Hayes High School and is that Fordham University coming up now? Ah, and let’s not forget the Irish Northern Aid and the Irish American Labor Coalition. Each of Ireland’s thirty-two counties has a contingent, including Cavan, Derry and Tipperary, the counties of my ancestors.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of the parade, the Parade Committee has put together a link of pictures from the 2007 Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.

If you happen to visit us between 11 am to 3pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday, March 17th, you may find a live stream of the parade at this site. If not, try here.

I hope you enjoy this blog and its links and I hope you’ll share a comment or two. As for me, decked out in my finest green, including my granny hat splattered with shamrocks and teddy bears, I’ll on the Central Park side of Fifth Avenue, some where north of Fifty-ninth Street. I’ll be in the grand company of, among others, my youngest grandchild, who at the ripe old age of eighteen months, will be attending her first, but far from her last, Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

Slainte. (Good health.)

Terrie

Book Spots Of My Youth

Last Monday, Terrie wrote about New York City's "Book Row" for My Town Monday, so I figured I'd write about four spots I visited frequently for books as a child: my parents' bookshelves, our small town library and bookstore, and the pharmacy.

I spent much of my childhood on the far east end of Long Island, before the LIE (the Long Island Expressway, aka "the longest parking lot in the world") made traveling out to the "boonies" easy. (A history of the LIE.) Thus, before "the Hamptons" were "the Hamptons." East Hampton, where we lived, was one block long and sort of half a block wide (the half-block had both the hardware store and the pizza parlor, but that was about it). Mostly--as far as kids were concerned--town consisted of the five-and-ten, White's Pharmacy, the single movie theater and the bookstore. Oh, yeah, and the butcher shop, which had a donut-making machine in the window. Krispy Kreme? Ick. Dreesen's spoiled me for life...there's never been a donut to compare to theirs, which came out of the oil fresh and hot, then were coated however you wanted.

There were some stores, like the dress shop and the health food store, that interested adults, but didn't really call to us as children. There were no chain stores or fast food restaurants. They were strictly forbidden by the Ladies Village Improvement Society. (The LVIS had a used bookstore in their building in later years, but I was more apt to donate to it than to find anything there I hadn't already read.)

Like I said, there was a single movie theater. The movie didn't change all that often and my parents limited the amount of tv we watched, which didn't matter that much in East Hampton anyway, given that the reception was often spotty. So for entertainment once it got too dark outside to play, we read.

First, I read all the books in the bookshelves in our house. There were some books there from my mother's youth--Betty Gordon, Betty Wales, and the like--my siblings' books, and my father's mysteries. It was in those bookshelves that I first ran across Travis McGee and and Hercule Poirot. I am pretty sure the Mary Stewart and Phyllis A Whitney books on those shelves belonged to my mother, but they could as easily have been left by some family friend who stayed with us.

But even though we had many visitors, they would leave only a few new books over the course of a year, and there are only so many times you can read The Gnu And The Guru Go Behind The Beyond or The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), so it didn't take long to get through the "playroom" bookshelves.

So soon enough, it was off to the library.

Our house was about a mile and a half from town. The library, conveniently located about half a mile before getting to the village, was a perfect break when walking or biking to or fro. It wasn't a big library, by any means, and it was definitely geared for kids (little kids who were there with their parents, not big kids who rode their bikes over themselves), but it was still a great spot to browse.

The bookstore in town was geared toward fancier reading. Lots of New York Times bestsellers, "literary fiction," etc. Often open late, it was the perfect for post-kiddie-movie trip. The "genre fiction" aisles were small, but the books were crammed in, so I could usually find something to read.

And if I couldn't? If all the fantasy novels looked dull, and the thrillers didn't thrill, there was always the drugstore where, in addition to the "bestseller" rack, they had the "category romance" rack, and a couple of racks of pulp fiction at its finest. These books, all ridiculously short, were only appropriate for one evening's entertainment. But luckily, the racks were refilled once a month, so I could be guaranteed new material every few weeks.

All in all, podunk, Long Island, wasn't a bad place for a geeky kid with a bent for genre fiction.

Alex Keto Beat Me To It

Our Texas friend Travis “Hey I’m 35 now, maybe I’ll run for President” Erwin (see comment section on Alex Keto's Blog in response to the blog post: Why No One Running for President Represents Change ) has a new Monday series over at One Word, One Rung, One Day called My Town Monday. Travis has invited his many pals to give him a blog post link about their hometowns or any old place they feel like describing.

As the Queen of New York City, I offered to post my valuable insights on my beloved City for this week's Monday gabfest. Lo and Behold, citizen of the world Alex Keto beat me to it. When you are roaming around his blog, after you finish his entertaining and accurate look at the Island of Manhattan, 2008, take a peek at his blog on life in West Berlin. Yep, before they took down the Wall.

Never fear, I will just take a huge jump back in time and describe the Manhattan I really miss. I was born and raised in the Bronx, the only borough of New York City that is actually on the mainland of the United States of America. (I love throwing that into conversations, particularly with Manhattanites.) But in the good old days (please excuse my children while they roll their eyes) the entire City of New York was an adventuresome playground for kids from all five boroughs.

We ran free around the city, in the same way farm kids ran free around the farm. All we needed was fifteen cents for a subway ride, or the courage to sneak under the turnstile, (praise and thanksgiving for the statute of limitations) and we were off on any number of adventures. Before I drown us all in reminiscence, let me focus on one of my favorite places.

Just below Union Square, the center of book buying in New York City was a strip of used bookshops that lined Fourth Avenue and was know colloquially as Book Row. Many of the shops specialized: cookbooks, social science books, one kind of fiction or another. Most of the shop owners wouldn’t allow us in the store without adult supervision for fear that we were street urchins (true) who did not have a real respect for books. (Not true.) Sometimes we could get a bookseller to trust us if we asked the right questions. “Do you have any Nancy Drew books with the old blue covers?” or “Do you have any books of stories or poems that Edgar Allen Poe wrote when he lived in New York?” Then he (or she) would guide us through the store, chiding us not to touch anything. One or two owners (it was always the owners) gave us rags or tissues and cautioned us to wipe our hands before we were more than a foot or two inside the threshold.

Marvin Mondlin, estate book buyer at the Strand Bookstore (the only remnant of the Book Row of long ago) and Roy Meador, a collector have co-authored a book about the used bookstores along Fourth Avenue and the culture of book buying in the City. It's called Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade

Times change. Now when I walk into a major chain bookstore, with all their neat shelves and computerized indexes, not to mention their coffee shops, I hear the ghosts of Book Row: “You kids, watch the piles. Don’t knock the books down.” “You want the edition from before the war or the one that came out in 1947?” (This from memory, no punching in numbers and looking up.) “Don’t bring that soda bottle in here; you could spill." "Get out. Get out, you lousy kids.”

They don’t make ‘em like that any more.

Terrie