First things. You will really want/need a drink.
I went to look for a beer in the tent.
There is food. Burgers. Hots dogs. Fish tacos. Etc. And there's soda. Including root beer on draft. The beer?
On the boat/yacht. Which seems to be lurching a bit in the wake. Or maybe I'm just lurching.
They have three kinds of bottled beer for sale now: Old Speckled Hen, Harpoon IPA and Jever. Nothing more obscure, like Budweiser?
Hey! Watch out for the bridge! Hard right! Hard right!
Anyway, I ask the bartender if they will sell beer elsewhere on the Beach. Like under the tent. Absolutely! Give them a few weeks. They are just getting up and running. Speaking of running, where are the bathrooms? Oh, you have to go up to the second level inside Pier 17. They'll have bathrooms eventually, too.
During this late-afternoon hour, it's mostly families on the beach. And tourists. Tourist families? Kids are playing in the sand. Having fun. Being kids. A mother changes her son's diaper on the picnic table. I wish I was wearing a diaper so I didn't have to traipse up to the second level restrooms. It's not so bad. It's a chance to browse in the As Seen on TV store.
As for the activities, you can listen to your fellow picnic tablers talking on cell phones to friends and loved ones back home. "I am L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y looking at the Brooklyn Bridge..."
And there are activities for kids of all ages...like skee ball...
...Ping-Pong
...putt-putting (just watch the water hazard!)...
...bridge watching...
...trying-to-be-abstract photo taking...
...taking pictures of people taking pictures...
Uh, miss? Yes, you squatting there. The restrooms are on the second...Oh, sorry.
...listening/dancing to the DJ.
But there is no fishing.
run. screaming. now.
ReplyDeletethere's no need to go to the hamptons anymore.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, it's a step up from what's usually there ... which is nothing, or, as in the last few years, overpriced acrobats.
ReplyDeleteWe got snookered into the put put last wkend too: our kids had memories of the old mini golf on pier 25. But these new greens are pretty pathetic by comparison.
If you're down there again and looking for a real bar with real beer, try my friend's place, Fresh Salt, Beekman between Front and South. It's overrun by suits most weekday happy hours but it's perfectly pleasant nights and wkends, a hangout for pre-seaport-facelift locals.
Thanks for the comment, Bryan...
ReplyDeleteSay, what do they charge for putt putt there...? I meant to ask.
I, too, like Fresh Salt. Don't get there often. Always a pleasure when I'm do stop in...
Jever? Man that stuff is actually undrinkable unless you are really hardcore about yer Teutonic Pils. All the pleasure of drinking chalk with your brew.....I am not mensch enough.
ReplyDeleteNice pics and Intel, btw.
I think it was $5 a head. I'm a terrible minigolfer and never went over 2 hits per hole. It was pretty pathetic and took all of 20 minutes to complete the course, which was, they said, only half built anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe folks running it said they'd installed a similar one on Gov Island? I wonder if that means the Water Taxis will now be making stops there?