1 post tagged “pelham bay park”

Today I went for a walk in Pelham Bay Park, The Bronx. I started at the last stop of the number 6 train and walked to the end of City Island. From there I got a bus back to the train station. The park was nice enough but I don't think I saw the best parts of it. I'll probably go back another time and explore further.

One thing that is different in American parks, as compared to British ones, is that barbecues are often provided as standard along with picnic chairs and tables. The following picture is fairly typical of an American public park.

There is an elegant and moving memorial to those who gave their lives in the first world war. It was erected in 1932 and so the wording, carved into the stone monument, just refers to it as 'the world war'. They could not have foretold at the time that they had another one coming just around the corner.

City Island is a small residential island the other side of the park with a somewhat sleepy atmosphere. It has a lot of fish restaurants relative to the size of the town. Unless everyone who lives there eats out twice a day, there wouldn't be the volume of local custom to keep so many restaurants in business, so I assume that the bulk of their customers come from other areas of New York. I don't know why there are so many fish restaurants. Perhaps people associate an island with freshly caught local fish. If so, I think that they are probably slightly deluded. I saw some fish being delivered to one of the restaurants and it came in a large refrigerated lorry so I doubt it came from anywhere on the island. Perhaps the restaurants originated from a pre-refrigeration era when fresh fish had to be caught locally, and continued into modern times based on their reputation and tradition.