Corrie and I spent Sunday of Labor Day weekend exploring Ward's Island. Ward's Island was originally purchased by the Dutch from the Indians in 1637 and used for farming purposes.
Nowadays Ward's Island has become almost an afterthought as a name, as the island is usually called Randall's Island, and, while administratively in the borough of Manhattan (as are all the islands, originally placed in the County of New York with the largest, Manhattan Island, taking center stage), it is goverened by the Randall's Island Sports Commission. Randall's Island is home to many soccer and baseball fields.
After doing some research, I found that at one point Randall's Island and Ward's Island were both individual islands, but were connected with landfill. Note the non-use of articles there.
Randall's Island is just barely separated from the Bronx by a small river, and the conglomeration is separated from manhattan by the East and Harlem Rivers, and from Queens by the East River. We decided to get there by the foot bridge, a cool non-automotive connector, constructed probably in the last fifty years. It connects Manhattan to what used to be Ward's Island at 103rd Street.
There are some cool views from the bridge, as well as the island itself.
The island had many, many Latino families playing, barbecuing, and generally having a jolly old time. There were also little league baseball games going on (I thought the season was over?) as well as soccer games.
We went down by some rocks that constituted a beach, watched the river's edge lap upon the pointy breakers at our feet, and relaxed with some reading material. It was a nice escape, a nice little easy adventure in our City of Adventure.
We thought about how to get to tiny Mill Rock, seen below, a nearly 4-acre plot of land that's been closed since the sixties. There are no plans for it presently, but the history is rich and colorful, and if we ever sneak over in a canoe or something, I'll be sure to go into detail about it.
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