A New England Small Town Escape - Without Leaving NYC!

Sometimes you need to just escape, even if it's for only one day.

Sometimes you have under $100 in your bank account and really cannot possibly afford an escape.

Sometimes these two things are not mutually exclusive.

Enter New York City's best-kept secret. And yes, I know NYC calls a lot of things its 'best-kept-secret' and the term is overused as hell, but this? This really might be it. It really does feel like an escape from New York without ever leaving New York, and I've been unable to stop thinking about it since Sarah and I visited.

I'm talking, of course, about City Island.

Technically part of the Bronx, this small island community is connected to the mainland by only a bridge, and feels like it hasn't changed since perhaps the 50s or 60s. Rather than Starbucks and skyscrapers, City Island has seafood restaurants, bait-and-tackle shops, and a charming diner; as well as a lone five-story-high building as the tallest in town. It feels like a small town where everyone knows each other's names. It feels like a fishing village, perhaps one transplanted from the Massachusetts coast. It does not feel like anything I know about the Bronx, or like anything else in New York City.

And Sarah and I fucking loved it.


From Weehawken, New Jersey, it takes approximately two hours to get to City Island. It's so far north that you can't see any skyscrapers from the island. Also, the island is so small. It's a little over a mile long, and at its widest point about half a mile wide, so it's immensely walkable, especially as it only has one main street (Called City Island Avenue, obviously!) with almost every local business on that one street. From the very moment we stepped onto the island and began admiring the old houses (the oldest house on the island was built in 1840; most of them looked to be between the 1890s and the 1960s), it felt quaint. Idyllic, even. (Other New Yorkers would agree with me on this, it seems.)

The City Island Nautical Museum has this diorama of the island in the mid-1800s. That road down the centre is City Island Avenue now.

I don't feel like I've really got across how small this island really is, with its small town characters and old fishermen. Here are some more stats to help you visualise what an escape this is from the typical NYC hustle-and-bustle. City Island has only one school, which covers grades K-8. High schoolers need to go "off-island" for their education. There are three small churches (Catholic, Methodist, and Episcopal - all with New England style steeples) and one tiny synagogue. There is one cemetery that could probably fit inside the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal, and only one park that's about the size of a decent dental office. There is only one museum.

Oh, but there are sailboats. There are a hell of a lot of sailboats. I can't stress that enough.

Sarah and I decided to walk from one end of the island to the other and by the end of it I was already fantasizing about purchasing a small bungalow here.


About halfway through our stroll we were feeling distinctly peckish, and my vegetarian ass dragged the both of us into the City Island diner, a charming little corner establishment with white clapboard and striped awnings:

The inside was equally adorable, with warm yellow walls, framed sketches of boats and ships, and chalkboards with handwritten daily specials. All of the sandwiches were named after either famous ships (i.e. The Mayflower, which had turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce - get it?) or after boats that had won the America's Cup - did you know City Island has produced 6 America's Cup winning boats?

Sarah got clam chowder. I got a grilled cheese on rye. We both got an egg cream. I left as generous a tip as I could afford, utterly charmed by the small place.

After such a lunch, we turned down a side street to go see the island's sole museum, the City Island Nautical Museum. I wonder if perhaps the City Island History Museum would be a more apt title, as it does deal with all of City Island's history - but then again, so much of the island's history is nautical, from the oyster fishermen of the early 1800s, to the boatbuilding industry, to the America's Cup, to the modern seafood restaurants.

The museum is housed in the old schoolhouse, preserved after the newer school building was built on the main street. It's staffed by volunteers, 4 of whom are older women named Barbara. Apparently they're known on the island as the "Barbarashop Quartet". Isn't that just the most adorable thing you've ever heard in your life? We met two of the Barbaras, one of whom showed us around.

The museum itself isn't overly large. It has one main hall, lined with old maps and photos, and four classrooms-turned-museum-rooms: A research library, the "School Room" (my favourite), the "Nautical Room" (my other favourite), and the "Community Room" (Barbara's pride and joy and my last favourite).

These rooms are, as you could probably guess, themed. The School Room is about the museum building's history as a school, with one section set up as a "traditional school room". Class pictures, student report cards, old textbooks, and the old school bell all help to "tell the story of City Island's schools".

The Nautical room was all about boats and boat-building, and was filled to the brim with artefacts related to this nautical history, from oyster shells to model ships to full-size boats of all kinds in various stages of completion.

The Community Room was the most eclectic, but in a good way, sort of like the curio cabinet of an eccentric old retired fisherman. This room was about the history of City Island in general, with displays like that diorama of the island I showed you earlier. Also, Lenape arrowheads, a diorama of the Battle of Pell's Point, an antique typewriter, antique chairs from the churches, old toys, and a counter from an old pharmacy.


I'd also known ahead of time that I'd wanted to visit the old cemetery on the island (I visit cemeteries and museums, it's what I do), and Barbara kindly gave us walking directions. We walked down a tiny street, admiring the adorable bungalow-style houses and cute gardens, and then we saw it behind a picturesque iron gate.

It was small, but super atmospheric. (The fact that it was cloudy that day definitely helped.) It was right on the water, too. Seeing and hearing the gentle waves of the Long Island Sound and smelling the saltwater as we admired the old graves (the oldest one we found was from the 1820s) was honestly just lovely. But exploring the cemetery didn't take long - seriously, even Trinity Church's cemetery is bigger.

On Barbara's recommendation, we went back to the main street and stopped in a tiny cottage-looking ice cream parlour called Lickety Split. Sarah got a root beer float, I got a scoop of pistachio ice cream, and we ate it to the ice cream place's soundtrack of 1940s hits. It felt not only like a small town at this point, but like that small-town nostalgia that really seems to only exist in movies.

We continued our walk and eventually made it to the end of the island, stopping only a few more times for some antique shops.

At the end of the island, there's a tiny beach nestled between two seafood restaurants, Johnny's and Tony's. We stared out at the waves and the tiny, one-story lighthouse called the Devil's Stepping Stone Lighthouse (You can bet there's a story behind that one), listening to the waves and the seagulls.

Truth be told, neither of us wanted to leave.

But all good things come to an end, so leave we did, boarding a bus back into the main part of the Bronx so we could catch the subway and be catapulted back into New York City reality.  Still, we had thoroughly enjoyed our adventure, our tiny escape from it all. And it really had felt like an escape. Even now, though I know I never left New York City, I feel like I escaped.

And I've been unable to stop thinking about it ever since. I will be going back. City Island, you have charmed me utterly and completely.

-Nym.