The Real NYC #32 - Orchard Beach and City Island - a working families get away
Sitting in the northeast corner of the Bronx are two of the New York City’s best kept secrets – Orchard Beach and City Island. Growing up in Manhattan with parents born and raised in The Bronx, Orchard Beach and City Island were part of my upbringing, but if you don’t have the Bronx in your background you probably have never been this far north in the city. See, these places are linked together. They are near to each other, and it was a Bronx ritual to spend a day bar-be-cueing at Orchard beach, followed by dinner at Johnny’s Reef on City Island. So what is their history? Orchard Beach Orchard Beach is part of Pelham Bay Park, which is New York City’s largest park. The area was originally home to the Siwanoy Indians, and if you believe The Last Algonquin by Theodore Kazimiroff, there was still at least one member of the tribe living there into the 1920’s. Orchard Beach is a manmade cove and was built by Robert Moses and opened in 1936. It consists of a 1.1 mile...