Labor Day 2017

The grittier stretch of Shore Road Park, but still a pleasure to check out on a gorgeous day.

We ended up exploring Bay Ridge in South Brooklyn on Labor Day in the late afternoon and checked out Shore Road Park for a bit before heading to dinner. The park runs along the water's edge right where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge crosses from Staten Island into Brooklyn. My wife called the place a nice find even though we first walked along the grittier part of the park east of the bridge. It was littered with trash and seaweed. A bag of chips seemed to have fallen off someone's hands and was now left in the middle of the path to be trampled on. Still, people walked and biked and some folks had their lines out to catch fish. 

It definitely seemed like everyone had known about the park but us. The breeze carried the smell of the sea and the waves hit the rocks on the other side of the sea wall, but hard enough that we got sprayed right in the face. It was a beautiful day; we were happy to be there and we took a lot of photos. 

We then turned around and got to see the nicer, cleaner, better maintained portion of the park where people sat on benches facing the water and the setting sun, and bikes had their own lane separate from the walking path. We hadn't planned on staying too long and soon it was time for dinner. Next time though, we're definitely hanging around to watch the sunset. 

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connects Brooklyn and Staten Island right at the mouth of New York Harbor. It's flanked by Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, both of which guarded the harbor in their time. The bridge opened in November 1964.

The sign for cars coming in from Staten Island. Hilarious from our vantage point as we were already in Brooklyn and nowhere near any other borough. :-)

Our view after dinner while waiting for our bus to head home.