Report

All week Mother Nature toyed with me/us. 50% chance of rain, 70%, 50%. Very hard to plan the day with all this back and forth.

To Begin:

First stop - the National Museum of the American Indian at the old US Customs House at Bowling Green (near the Staten Island ferry). This is part of the Smithsonian (it's free). We spent about an hour there. No rain. This is one of those hidden gems in NYC that you'll only read about here.

When we walked out, the weather apps were still predicting rain / not predicting rain. The original plan to was have lunch at Smorgsburg in Williamsburg. It's an outdoor food stall market open Saturdays until the fall. The alternate was to take the subway, just steps from the museum exit, to DeKalb Market in Brooklyn. Plenty of food choices at both locations. Anyway, with what appeared to be a window of no rain, I / we chanced it and headed to Smorgsburg. We walked to the foot of Wall Street to take the water taxi ($4.50 as they don't accept your Omni or credit card for swiping). The trip on the ferry (no rain) was 30 minutes to our stop, followed by a very short walk. Great views of lower Manhattan, the bridges, and of course the East River.

Smorgsburg has many many food choices. Everyone sort of split up looking for something they wanted to eat. Lots of choices. At the beginning there wasn't any rain; but, we were lucky enough to sit under an open tent when it started to rain.

The planned next stop was the Prospect Park Zoo. While the rain stopped, the weather apps suggested we pass on the zoo. The alternate was to head to the Brooklyn Brewery. It was a 5 minute walk with no rain. We relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. Last time I was there in 2015(?), you had to pay cash. In 2025, scan the QR code, order what you want and pay by credit card. No splitting of the bill. It was raining after we arrived, so we waited for it to stop. We relaxed for 60 minutes. Edit to say many of us enjoyed a beer.

The planned next stop was Coney Island. Every BRT has stopped there. Every last one. Saturday was only 72F (22.2C), but it was humid. We were drained. I decided to head to L&B Spumoni Gardens a little ahead of schedule. We enjoyed 2 - 3 Sicilian slices each. The slice is $4.00. When you buy a pie, it worked out to $7.15 each for the 9 of us. Such a bargain!!

The bad thing about taking the subway is the longer headways on the weekend. The indoor platforms were unbearable while we waited as long as 9 minutes for the train/subway/tube. There was a little drama though. When entering the station, all you do is tap your credit card or Omni card for entry ( all of us did this as the train was approaching). We were rushing. Our friend cocobird had an issue and we didn't notice she was missing when we rushed the train. One for all and all for one. By the time we realized she was missing, we got off at the next station and waited for her. Keep in mind that this was the first BRT we used What's App, so everything worked out quickly. Something like this happened several years ago. Everything worked out then too.

After L&B ( we were running early), we headed back as we did last year to Fraunces Tavern down by Wall Street for a drink and relaxation.

In spite of all the aggravation, everything worked out. While occasional adjustments have been made on the fly on past BRT's, this was one for the books.