A: Howard Beach/JFK, Queens

Wednesday, May 22, 2013



Damaso and I were both in town at the same time, which is a lot rarer since he moved to Barcelona and I took a touring job. I’m almost caught up posting the … hang on. My spell check has a squiggly green line under “rarer.” When I hover over the word, it says, “Non-standard word (consider revising).” Really? Is it “more rare”? Dictionary.com supports my usage, but now I am completely distracted realizing that I don’t remember the rules for forming comparative and superlative forms. Doesn't it have something to do with the number of syllables in the root?

Maybe I should start over.

Maybe I should give up this project. I’ve posted all but three of the trips we took last year, and my fantasies for The End of the Line are dashed. This won’t be a book. Nobody will pay me to ride subways and eat food in other cities. Heck, it turns out I don’t even write about food the way I thought I would. But you know what? I like taking subways with Damaso, I like exploring the city, and I love slavish devotion to meaningless tasks, so I keep on.

I was still on the road when I realized from Facebook that Damaso was home, so we started making plans to meet up. I wanted to go to the Bronx because I had time and we’d only done one visit there. He wanted to go to Brooklyn because he was staying there. Not off to a great start, but then he heard that the A train was resuming service to the Rockaways for the first time since Hurricane Sandy in October, so we decided to go there.



Someone leaned around a man to hand me this flyer at Broadway Junction. I’m feeling so open to new possibilities that I actually considered it for half a second.

We met on the A platform at Broadway Junction, where we realized the A forks into three lines in that direction. We decided to take whichever Rockaway train came first: Rockaway Park Beach or Far Rockaway. Only the train that showed up said Howard Beach/JFK, which wasn’t even an option on the map. Confused, we got on anyway, figuring we could take it a few stops and transfer if necessary, but when we got to Howard Beach, we were dumped out and told we could only continue via shuttle bus. Turns out our information was wrong, or at least premature; regular service was not being reinstated for another week, so we’d lucked into a temporary line end. While we were disappointed not to make it to the hard-hit Rockaways, we were eager to explore Howard Beach.





Well, I was. Damaso had some other ideas. Should we take a shuttle bus to the beach? Should we eat at the airport? Does the AirTrain to JFK count as a “line” for this project? No, no, no! I’m hungry!
Across from the temporary terminus, the Rail Bar & Grille [sic] beckoned. We’re both suckers for anything whose name evokes the project mission, but we’ve also discovered that “& Grill” doesn’t actually mean anything. In fact, I think we have yet to find an “& Grill” that served food, and this one doesn’t either. Well, they did. Turns out Hurricane Sandy knocked the whole establishment out of business. The bar has just re-opened, but the owners haven’t finished fixing the kitchen and restaurant, so those are still closed indefinitely.

On the same block facing the station are two fast-food joints, pizza and Chinese. As Damaso says, “maybe the food at the end of the line isn't very good.” Instead of eating fast food, we set out to explore. One problem with the original concept (eat at the first place I see) is that after taking a subway for an hour or more to some exotic area, we always want to explore. I suppose we could eat first and then walk around, but what if we miss a great restaurant?

After that first block, the neighborhood is entirely residential. We walk until we spot five fire fighters on a cross street’s sidewalk. Damaso says, “Let’s ask them. Fire fighters always know the best places to eat.” He has previously declared this to be true of transit workers and police officers. He might be right, but I can’t imagine he has actual data on the subject. Who cares? It’s a good excuse to chat with some locals … some locals in uniform.

The fire fighters eye us warily as we approach and none immediately answer the question. Finally they suggest Bruno’s Ristorante, a 10-minute walk at Cross Bay Boulevard. They’re confused that we’re in the middle of a residential neighborhood with no car and ask what they’re doing. We make a deal to tell them if they tell us why five of them are standing on the sidewalk. Turns out they’re doing a building inspection. They won’t tell us whether it passed.

We circle back to the Rail Bar & Grille, pizza place, and Chinese storefront but can’t face them and head out to Cross Bay Boulevard. As we walk, we pass stone cherubs on several front gates and painted stars on several utility poles. The stars bear messages including “Hope” and “Love.”






A boy wearing a Spiderman shirt is sitting on a front stoop with an old man. I say, “Hi Spiderman” as we pass. I hear him whispering to the man, and then the kid shouts back, “I’m not Spiderman!” I tell him I was confused by his shirt, and he tries to explain to me that he’s just a kid. The man is amused; the kid is sincere.

Finally we make it to Cross Bay Boulevard, a large commercial thoroughfare. I ask whether we should look up Bruno’s on our magic phones, but Damaso says that’s cheating. At first I object that the whole thing is cheating since we didn’t go to the first place we saw, but Damaso points out that we never do, and somehow I agree—looking around isn’t cheating but looking things up is. Anyway, expensive Italian feels all wrong, so I’d rather find something else.





We pick a direction randomly (right) and settle on the Sugar Bun Bakery, where we linger at the counter trying to decide what to order by spying on everyone else’s food. The clientele are eating small sandwiches and salads. Everyone’s food looks delicious, but nothing on the menus above the counter appeals, so I guess what one diner’s sandwich is and order a whitefish salad sandwich on an onion roll (they don’t have everything bagels). Besides, whitefish seems slightly more exotic than tuna or egg salad, and when the sandwich arrives, I’m right. It’s oily, salty, and much fishier than tuna. The sandwich melts into the onion roll, which is mushier than a bagel. These several minor differences raise my satisfaction with the relatively boring meal. It also comes with cole slaw and a half pickle. The cole slaw is crunchy; unfortunately the pickle isn’t.

Damaso, who has taken up running and lost a ton of weight since I’ve last seen him, orders an avocado salad and a strawberry-banana smoothie. I’m nervous because he’s ordered avocado salads before and then been disappointed to get just a plate of avocados, but this time the avocados are spread on a large bed of romaine and other vegetables. He complains though that the romaine is lifeless and the salad boring. The romaine looks fine and fresh. He asks for more dressing, and I suggest salt. The combination of add-ons brings his meal up to, as he says, acceptable.






The restaurant’s other patrons are older and look Jewish (do gentiles eat whitefish salad on onion rolls?). The seating section is airy and bright but filled with fake stuff as decoration: fake plants and presents line the top of the room, and window frames with mirrors in them hang on the walls instead of pictures. Before we leave, I ask whether they give refills on iced tea. The woman behind the counter tells me they don’t give refills and then promptly takes my cup and refills it. It’s in a take-out cup anyway.  As we walk back to the subway, we see statues of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic iconography. That might mean it’s a Catholic neighborhood, or it might mean Jews, atheists, and others don’t put out as many lawn ornaments. Come to think of it, what would be the Jewish outdoor decoration equivalent of a crèche or a Mary?






When we return to the train station, we notice how many of the other passengers have luggage, presumably on their way to or from the airport. The station overlooks a field in which we can see an abandoned rowboat and a pair of swans nesting, not an image I’d associate with the big city, but that’s the joy that keeps me doing this (because it sure isn’t the food!): finding such unexpected range of New York City.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

SIR: St. George, Staten Island

Monday, April 9, 2012




Spring break for the Salisbury (CT) public schools usually means Camp Viveca for my nieces., only this year niece number one turned into a teenager, so she went away with a friend instead of coming to stay with me. Niece number two, who just turned ten (whoo-hoo: double digits!), came anyway, and even though only one of us was officially on vacation, we had a great time.

Eden’s spring break overlapped with the limited time Damaso was back in the city, so we decided she could be the first guest to join us for one of our forays to the end of the line. We even decided to let her choose where we’d go. Well, theoretically she chose; I may have biased her by how I described the options, but in any case all three of us were delighted by the decision to go back to Staten Island to explore the other end of the Staten Island Railway line at St. George.












The catch? The one train that ends at St. George doesn’t get there from anywhere that any of us would be, so we wouldn’t actually take it. The three of us met where I was working near Cooper Square, took the subway down to Bowling Green, and walked to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal just in time to miss a boat. No problem. It was rush hour, and another one came soon enough. I was surprised that Eden wanted to sit “somewhere comfortable” more than she wanted to stand outside and see the sites. She had already been to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty on school field trips, but hey, I’ve seen them too, and I still get a thrill out of watching them from the boat. One funny thing about being with other people, especially kids, is the way you always want to see everything through them. I was disappointed that she didn’t find the boat trip more exciting, but it’s a freaking ferry for crying out loud! I don’t find it that exciting either, so why was I disappointed that she didn’t? It’s not just me, either. Working in the circus business, I frequently hear parents narrating entire shows for kids who are watching the exact same thing, and it’s generally clear that the narration only improves the experience for the adult eager to mediate rather than for the child subjected to the amateur voiceover.





After debarking, we were still in the ferry building when Eden pointed to the Statue of Liberty Deli. Damaso and I nix it immediately. I wanted to explore historic St. George, and it didn’t look particularly hospitable anyway; I’m not sure it even had seating. Eden looked confused, “I thought we had to eat at the first place we saw,” she stated. I may have stopped following the agenda before I even started, but I’m a nut for arbitrary rules, and I was proud of her for wanting to follow them.





We passed through the terminal building and skirted the shoreline, 9-11 monument, and ballpark to get to Richmond Terrace. From the distance, I thought the street would be lined with delicious and quaint places to eat, but up close we didn’t find anything so we cut through a path beside what turns out to be the Richmond County Supreme Court to Stuyvesant Place and spotted the fantastic 1960s-era Lunch Depot, which unfortunately for us may have been shuttered for decades for all we could tell. We turned up Hyatt Street and saw Steiny’s Pub, which proudly proclaimed that it welcomes tourists and regulars. Tourists go to Staten Island? Well, I guess we’re tourists there, so we turned in. I wasn’t convinced yet that we wanted to eat there, but when I asked the waitress where the historic strip was she said, “this is it,” so we stayed.





Maybe if the bar hadn’t been so crowded we would have continued my tradition of taking my rural nieces to inappropriate watering holes, but we got seated at a giant, tall table in the window with a bench around three sides of it. The waitress warned us that they’d only be serving food for another 20 minutes, so we quickly chose from the limited menu. Our decision was made even easier when we found out they were out of pizza and didn’t have anything fried.



Eden, who is an extremely picky eater, asked the waitress whether the chicken noodle soup had anything “extra” in it, and once satisfied that it only had chicken and small pieces of celery and carrot, ordered a bowl. I was relieved and surprised that she was willing to put up with that much vegetable content, but she told me you always get that with chicken noodle soup.

“So what were you worried about?” I asked.

“Sometimes they put in something really weird,” she answered, “you know, like tomatoes.”

I don’t much like tomatoes either, so I had to support her on that one. Now I can start worrying about finding them in chicken noodle soup.









Damaso, who’s been acting all healthy, ordered the chicken garden salad, and I was delighted to see that the day’s special was my former favorite meal: a veggie burger with bacon and cheddar. I didn’t eat meat or poultry from ages 12 through 26, and when I first started eating meat again, I wasn’t quite ready to face a whole slab of hamburger, but I was hungry for all the bacon I could get, so I used to order veggie burgers with bacon all the time, and everyone laughed at me. In Staten Island, however, that’s a special of the day, and it came with cole slaw.

All three meals were disappointing. Damaso’s salad was wilted and boring, and they didn’t have any dressings he liked, and my burger was bland and unsatisfying. Eden liked her soup fine, actually, but she was full after about half a bowl, and since both of us were still hungry, we tried to eat it, but it was bland and oily with mushy, overcooked vegetables. Yuck.







While we ate, Eden charged her iPod touch and played games on it, Damaso charged his camera battery and checked out the Yankees on one television and the Mets on another, and I admired the giant baseball trophy by the bar and grooved to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Eden wasn’t the only kid in the bar either. A boy about her age was eating with his father at the only normally sized table in the joint. They were also the only other people not at the bar watching the game. I think the majority of customers were watching the Mets, although I would have made St. George for Yankees given that the Yankees’ farm team is right there.





We were still hungry after our skimpy and bland meal, but when we asked to see the menus again, our waitress reminded us that the 20 minutes was up and the kitchen was closed. She brought us a bowl of tortilla chips though, and they were the best food we’d had yet, fresh and salty.

We decided to have dessert somewhere else, so we settled up and went back out to explore St. George. One restaurant was open; it looked expensive but not good, and the menu in the glass box outside the front door showed lots of wines but no desserts, so we gave up and walked back to the ferry terminal. After checking out all the available dessert options, we chose the random little deli because it had a countertop display with tiers of giant, beautiful cup cakes. Damaso and I were overwhelmed with delicious options, but Eden said she didn’t like cup cakes. What?! She was, however, excited by something Damaso and I hadn’t even noticed, though: a cooler of MiniMelts, those gummy ice cream pellets, and she carefully selected the perfect package.

Damaso and I made our selections and wanted to order our cup cakes, which by the way might have been the only non-packaged/processed items in the store, but the man behind the counter ignored us because he was busy shouting at the man behind the opposite counter on the other side of the store. Damaso and Eden stood by waiting politely for at least a pause in the stream of what I’m guessing was Urdu invective, but it looked like it might take a while, so I just walked up and said, “We’d like cupcakes please,” which jarred the counterman out of his yelling frenzy enough for him to pay attention to us. Damaso got a red velvet-chocolate cupcake, and I asked for the “seasonal,” which turned out to be… damn I am the worst food journalist ever! I forgot! I think it had Oreos in it. I’ve got to learn to write these as soon as I get home.

In any case, we had dessert on the ferry home. The cup cakes were too sweet to finish, so Damaso and I each took home leftovers, but Eden had no trouble polishing off the MiniMelts. When we got back to Manhattan, our walking route back to the subway took us through the Canyon of Heroes, the section of lower Broadway that ticker tape parades pass through. Embedded in the sidewalks are granite strips with the names and dates of past honorees, many of whom are comically anti-climactic, perhaps like this journey or even this whole idea. Hey, it may not have a snappy moral or a good meal, but I got to ride a ferry and spend decent time with good people. It’s not over. It ain’t exploring if you know what you’ll find, and I’ve got a lot more lines to ride.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes

3: 148th Street/Harlem, Manhattan

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I read a bit of that Quran, but I didn’t get far. First of all, I hated the defensive translation, which kept inserting parenthetical notes explaining how the text didn’t really mean to kill all infidels, only those who tried to kill you first. Uh, it didn’t say that. Secondly, it was boring. I mean the Bible was boring, and I read that, but I had more incentive. Maybe I’ll try the Quran again another time.

Anyway in the time that I wasn’t reading the Quran, Damaso went on an extended “Beer, Baseball, and Barbecue” road trip around the country and went (for the second time) to Cuba for five weeks. Jealous! He’s moving back to Barcelona next month, so I was impatient to squeeze in as many end-of-the-line rides as we could manage, but my busy schedule was not cooperating. Finally, we managed to find a Tuesday afternoon we were both free, and we agreed to meet at the top of the 3 line in Harlem at 1pm.

I had a ton of work to do, but I’ve been on a big exercise kick, so I forced my lazy ass to the gym for a hard workout before lunch. I figured I’d be home around 3, and I’d be able to work all afternoon. I woke up early, traveled into Manhattan, and raced to finish a decent workout and sauna. At noon, I left the gym weak, hungry, and with plenty of time to make it to Harlem. I didn’t want to be late, as I’d made Damaso wait for me a few times in the past, but when I turned my phone back on, I discovered he’d left a message saying he was running late, and he’d meet me at 2.

Suddenly I had an hour to kill in Manhattan, and my mood immediately changed from positive and productive to stressed about the lost work time. I ran a few errands that had been hanging over my head, including buying over $80 of ink for a crappy printer I got free (and stupidly gave away a really good printer) and still had plenty of time, so I texted my friend Matt to find out whether he was in the country and could talk. He works on cruise ships, and it turned out he was in the Caribbean somewhere but on his way to a Starbuck’s whence he’d be able to Skype. Sounded like a good idea, so I found myself a Starbuck’s and spent probably 20 minutes trying to figure out how to set up the Skype application I already had on my phone. Eventually it worked, and I drank a large iced tea and a free large iced tea refill, while Matt gave me advice about my romantic life. The only way I justify paying Starbuck’s prices for something I make at home in bulk is to get the free refills (free with a registered card, which I now use through my phone), and I emerged 20 minutes later freezing, over caffeinated, and late. Late?!? I was the one killing time! Somebody didn’t manage my extra hour very well! I texted Damaso that now I was running a little late but on my way, and I hopped on the 3 train from 14^th Street.

On the long ride up, I finished the only magazine I’d brought and played a little Scrabble, but my phone battery indicator wasn’t so green after all the Skype time, and the 48 ounces of unsweetened iced green tea were swelling my bladder. I got off the train at 2:05, and raced out of the station hoping Damaso wasn’t irritated to be kept waiting. Au contraire, mon frere, he’d gotten my text and responded, fine, then he’d be there at 2:30. D’oh!

I didn’t see any place to eat, but two cops were chatting in front of the public school at the train exit, and we always trust cops and transit officials to guide our selections. I interrupted them but immediately got distracted trying to figure out whether they were wearing matching eyeglasses. They claimed their pairs were different. They were both strikingly good-looking women. After we chatted about their glasses for a while, I asked them whether they could recommend a place to eat, and they suggested I get back on the train and head to a neighborhood with better options. I assured them I’d be okay eating someplace local, and they asked me what kind of food I wanted. I said anything that was open for lunch and wasn’t fast food. They looked at each other, looked back at me, and repeated the suggestion that I get back on the train, insisting there was nothing nearby. Finally they came up with two suggestions, the closer or which was over five blocks away. I didn’t mind walking five blocks to eat, but I wasn’t going to walk five blocks to pee before Damaso showed up, so I sat down on the curb and turned my phone-Scrabble back on to distract myself from my full bladder.

Eventually Damaso turned up, feeling generous for letting me have longer to get in from Brooklyn. Of course he couldn’t have known where I was coming from or what my schedule was, and I felt simultaneously irritated at his presumption and guilty for being irritated while he was trying to be nice. My full bladder didn’t allow me to stall around though, and I hustled Damaso down Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard to look for food.

The police were right. The first place they suggested was supposed to be between 144^th and 143^rd Street, but we got all the way to 143^rd without finding anything. We backtracked to 144^th to look for the second place, and found Grini’s Tapas Bar between Adam Clayton Powell and Lenox, exactly where the cops said it would be. We walked in, and I got paralyzed by chafing dish options until Damaso reminded me to go use the bathroom. That solved half of my bad mood, but I was still starving after the work-out, hour stall downtown, half hour wait uptown, and six-block walk. The place looked fine to me (albeit completely devoid of tapas), and we hadn't passed any other restaurants on our walk, so I was surprised when Damaso suggested going out to check out our options.

On the corner of Lenox and 144^th, we were delighted by A Touch of Dee, which was not, as the name might suggest a nail salon or gift store, but rather a bar. The windows were covered with printed pages inviting passers by to Mary’s birthday and “Chyna Grown and Sexy.” Damaso stopped to take photos of the signs, and a very curious woman walked out to ask why we were photographing her window. Before Damaso can answer, I say, “Because it’s awesome!” which holds her long enough for him to get his shots, and we walk on.


Next door, Lenox Fast Food promised the “best breakfast uptown,” but the counter was tiny. We walked another block or so, and I had to stop to check out a gorgeous geometric-block print coat with multiple diagonal zippers (too rich for my blood), but we didn’t find anywhere else to eat, so we backtracked to Grini’s.

As usual in that kind of place, none of the chafing dish options seemed to match any of the menu offerings posted on the wall, so I pointed to a bunch of stuff, asked what it was, and asked the counterwoman what was best. She wouldn’t commit to a recommendation, but she did tell me what was what, and I pointed to the best-looking pork and asked for some okra with it, and she offered me my choice of plain white rice or yellow rice with peas (with peas, duh). I asked how to say “okra” in Spanish, and the counterwoman stared at me blankly, but the man with her said, “boletrones,” which I figured had something to do with the little balls inside. I repeated it to myself over and over and wrote it down as soon as I got to the table, but when I look it up now, Google translator gives ten different Spanish words for okra, and none of them is even close to boletrones. My phone gives yet a tenth word, so maybe okra names are micro-regional in Latin America. After taking my order, everyone I’ve been talking to disappears, along with my food, and someone else takes Damaso’s order for a grilled chicken salad. After a while, my counterwoman comes back and asks whether she can help me. I say she already made my food and that I’m waiting to get it, pay, and eat. We finally get all our food, take over a table, and sit down to eat.

My tin foil dish is loaded and heavy. Besides the rice with peas, okra, and pork, she’s thrown in a few plantains. I careful separate my paper bag and keep the plastic lid to my tin foil plate, thinking that I’ll be taking home the majority of my massive plate, but once I start, I don’t stop eating till every grain of rice is gone. The pork is fantastic, blackened until it falls softly off the bones, which by the way are so soft, I don’t just suck out the marrow, I eat the entire bone ends.



While I hoover down my food, Damaso tells me about his travels. I can’t believe he got a salad, but of course he’s had his fill of rice and beans after a month in Cuba. He laughs and takes photos of my gluttonous bone chewing. Behind us, one man is sound asleep over his empty dishes. Restaurant is fairly bare, but a few early Christmas lights glitter on a table, and a poster with two large drinks, one green and one orange, advertises “SLUSH.”


I get buzzed back into the bathroom to wash my pork-covered hands, and this time I notice a single business card stuck to the wall. It says (punctuation, capitalization, and spacing faithfully copied), “If your Lips not Popp’in ,He’s not stopp’in!!!” After gazing at it for a while I realize the card owner sells make-up. I’m tempted to take the card, but I figure if I leave it there, I’ll be saving my potential for popp’in lips until we come back for A Taste of Dee.

Photographs by Damaso Reyes