Afternoon getaway- Roosevelt Island and Long Island City

Sometimes it's just nice to get out of the city jungle for a while and put all the worries, work and anything that's bothering you out of your mind and just enjoy a nice, chill afternoon. 

We met some school friends at the upper-east side of Manhattan so we decided since we are already around fifty something street/1st ave, we should go check out Roosevelt Island, which is a tiny little island in between Manhattan and Queens. 

There are a couple different ways of public transportation to get to Roosevelt Island:

1) Tramway (cable car), at the station is at 59th Street & 2nd Avenue Station. You get a very nice view of the East River as well as the Queensboro bridge  from the cable car. The tram ride takes about 4-5 minutes. You can use your subway card to pay for the ride. The tram was built back in 1976, it was an alternative for the residents on the island to get into Manhattan before the subway stop was completed. 

2) Bus: Q102 Queens surface bus

3) Subway: take the F train and get off at Roosevelt Island stop. 

I strongly recommended taking the Tramway. It's a very fun experience to be in the air overlooking the city. The cable car is huge, it's bigger than my room...(it's either the car is just huge or my room is just way to small... 

Roosevelt Island 3km long and 0.24m wide. It's a very "thing" island. There are about 15,000 residents living on the island. The most exciting part of the island is...the view of Manhattan and...Starbucks. Other than that, there are 2 restaurants, a drugstore, some ice cream trucks on the weekends and that's pretty much it. The island is the most residential area I have ever been in NYC. A lot of people ask, "what do you do on the island?" The answer is, nothing!!! You go to Roosevelt Island to relax, walk along the river and just do nothing! Being busy is over-rated anyways! We all need to relax and do nothing from time to time. It's a head and mind cleansing!

After Roosevelt, we headed to Long Island City. You can take the F train to 21st-Greensbridge station and walk a bit south to the Queensboro Plaza to take the 7 train to Vernon Blvd Jackson Ave station. Long Island city may be my favorite place out of Manhattan in New York! 

Vernon Blvd Jackson Ave station is the closet subway station in Queens to Manhattan. As soon as you get out of the station, you will be on Vernon Blvd, there are  a lot of good restaurants. This area is called "Long Island City", which is known as a home to dynamic artistic community. If you have time, make sure to check out 5 Pointz and MoMA PS1. 5 Pointz is a factory that transformed into an outdoor art exhibit space that is covered by graffiti and the inside is made of art studios as well as over artists' apartments. MoMA PS1 is devoted to complementary art. 

 Along the East River, there are a lot of residential high rises with great view of Manhattan skyline and a surprisingly clean river park called Gantry Plaza State Park. The park just completed expansion in 2009. There are nice comfortable chairs, hammocks and beautiful sidewalks along the East River. This area is perfect for young families to raise kids. It's less crowded and has more green spaces for kids to play! 

Since we walked down to the park after dinner (around 7:30pm) the sun was setting from the Manhattan side, all the pictures of Manhattan were back-lit. But it is a great spot to look at the sunset if it's not too cloudy. 

Map of the day-

Roosevelt Island + Long Island City Gantry Plaza State Park (Vernon Blvd Jackson Ave)