07 October 15

A Nice Day with the Gang on the Waterfront
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Touch the Art and Fornino

There are many things I love about New York and one of them is the weather, especially the early fall. It’s perfect here in September and October — still warm but not too hot.

In New York, the kids start school in the beginning of September. This year, on top of a very long vacation (three months) the school started off with two days off each of the first two weeks. The Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha this year fell early.

The weather was perfect during those days off, so I decided to spend one of them taking the kids and some friends for a ride to Brooklyn Bridge Park — always a big success. The park was recently renovated along the waterfront, but construction work is still going on along the roadside. To hide the not-so-attractive building site, the park put up a nice photo exhibition curated by 30 highly-respected photography professionals from around the world.

The new park has piers along the waterfront with many offering different sport activities. The view from the piers, with Manhattan skyline in the background, is stunning and a really fun place to hang out with kids.

At the moment, the park also features 17 playful sculptures and a water fountain by the Danish artist Jeppe Hein called “Please Touch the Art”. The art invites children and their parents to drop in for a fun experience on the 16 modified social benches that upend the idea of a traditional park bench with their unconventional angled, curved, twisted, and bent forms in bright orange.

New York is a great city in which to introduce kids to the idea of a metropolis. It’s a huge city but inhabited by huge proportion of families and with many recreational areas for children and interesting sights to entertain them. Along the many waterfronts you find great playgrounds with swings, slides and, on hot days like this, playgrounds with water.

After spending several hours in the park, the rest of the family members joined us for pizza at Fornino on Pier 6. This is a perfect rooftop spot to enjoy delicious brick-oven pizza and cold beer, with a great view of the Manhattan skyline and the sunset.