tammytoes

and I woke up on Sunday morning with a million mosquito bites from a flashlight cemetery tour, a record-setting $20 bag of thrift store loot, photos of a carousel ride and an elephant painting in DUMBO, and a G.I. Joe temporary tattoo from a pajama jam.

as i feel all this warm, i want to blow you all big, ferocious kisses.  so there you go.

A month of days have passed now in which I’ve felt my feet on the ground, but slightly above it.  Joy, adrenaline, challenge: the main courses in this amazing feast.  Then when the bracing reality that I am living here and it can be really, really hard and all the accompanying worries set in (I am not strong/talented/willful enough to do this all on my own) I feel like I’ve been starving for the reality and I hate it all the same because it makes me feel crazy and cry so much.  But this place is real and I’m living in it and this happiness has not been illusory, but it has been much, and there is necessary time for some sadness and worry and fear, too.

Now it feels authentic and I really know, seeing the low, that I’ll make it just fine here.

Roosevelt Island is one of the strangest places on Earth to spend a warm late summer day. A few reasons why I adored my hours on the island:

A stunning view of Manhattan from just across the water (check out this completely unbranded cityscape):

The hilariously flat and underwhelming view of Queens from the same spot on the other side of the island:

The fact that Roosevelt Island is named after an unbuilt monument for Roosevelt after being named ‘Welfare Island’ by the City for about 50 years because it was the location for lunatic asylums, prisons and hospitals (a trifecta of tourist goodness!)

It has one of the deepest subway stations in the city (100 feet a-l-l-t-h-e-w-a-y down)

And a tram! A badass tram that travels over the river into midtown

The lunatic asylum was called the Octagon (um, hello, Foucault!) and is now a residential apartment complex (the horror film is just writing itself, isn’t it?)

Everything is painted red. Buses, benches, garbage cans. The entire island is accessorized in red!

The island has an Automated Vacuum Collection system. All the garbage travels under the island in big pneumatic waste tunnels to be compacted, sealed up and sent away. (I dunno where… maybe Staten Island?) The only other place in the U.S. with this type of system? Disney World. I am not making that up.

The Roosevelt Bridge is a PINK lift bridge.

The bizzaro-world architectural marvel that was a pretty radical planned community experiment thirty years ago when the island became residential. The buildings are aesthetically challenging, but remarkable in their efficiency. The school system was designed to have pod-like classrooms located throughout the housing structures instead of a central campus. It was supposed to be a pedestrian utopia. Nowadays, the place has a decidedly post-apocalyptic feel, and has seemingly (without irony) embraced its generic goodness. This is epitomized by the fact that nothing has a name on Roosevelt Island. The buses have electronic signs on the front that read “Surface Transit.” A block of retail storefronts has the names “Video and Hardware Store,” “Thrift Store,” and “Roosevelt Island Youth Program.” And my favorite? My favorite is “The Child School,” which is surrounded by the “Flower Shop” and the “Roman Catholic Church.”

My photos earned me a little byline, courtesy of Ehren G.

Here they are.

Fancypants!