A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

It was so beautiful out today we decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. We usually walk through an area called Malba and then to Whitestone Park, but today we took a different route to the park.

We walked along the service road to the Whitestone Bridge, and here is one of the rare blocks without a sidewalk, I love how this home kept a rustic look with their wooden rail fence:


Just around the corner are rows of attached co-ops, and I thought it was sweet how these neighbors each had a set of Adirondack chairs, one neighbor had two in blue, and one neighbor had two in pink:






Along the way we spotted a Volkswagon Beetle:



I loved those 'Bugs'! My favorite colors were the pale yellow, and the pale blue, but the Irish in me likes this Kelly Green too!


Here is the entrance to Whitestone Park (it's actually Francis Lewis Park but everyone in Whitestone calls it Whitestone Park), the park looks so bare now:




There is lots of construction going on, they are working on the bridge and they are working on the playground in the park that is under the bridge.
Here is an area of the park that is still quiet and peaceful though:



We walked down by the water and it was peaceful here too:




There were two little ducks in the water and as mild as the weather was...



...it still made me cold to think of being in that water!





Here is the boat Ray wants and he wants this set-up too so he can just walk out his door and hop in his boat!


There are lots of new homes going up in Whitestone, I think they are gaudy looking, but I do like the idea of the conservatory, and I would like the water view that some of these homes have!






And this is one of the newer homes that I actually do like, and I wouldn't mind at all having lots of room, especially when we have parties!




But most of the homes I love are the older homes in Whitestone.
This is not one of my loves, it's just not my taste at all, it looks like an office building to me, but an interesting fact about this home is that it was owned by the Revlon (Cosmetics and Fragrance) family in the 1930's.




We walked further on and came to Booster's Beach:




I'm actually thinking of joining this beach club for the summer, it's certainly not the nicest beach and it's not the prettiest beach, but it's close enough for Jayden and I to walk to, and it will give us something to do a few times each week, and a lot of his schoolmates' families belong.






As we walked along we passed the older homes in Whitestone, here are some of the oldest which are my favorites:















I read that this was an old farmhouse that Walt Whitman rented a room in when he taught at a nearby school in Whitestone Village:






This old home is now a Funeral Parlor:







Across the street from it is the new Greek Orthodox Church:





And up the block is Immanual Lutheran Church, it is the church Ray went to when he was growing up:

There are many churches in Whitestone of many different denominations, I will post about them one day.


Further down the block is one of the oldest homes in Whitestone, we have a map dated 1863 and this home is on that map (that same map shows that Tatham's Farm is the property that our home was eventually built on). I read that this old home pictured below was once an asylum, and at one time it was a rooming house, it used to have those iron fire escape staircases on the outside. The house is set back far from the road and the property goes from one block clear through to the other.


There are many homes in the Whitestone/Malba/Beechurst area that have an interesting history attached to them and some of the homes were once owned or rented by movie stars in the early 1900's. And Paulette Goddard was born in Whitestone. One day I will do a post on some of those stories.

If you enlarge this next picture you can see the green parrots that have invaded our neighborhood, these birds are beautiful to look at, but they make a mess and they are very noisy!



This is where they usually make their nests:




Okay, last picture, from the top of most hills in Whitestone, if you look West, you can see the New York City skyline in the distance.


And now I'm tired and it's time to head home!

And a very Happy Birthday to my nephew William (who is also our Godson), I would go on and on about William's many attributes, but I think he might be one of my 'don't mention me on your blog' relatives!