The small town of College Point Queens New York where I grew up was unique in its geography. Surrounded on three sides by water and having only 4-major roadways in and out of the town, it was a peninsula that stuck out into the East River, removing the town from the larger borough of Queens. Once upon a time it was the ferryboat stop to take cars and passengers from Queens a cross the river to the Bronx and Manhattan before the Whitestone Bridge was built in 1939. As the town was almost completely surrounded by water, you did not have to walk far to get to the College Point shoreline of the East River. One place that you could get to and easily see the Bronx skyline directly across the water, New York City on the left far in the distance, Rikers Island in the middle of the river, LaGuardia Airport with the planes landing and taking off, and the Whitestone bridge over on the right, was from the park. Back then the park was known as Chisholm’s Park. It was at the end of our street College Place.

 

Serving as the point of College Point, Chisholm’s Park jutted out into the East River, surrounded on one side by boat yards, and on the other side, the barrel yard. As I can recall, the barrel yard was filled with triangular stacks of giant white cement tubular barrels that you could literally stand up in and was also known for the gang of hitters that dominated the neighborhood known as the barrel boys. Further down the East River coast line you would come to another park known as Beehands Park, a part of Tallman Island. Tallman Island was a water treatment plant which recycled sewage and emptied processed water back into the East River, and It is still there today. Beehands Park was smaller than Chisholm’s but many a summer barbecue picnic was spent there. It was also famous for the bar that was directly across from the park entrance, Mell Miller’s, known as a favorite hangout by many of the local College Lanes bowling alley patrons.

 

It's here, where our story really begins. On a warm early summer’s day my older brother and I went on an adventure navigating the coast of College Point. When I say navigating what I mean is exploring the shoreline around College Point on foot, walking through the shoreline swamps, vacant back lots, abandon beaches, and commercial boat yards, toward the posh town of Malba with our final destination, the Whitestone Bridge. When we made this journey, I was about 12-years old. As we were to explore the coast there would be many areas that were private with no trespassing signs. Of course, that didn’t stop us. As I remember the journey started at Tallman Island.  The park wrapped around the waste water facility like a shawl, thinning out on one side, leading to a sloping rock wall that went down to the river, with a 9-foot tall chain-link barbwire fence dividing the water facility from the converging narrow path at the top of the rock wall. Walking all the way to the end of the path where the rock wall stopped along with the chain-link fence, there were several strands of vertical barbed wire connected to the end of the fence post that stood out and hovered over the water 10 feet below. The trick was to hold onto the chain-link fence post and climb around the vertical barbed wire without getting yourself cut to pieces. Luckily, the width of the vertical barbed wire was only about a foot wide, and with a little doing, you could climb around and stand on the cement surface that was the start of the wastewater facility foundation. Once on the property, we proceeded to walk over to a long cement dock that jutted out into the east river for about 100-feet then right angled into a wooden dock where boats could be moored. We sat there for a while until we were noticed by Tallman Island facility workers and escorted off the property by plant security.

 

From Tallman Island, we walked from the beginning of 127 street to the intersection of 9th avenue, turning left by PS164 annex. We walked 9th avenue until it ended at the bottom of the hill at 130th street. As we left the last of the paved streets and hopped the fence dividing the houses from the abandoned lots leaving College Point, our exploration became a day of unforgettable memories. At that time, the coast of College Point was a wild and rugged territory for about 3 and-a-half miles as it morphed into the next town of Malba, right by the Whitestone Bridge. Walking into the unknown, filled with tall weeds, swamps, marshland, piles of old tires, burned out abandon cars, and of course, everyday garbage, our fear of rats and the creatures that inhabited the area was suppressed by the excitement of the day. There were long pieces of wood from the nearby boatyards scattered over the landscape, and when it rained, huge puddles or small lakes could be sailed by rafts made from the salvaged wooden boat yard planks. There were mounds of black granular material that smelled like coffee grounds, but I’m sure that’s not what they were. At one point the land became really saturated due to water from city street sewers , and although there were clumps of weeds that looked like firm ground, when stepped on you would sync up to your knees as if it was quicksand. Still, we continued on. Paralleling the East River on our left with Hayden’s woods and 14th avenue on the right, the coast of College Point became a dangerous playground for our continuing adventure.

 

As we got closer to the exclusive town of Malba, the coast line became parcels of private property, the backyards of upscale houses and small mansions. Some of these yards had private docs but without fencing, we could climb through all of the yards without difficulty. In some cases the yards sloped down to privet beaches, and for others, tall rock cliffs that led up to the yard boundary. Just like the coast of any river, there were jagged rocks and many variations between the landscape and the East River that defined the coastline of these upscale dwellings. We climbed over all of it without fear or question. Like explorers discovering a new world, the thrill of the exploration was everything. At one point we came upon stairs that led up to a cement block foundation, and down to a makeshift dock where a homemade raft was moored. Climbing up to the cement block foundation, it turned out to be a small dark enclosed cement room that produced a wonderful echo that we yelled and uttered the word “hello.” We then walked down the stairs to the makeshift dock where the homemade raft was tied up. We thought this was our chance to sail the coast of the river. Untying the raft and pushing off into the water unconcerned that the raft really could not support the weight of both of us, we heard a distant cry from above coming from a male voice, “Quit the clowning around.” Obviously, this was the owner of the raft. We sheepishly put back the raft and moved on to the next yard. Eventually we came to a large stretch of open street beach that again had driftwood, large rocks, and other river debris. From there we could see the Whitestone bridge to our left and in front of us, the Malba Drive Road that stretched and skirted the town. Walking up the beach to the road, we stopped and paused by a huge wooden beam. Our desire to travel the East River by raft, continued to motivate us to try and push the huge beam down the beach and into the water. However, no matter how we tried or what we did, the wooden beam would not budge. From here we could no longer follow the coast. The sandy beaches came to an end, and all that was left were tall rock wall cliff formations leading up to the homes and down to the river. We were now close to the Whitestone Bridge and at this point we decided to walk the streets of Melba and take the bridge’s underpass over to the Whitestone town side of the bridge.

 

As we walked through the underpass, on our left side was Francis Lewis Park, and on our right side was the cement ramp leading up to the bridge’s suspension cables. Again, as there were no fences and only a shoulder of grass and trees that led up to the very beginning of the approach to the Whitestone Bridge, we could simply walk next to the rising concrete structure and come to where the approach and the wall began. Off to our side and ahead of the ramp was the last exit before committing yourself as a driver to go over the bridge. It was here where we started to walk the edge of the concrete wall bridge approach. To be clear, there was no walkway. However, there was a narrow, slightly angled down, concrete ledge, about 8-inchs wide you could put your feet on side-by-side with your toes against the wall while extending your arms and hands over the top of the concrete, grabbing hold onto the other side of the wall. We stood next to each other, stepping inch-by-inch, slowly moving up the sloping on ramp approach to the bridge towards where the steel superstructure began. At first, we thought we were cool, until we realized we had climbed level with the top of the adjacent tree line, about 25-feet up in the air from  the ground. Finally, our mortal fear kicked in, and the fright of being up so high caused us to stop, and very slowly inch our way back to the start of the ramp. When we got down from the wall, we looked back at the place we climbed. Although I don’t recall saying it out loud, I believe we both thought how crazy, stupid, and dangerous our ledge walking of the Whitestone Bridge really was. By this time it was early evening and with a very long walk back to home, our day of fun and exploration ended with a straight conventional walk from the town Whitestone to the town of College Point via 14th Ave.

 

Looking back on that day with the eyes of a parent with two grown-up kids, I’m thankful they never tried to do anything as foolish as walking the cement ledge of a suspension Bridge. Or if they did, were smart enough not to tell me about it.

 

Today, the place we started our walk is now known as Powéll’s Cove Park. Much of the area is home to the College Point Yacht Club. The barrel yard is now a small community of attached houses that ends where the yacht club property begins. The boat yard, on the other side of McNeal’s Parke, is now called Bay Park Estates, once known as Arco Field. Over the past 55-years since our walk to the Whitestone Bridge, College Point has gone through much urban development. Incomplete streets that once ended off of 14th avenue towards 20th avenue, now connect these two major roadways. Mill Creek, by what was Speed’s Air Port, continues to be a large backlot swampy area and cannot be use for commercial building development. Someday, perhaps two young kids from the neighborhood may go on that Mill Creek exploration and discover a whole new exciting world beyond the houses and streets of College Point. But that’s another story.