Trip 46 — Long Island Walk

Day 1: Queensbridge Park to Great Neck
Tuesday, 4 November 2025

Today: 37426 steps/31.39 km/19.50 mi/5h 13m

For the first time since my walk from New York to Boston in August 2020, I can leave whenever I want. There's no plane to catch, no train to run for, no ferry tooting its horn, no figuring out where to catch the predawn airport bus from Newark Penn Station. (I still don't know.)

It's the ultimate freedom, but it's dangerous. There's always one more thing to tidy up, one more examination of my belongings, one more finesse of the itinerary. I could spend all day perfecting my preparation and then never get around to walking. But I should know how to do it by now, right?

I leave at 9:58, but it'll be at least an hour before I start the walk proper, from Queensbridge Park under the Queensboro Bridge. I make a small detour to vote. The options for New York's mayor aren't great, but I've decided on Mamdani. Cuomo's treatment of women is a one-issue elimination, and I don't believe Mamdani is as antisemitic as he is made out to be. He may not have as much experience as I would like, but he has some fresh ideas that promise an exciting path forward. Besides, he's not afraid to stand up to Trump, and any fly in the president's Preparation H sounds as delicious as the dim sum I'll have when I reach Flushing.

It's a sunny and breezy day. The temperature, like the numbers of the streets that take me from west to east across Manhattan, is in the 50s. I have my "I voted!" sticker on, and people thank me for doing my civic duty.

I haven't crossed the Queensboro Bridge on foot in years, perhaps even not since they tacked Ed Koch's name onto it. Instinctively I head for the north walkway's entrance between Second and First avenues. I proceed on to the ramp and it's not until bicycles are zooming past me that I remember something about their opening the southern walkway to pedestrians a few years ago. But I don't see anyone on the other side.

Near the midpoint, over Roosevelt island, a passing biker confirms my suspicion that I've taken the wrong approach. "The other side is for you," she says. I humbly avoid eye contact with the hundreds of cyclists that pass me as I descend.

I may be on the wrong side, but I'm on the side I want to be, since from here I can see Queensbridge Park with the trees resounding in glorious orange. This is where I'm going to start the walk.

It's several blocks from the base of the bridge to the shore. The park has a restroom, and I open the door to find a naked man showering. I'll save my relief for Flushing.

I arrive at the riverbank and am horrified to see that one cannot cross under the bridge. I'd hoped to approach this point from the other side when I finish rounding the island, but I'll have to go past the entrance to the bridge and down to this point as I have just done.

Walk 26, step 1. I head through the park and up Vernon Boulevard. Barbed wire and a tall fence shield me from the power plant on my left, but the other side of the sidewalk is lined with trees that still have their bright orange color. I take Vernon to the extreme northwest of queens; I never knew that the borough had a First Street.

I continue through Astoria Park and under the Triboro and Hell Gate bridges. At 20th Avenue, my progress is blocked by an industrial park, and I turn right.

By aiming for a perimeter walk of Long Island, I'm missing the heart of Queens: the stretch of Roosevelt Avenue with its thick density of restaurants representing the whole globe — possibly the most diverse in the world, and certainly in the city. But I see glimpses of it: a halal shop offering live chickens, various Central American eateries, the imposing Buccaneer Diner as I continue along Astoria Boulevard past LaGuardia Airport.

After winding my way through the parking lots of Citi Field, I cross over the Roosevelt Avenue Bridge and into Flushing. I had thought about ending my first day here; I've long wondered what a night in Flushing would feel like, among all of the Korean, Taiwanese, and various types of Chinese restaurants. But it'll be a more fulfilling milestone to make it past the city limits, so this will be merely the midpoint.

Asian Jewels is one of the few places that still push dim sum around on carts. It's still almost full at 1:30. There's a strange image of a red sports car on a giant screen, but other than that the place is inviting.

One nice thing about dim sum is that you get food quickly, and I'm hungry. I have a few of my favorites: chicken feet, peppered beef ribs, and shrimp balls, plus pork stuffed in bean curd and eggplant stuffed with shrimp. Then I continue along Prince Street, where nearly every sign is in Chinese and I wish I could try them all.

I ponder the wide intersection with Northern Boulevard. If I'd followed the road to the left under the elevated train line when I came off the Queensboro Bridge, I'd have been at the boulevard's western terminus. It reaches Flushing after its junction with the expressway leading to the Bronx-bound Whitestone Bridge, and then it stretches out through miles of Korean restaurants until it reaches the edge of the city. It continues into Nassau County and, though its name may change, the road doesn't stop until it gets to the tip of the North Fork, where there's nothing to do but turn around or take a ferry to Connecticut.

There's a cluster of businesses at the junction with 15th Avenue, and after I turn right it soon merges with 14th Avenue. There's a pretty house here with a Greek eatery on the ground floor and the sign for a bakery above. The neighborhood has College Point's (and Flushing's) characteristic two-story connected houses with sloping driveways and terraces protected by twisted-metal fences, but here the lawns are lusher, sometimes with hydrangeas and small yellow and purple flowers.

A sign informs me that "The Village of Whitestone 'Welcomes You,'" and I wonder what's meant by the quotation marks. Across the street is a diner with a dental office above. When 14th Avenue ends, I work my way around to continue on 12th Road. The houses here are different; they're not huge, but they're more elegantly built, with steep frames. The trees are denser and taller here, and the orange leaves beam like crystals in the late-afternoon sunshine. It must be one of the prettiest parts of the city, and it's my first visit.

I reach Little Bay and the beginning of Utopia Parkway. Here it's just a thin, naive lane in its infancy, barely a trail, but a few miles south it's one of Queens' major thoroughfares. To my right is the bump of Fort Totten, an unfinished Civil War fortification, and across the bay is Great Neck, my destination for the night. But today the real attraction is the moon, fuzzy and round, pixelated, just shy of full but blooming with ambition in the hour before sunset. In a few hours it'll be this year's second supermoon.

Little Bay Park is alive with happy dogs enjoying the grass and the toys thrown by their owners. I connect with the bayside trail past Fort Totten Park, and for the next half-hour I have the Cross Island Parkway on my right and the bay on my left, while the moon evolves into a brilliant spotlight.

I come back to Northern Boulevard and the eastern fringe of its Korean section. I didn't know the street numbers went this high, and a few blocks after 251st Street the numbering starts over and I reach Taylor's Pharmacy at 1 Northern Boulevard. I've stepped out of the city and entered Great Neck in Nassau County.

Traffic is thick here. I bear left onto Great Neck Road and follow it into town, where I turn left to cross over the train station. Trains from opposite directions pull in and stop at the same time. A few minutes later I reach my hotel, the Andrew.

The room is well-appointed and comfortable if sparsely decorated and short on light switches. I'm more tired than I realized; I'd kept a good average pace of just shy of my ten-minutes-per-kilometer target. I put on "Jeopardy!" and there's a contestant from Long Island. I root for him for the first round and fall asleep for the second. When I wake up, it's the final question, and he loses his lead when he misses it.

Great Neck has plenty for dinner, including an abundance of Israeli restaurants. I'm tempted by the cuisine but not the prices, most of which start with a three or a four. But I realize I can go to Rothchilds and have a starter or two, or a soup and a sandwich, and get out for a reasonable amount. The grilled-eggplant starter, with tahini and pine nuts, is so filling — especially with the warm loaf of whole-grain bread and olive oil — that I don't need anything else.

I'm limping slightly as I head back to the Andrew; the first blister of the walk is at the tip of my right small toe. I've forgotten bandages: Twenty-six walks and I still don't remember everything.

Go on to day 2