Relative to countries like Ecuador or Colombia – heck, even relative to the state of New York – Chile doesn’t have a lot of birds. Paradoxically, that makes it a great birding destination. Think about it: a lavishly illustrated field guide to the birds of the country can include a bonus section on the identification of eggs (!!!) and full-page photographs of the authors’ favorite species, and still slip easily into your handbag. Studying up on the birds you’re likely to see is relatively easy. Do you find hummingbirds frustrating, but love distinctive gulls and weird ducks? Do wren-like birds with long, spiky tails appeal to you? You’ve come to the right place!
But where Chile really stands out is the omnipresence of birds on the walls of its cities. As readers of this blog surely know by now, I love street art almost as much as I love birds. And Chilean street artists seem to have a strong ornithological bent. The walls of Santiago and other cities were practically a gallery of the birds of Chile; I could stroll neighborhoods and sharpen my identification skills at the same time.
I’m not going to lie: the past five months have been tough. I haven’t been depressed, exactly, and I’ve had many moments of joy – or just normalcy, which is almost as good. But those feelings are always – always – in a fight with the anxiety, sadness, rage and impotence that have taken up residence in my body and mind.
Impotence, especially: the feeling that whatever I do, it’s not enough.
I have no idea what motivated some unknown person to paint affirming statements on walls up and down Brooklyn’s Third and Fourth Avenues (it was probably not the carnage and desperation in Gaza), but seeing them always gives me a small boost.
I began this blog a little less than ten years ago as a Brooklyn-focused running blog, or perhaps a running-focused Brooklyn blog. Running endures as a regular part of my life, but it’s less of a passion these days, more something I do because, well, it’s something I do. It’s been a long time – almost five years, is that possible? – since I’ve posted a race report.
So if this one should stray from the conventions of the genre, it’s partly because my writing, like my running, has suffered from neglect . . . but also because the Gaza 5K is not exactly a conventional race.
Birds were the best thing about this past year. That’s generally true if you’re as bird-obsessed as I am, but it was particularly so in 2023. So much so, in light of the ongoing slaughter, destruction and privation in Gaza and the West Bank, that I’m forced to wonder: is it trivial to think of this bloody year in birds? Offensive, even? Should I set my binoculars aside in mourning, or at least have the decency to stop yammering about rarities and lifers?
Even if I should, I can’t. Birds have been, and still are, a source of joy for me and many others. They are beautiful; they ignore borders and fly over walls; they are fragile, and yet they endure in the most unlikely places.
And If I didn’t have them in my life, I’d be even more nuts than I am.
This is the sixth installment of a highly idiosyncratic guide to the Brooklyn – aka best – portion of the NYC Marathon route. For reasons I’ll get into shortly, it’s more idiosyncratic than ever. First, though, links to past editions: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and the one that started it all, back in 2015. Click on these for much more detailed race-watching advice – including transportation strategies, what the runners are probably feeling, and general vibe.
This year, I’m narrowing the focus to Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue – a roughly five-mile stretch of the course that happens to correspond to where I spend the majority of my time.
That focus reflects my evolving relationship with my borough. When I started this series, I was relatively new to Brooklyn and keen to explore it. This blog in general, and this guide in particular, gave purpose to my exploration. (It also gave me license to eat a ridiculous amount of food in the interest of “research.”) But after the pandemic put such wanderings on hold, it proved surprisingly hard to revive the urge to explore. I’m not sure why. I suppose that as one becomes more at home in a place, there’s a natural inclination to return again and again to a relatively small number of spots. We’re territorial animals, I guess, marking our trails, repeating the same circuits again and again.
This is not a bad thing. It’s nice to know and be known. But it does make coming up with new blog content a challenge.
Further weakening my motivation – and contradicting everything I just said about the pull of familiarity and routine – I’ll now confess that this Marathon Day is going to be dramatically different for me. I will not be watching the race this year; I won’t even be in Brooklyn. Not without regret – because I really do love the event – I’m spending the first half of November in Mexico. Sunday will find me in a small “pueblo mágico” in Puebla state, staying at an inn without much of an internet connection. So instead of cheering myself hoarse along Fourth Av, then hopping on the G train to catch the runners in Fort Greene or Greenpoint or LIC, I´ll be checking out the local market and inflicting my bad Spanish on Nahuatl speakers.
I can’t let the race – or this post – go entirely, however. So without further ado, here’s an abbreviated list of great places to eat, drink and watch the runners. It’s divided in two parts: new (or at least newish, or new to me) arrivals and reliable old favorites. Both are organized from south to north, following the runners along the course.
New arrivals
How many bodegas feature a picture of their apron-clad owner/head cook on their awnings? El Sazón de Petrica, a Venezuelan grocery/restaurant in Sunset Park, does. Newly-opened between 47th and 48th streets, in what is arguably the best eating area along Fourth Avenue, they offer empanadas and ridiculously – but deliciously – overstuffed arepas. Try the pabellón, which features shredded beef, black beans, fried sweet plantains and gooey melted cheese. Be sure to ask for plenty of napkins with your order.
El Sazón de Petrica, 4718 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
Jey Diner has been around for a few years, close to the 25th St stop on the R train. First I noticed its sign, which in all honesty, did not make me want to run to try it (maybe it was the “Inc.” that turned me off). More recently they added a sidewalk chalkboard that piqued my interest with some creative-sounding breakfasts (polenta eggs Benedict, anyone?). So, with Eric and a visiting Katie in tow, I gave them a try.
In classic diner fashion, the menu is vast and inclusive. It spans breakfast classics (omelets, eggs any way you want ‘em, pancakes), gentrified brunch classics (avocado toast, eggs Benedict), Italian (ziti, lasagna), Mexican, Puerto Rican…you name it. My chilaquiles were tasty, the home fries with Eric’s omelet were a home run, and while Katie’s burrito isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about burritos (regular readers know I’m not a fan), if you like overstuffed carb bombs that frustrate attempts to anoint them with (excellent) salsa, you’ll like this. As we ate, I pictured sitting at the table that looks out through their big front window, and thought, “yeah, this would be a fun place to watch the race.”
Postscript: since everyone who works there is Spanish-speaking, I assume “Jey” is pronounced “Hey,” which is very cute and makes me like the place that much more.
Jey Diner, 721 Fourth Av (east side of the marathon course)
I was excited to see a Yemeni restaurant open up on Fourth Avenue, not too far from us, but then dawdled in checking it out. When I developed a hankering for Arab food, and remembered they were there . . . well, they seemed to always be closed. But the Green Province rewards patience and flexibility with – I can say now that we’ve finally eaten there – delicious food. You’ll find all the standards, as well as comforting, stewy Yemeni specialties.
If only their falafel didn’t come with the scourge that is white sauce!
The Green Province, 568 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
I am not a brunch girl. When I go out on a Sunday morning, I want breakfast, dammit! And if I were to go out on a Sunday afternoon, though I rarely do, I’d want lunch. But I’ll make an exception for Alma Negra, an upscale, modern Mexican place that we’ve enjoyed for dinner in the past, and landed in during brunch hours one weekend when the aforementioned Green Province was unexpectedly closed.
As at dinner, Alma Negra’s dishes are carefully prepared and beautifully presented. My eggs with potato and chorizo weren’t the scrambled mess I love and was expecting, but rather a neat frittata topped with a tangle of micro greens.
I’m not complaining.
And besides – how can you not love a place that touts its impressive selection of tequilas and mezcals with whimsical sidewalk signs, like the one below?
Alma Negra, 494 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
When Bushwick’s Nenes Taqueria opened a branch in Park Slope, it brought great tacos to a section of the marathon course where race day food options were previously lacking. The other 364 days of the year, it brought great tacos an easy walk from me. I now have the luxury of choosing between old favorite Reyes Deli & Grocery and new favorite Nenes.
In a departure from the usual south Brooklyn taqueria vibe – grill behind the deli or bakery counter, a few tables crowded in the back, hand-lettered signs – Nenes offers a shiny red and white interior that makes me think of Mexico City. They have plenty of meat choices and even a couple of vegetarian ones (mushrooms, nopales), but I keep coming back to their adobada and birria, in a so far unsuccessful attempt to decide once and for all which I like better. (Pro tip: the birria is so moist that ordering consome along with it is totally unnecessary, even for a consome lover like me.)
Nenes also has what may be the best horchata in town.
Nenes Taqueria, 660 Degraw St (east side of the marathon course)
Old favorites These are the places I return to again and again, not in the interests of research or writing, but because I love them.
If you want to see runners while they’re still fresh from that probably-too-fast descent off the Verrazzano Bridge – or if you just want to eat really good Lebanese food in Bay Ridge – Karam is as good as ever. It’s conveniently close to the 86th St stop on the R train, too.
Karam, 8519 Fourth Av (east side of marathon course)
Panadería Don Paco Lopez remains a weekend staple for its perfect huaraches and savory, deliciously gamy barbacoa de chivo. I especially love Don Paco’s this time of year, when the owners install a beautiful ofrenda in the front of the bakery. It would not be out of place in the Corredor de Ofrendas going on in Puebla this week.
Panadería Don Paco López, 4703 Fourth Av (east side of the marathon course)
From the start, I was enchanted by the familial relationship between the humble corner bodega by the R train and the sleek but comfortable and welcoming coffee shop a couple of doors down, Both the coffee shop and its progenitor share the name Yafa. Head to the bodega if you want, well, a bodega. Head to the café if you want some of the best coffee around, proudly sourced from Yemen. Or, if you prefer something cold – maybe all that cheering has done a number on your throat – they’ll make you a delicious lemonade. Their Yemeni honeycomb cake is a must, their sandwiches a treat.
Yafa Cafe, 4415 Fourth Av (east side of the marathon course)
When I want street tacos, I go to the Tacos El Bronco truck on Fifth Avenue which is, unfortunately, not on the course. When I want stewy, satisfying Poblano home cooking, I go to the physical location on Fourth Avenue. As often as we go there, I have yet to exhaust the seemingly limitless combinations of meat, vegetables and moles or chile sauces they offer as daily specials. Their egg dishes care great, too – as are their tacos, of course. The only downside of eating here on race day is that you may be too stuffed to cheer effectively afterwards.
Tacos el Bronco, 4324 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
I confess, I’ve been cheating on Ines Bakery ever since I discovered I could get arroz con leche-filled empanadas closer to me. But Ines is where I first encountered them, and I still love their selection of baked treats and substantial Mexican and Salvadoran antojitos.
Inés Bakery, 948 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
Since I moved to Brooklyn, I have either run or watched every single NYC Marathon. And every single year I wasn’t running, I’ve picked up a breakfast sandwich Toluqueño from Reyes Deli & Grocery. It’s my little tradition, and I feel almost as bad about missing it as I do about missing the race itself.
Reyes Deli & Grocery, 532 Fourth Av (west side of the marathon course)
It was a happy day in the Ewing-Brooks household when Shelsky’s, a purveyor of smoked fish and other Jewish treats, opened a bagel shop by the Fourth Av/9th St F/G/R station. Happy for us because it gave us a second top-tier bagel option in the neighborhood . . . and happy for you, because you can grab a bagel or bagel sandwich to carb-load as you cheer. Bagels go with races like they go with lox and cream cheese, so why wouldn’t you go here on Marathon Day?
Shelsky’s Brooklyn Bagels, 453 Fourth Av (east side of the marathon course)
. . .
That’s this year’s round up. I promise to be back with more in 2024!
This poster stayed with me after I saw it in Sunset Park earlier this week. Today, I went back to 45th St and Fourth Av to snap this picture. (And grab some barbacoa de chivo while I was at it.)
“Don’t make eye contact” is standard advice these days. Passing someone on the street? Don’t make eye contact. Pressed tight against a stranger on the subway? Don’t make eye contact. And for heaven’s sake, if someone seems distressed or asks you for money . . . don’t make eye contact.
Needless to say, the more different the other person is from you, the more important it is to avoid looking them in the eye.
Today I went to Jackson Heights/Elmhurst, hoping to pick up a couple of books at Barco de Papel. It was closed when I got there, so I wandered a bit, killing time. Lunch, perhaps? There was no shortage of options, with Colombian and Ecuadorian bakeries duking it out on every block, taquerias and cantinas aplenty, and sidewalk vendors squeezing oranges and frying empanadas. Somehow, though I got it into my head that I wanted Mexican mariscos, as they’re scarce in my part of Brooklyn.
It turned out they were scarce in that part of Queens this afternoon, too. Esquina del Camaron Mexicano, right next door to the bookstore? Temporarily closed for renovations. Mariscos El Submarino? Also undergoing renovations, and the guy working outside was vague on whether they’d open for lunch a bit late, a lot late, or not at all.
Determined to salvage something from my trip on the 7 train, I stopped at the juice stand attached to a Colombian bakery – “La Gata Golosa” – for the most ridiculous thing I could think of, which was a raspado. (That’s not quite true – a cholado would have been even more ridiculous, being essentially a raspado with the addition of chopped fresh fruit and a literal cherry on top, but I know my limits.)
I spent much of January in Ecuador, mostly on a pair of birding trips organized by Brooklyn naturalist, artist and general bon vivant Gabriel Willow, but with some time on my own as well. In Qiuto, I stayed in the neighborhood of La Floresta, drawn by the food – from street vendor tripe in Parque Navarro to the ultra-high end tasting menu at URKO – and also by the street art. As you can see by the mural above this post, the latter was pretty spectacular.
It’s awkward, even intimidating, to restart this blog after one of its periods of quiescence – especially one as long as this. Let’s see, my last post was in . . . January? Gulp.
It’s not as though there was anything particularly dramatic about this Brooklyn Sunday. The suffocating heat has loosened its grip ever so slightly, but by the time I’d run and biked my way from Park Slope to Prospect Heights, I was soaked in sweat. I had let the availability of CitiBike “Bike Angel” points determine my route. For the uninitiated, the corporate parent of New York City’s bike share program is Lyft, a company that knows a thing or two about motivating non-employees, and I’ve allowed myself to be sucked into their Bike Angel program, whereby riders earn credits, membership extensions and cold hard cash by shuffling bikes from overstocked stations to ones where bikes are in short supply. It’s manipulative as hell, and a source of cheap labor, of course, but it also gives me a couple of hundred dollars a month, and meshes nicely with my much-reduced running program. I trot along, picking up and delivering bikes along the way, and call it a workout.
So it was the prospect of a 12-point (triple bonus points, baby!) drop-off that took me to the corner of Underhill and St. Johns Place, where a seemingly eternal construction fence around a ruined building has been a magnet for street art for years – long enough to earn a listing on Google Maps. It’s the “Underhill Walls,” evidently.
July What would U.S. bird #500 be? With the clan gathered in Detroit for a family wedding, Katie and I talked about our upcoming trip to Maine and Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, scheduled for mid-August. We’d see a beautiful part of the country, where she’d never been, and I’d get another chance at the White-winged Crossbills and other boreal birds that had eluded me in the Adirondacks in February. Wouldn’t it be fun to see #500 together?
In the meantime, July’s birding highlight was supposed to be a visit with my friend Shelley, whose yard Barred Owls enjoy hanging out in almost as much as I do. The plan was for Eric and me to take the long way home from Detroit, breaking our trip with a night at Shelley’s house on the Maryland-Delaware border.
We were just a few hours away when the text came: several members of the bridal party had come down with Covid. We called Shelley, discussed our collective comfort levels, and made the decision to cancel.
So what socially-distanced thing could we do with a rental car and a free day? My sense of the geography of the eastern seaboard remains vague, but applying the transitive property, I reasoned that if we were close to Shelley and Shelley was close to Philadelphia, which is close to southern New Jersey, we couldn’t be that far from the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
And at Forsythe, there was a Ruff.
Eric knows nothing of shorebirds and cares less, but he was patient and game, as always. So we adjusted course slightly and headed for the refuge.
I knew from eBird that the Ruff favored a lagoon toward the end of the refuge’s famous wildlife drive, which snakes its way around a network of channels and lagoons. So I wasn’t too anxious when the first half of the drive was Ruff-less. But why were we seeing virtually no shorebirds of any kind?
When we finally arrived at the marker that heralded the Ruff spot, I discovered where the missing shorebirds were. They were all there, hundreds of them, because why not? What’s good enough for European visitors is good enough for our domestic yellowlegs and dowitchers.
My desire to be a better birder, one who systematically sorts through vast flocks while being swarmed by biting insects, was clashing with my desire to be a better partner, one who doesn’t abuse the patience of the nonbirder they love. Which would win?
“We can go ahead,” I told Eric. Yes, love won.
And then, 45 seconds later, I screamed, “Stop!” There was something about the small group of birds, separate from the rest, that drew my attention, They were close enough to see from the road with just binoculars.
And one of them was the Ruff. It was a worthy #500.
August Would Katie forgive me for jumping the gun on #500? Yes, of course. In fact, if she’s smart (and she is), she’s thanking her lucky stars that I was not list-obsessing during our road trip through Portland, the Mahoosuc Range and Moose Bog. As delightful as it was to eat, drink and hike together, it was kind of a bust in the bird department, and I’m glad I could afford to be relaxed. We took pleasure in the Common Loons that called eerily from Island Pond, but from my boreal targets, we heard not a peep.
And for what it’s worth, the food at Hobo’s Cafe in Island Pond, VT is the bomb.
September September brought another New England trip, this time with Eric, this time continuing on into Atlantic Canada. Another chance to see Boreal Chickadees, Black-backed Woodpeckers, and Spruce Grouse! Maybe even one of those elusive White-winged Crossbills! eBird’s bar charts looked promising indeed.
What we actually saw was a lot of rain. Our planned arrival in Nova Scotia coincided with that of Hurricane Fiona and so we turned around, having made it only as far as Saint John, New Brunswick, where it rained buckets.
In tiny Lubec, Maine, we did see Black-legged Kittiwakes (members of the genus of “cute gulls”). It rained there, too. Other places it rained: Camden, Bangor, Bethel and Portland. I love rainy, wind-swept landscapes and seascapes, but even I have my limits.
After my third failed attempt to see specialty birds of the boreal forest. I’m becoming convinced that I have not just a nemesis bird, but an entire class of them.
October Fall migration is about slow birding, or at least it is for me. The birds aren’t as rushed as they are in the spring, so birders don’t have to be, either. I stuck to my “no chasing” vow, by and large, even refusing to turn around when Michael S found a Connecticut Warbler in Green-Wood not 15 minutes after he and I had chatted about them. But in that case I had a point to prove, having just declared Connecticut Warblers the most overrated U.S. warbler. I never did see one this year, and that’s OK.
At the end of the month, once the days had cooled and the mosquitos abated, I made the trek to Floyd Bennett, where I finally saw the Northern Red Bishop that had been fraternizing with the House Sparrows at the community garden for several months. I felt a bit sheepish putting even minimal effort into seeing an escaped cage bird, and even more sheepish reporting it here, but c’mon! These birds are spectacular, with their orange ruffs and high-contrast black and orange plumage. They look like sparrows in a jack-o-lantern costume – what could be a more appropriate Halloween bird?
November We rented a car and drove to Toledo and Chicago for Thanksgiving – with a detour through an industrial area of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to see a Brown Booby that had been hanging out on a particular channel marker for the some weeks. “It’s barely out of the way,” I told Eric, which was not quite a lie…I just hadn’t studied the map closely. “It won’t take much time at all.” How was I to know that the bird was only visible from the far side of the scruffy park tucked between the harbor and a warehouse complex, a long walk from the nearest parking?
But I saw it, and it made me happy. And unlike the folks who saw it from Staten Island, I didn’t have to talk my way in to a fenced-off industrial lot, which would have made Eric unhappy.
December December was a difficult month, for reasons I won’t go into here. I birded relatively little, except for the day of the Christmas Bird Count, when I birded a lot.
But on the morning of New Year’s Eve, someone found a pair of Pink-footed Geese on Staten Island. I hesitated, but only briefly. Sure, it was foggy and rainy and Staten Island is a pain to get to via public transit, but these were in a part of Staten Island that’s relatively accessible – especially for a runner, and god knows I needed to put in some miles after all those holiday treats. Plus, we were talking about Pink-motherfucking-footed Geese! An ABA region rarity, a lifer, and the subject of some of the finest recent eBird narratives I have ever read.
And so I took the R train to Bay Ridge and the S79 bus, and the S79 bus over the Verrazzano and along Hylan Blvd to Seaview, where it’s an easy jog, past the Wild Turkey-infested Staten Island University Hospital campus, to the ball fields where the geese were.
As I entered the park, I saw a dozen or so geese fly from the general direction of the fields and disappear into the fog. I was certain the Pink-footed ones were among them, because isn’t that how it goes?
My expectations suitably lowered, I continued on to the ball fields – a soccer game was going on in one, was that where the geese had been? – until I finally saw a bunch of Canada Geese. I stopped and began to scan the flock. Canadas, Canadas and more Canadas. Finally, I clapped my bins – not on the Pink-footed Geese, that was too much to expect – on another birder. It was my fellow Brooklynite, Richard F.
Well, I thought, this expedition has produced at least one good thing; Richard and I can chat a bit. I approached, prepared to commiserate (his bins and camera were down, as though he’d given up the search), and said something dumb, like, “how’s the goose chase going?”
“Oh,” he said, with the casual air of someone who’d seen a Pink-legged Goose on Long Island just a few weeks ago, “they’re right over there.”
And there they were, in the general direction of Richard’s gesture. Smaller and browner than the Canadas, they were much easier to pick out in real life than in the bad picture at the top of this post.
Richard offered me a lift back to Brooklyn, which I gladly accepted, and we’d barely cleared out space in the front passenger seat when our phones pinged simultaneously with word of a Harlequin Duck at the far west end of Coney Island. Was I game to go? Of course I was.
So on the last day of the year I saw a life bird; a rare-in-Brooklyn duck; and, on the jetty, a Purple Sandpiper – the bird with which Part 1 of this post began.
Not another Brooklyn blog 