Happy July Fourth ! No Fireworks But Plenty of Fun

This year Roosevelt Island will not play host a few thousand visitors looking to watch the fireworks from our shores. While the island may lose some hoopla there is still plenty of fun with a festival planned for today sponsored by Nonno's on the Riverwalk Commons lawn.

And always all our parks are open for everyone to enjoy.

ROOSEVELT L!VE - Full Schedule Released

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The folks who are putting together ROOSEVELT L!VE have put out the full schedule of groups to play at Roosevelt Island's Riverwalk Commons from May 23rd through September 5th and it looks like it will be a busy 15 weeks of concerts. Not being anything remotely close to being a hipster I have no clue as any of these groups are. I will be honest I am glad I don't live facing the Commons area.

Nonno's, Duane Reade, and Starbucks should clean up quite nicely with that amount of foot traffic. You have to give Hudson / Related credit for doing all they can to bring foot traffic to the island to see their new buildings and hopefully set up apartment tours. Maybe after the concerts the visitors can even schedule some rappelling time down the sides of the buildings.

I just hope the MTA holds to its goal of not disrupting weekend subway service while the tram is off line. Kudos to the concert promoters for highlighting the F Train service.

Lamenting Our Culinary Exile….

On Chowhound last week it was asked of each reader to submit the top ten restaurants within 10 blocks of their apartment. As one Roosevelt Island resident replied we don’t even have 5 restaurants on the Island:

I live on Roosevelt Island. There isn't 5 restaurants within a 10 block area. No, Astoria is MORE than 10 blocks!

A Romanian Restuarant opened on 36th Avenue and Vernon Blvd., within the 10 block criteria. We dined there last night. My meal was OK, my wife's was so-so. Not a place I'd highly recommend. The only saving grace was it's BYOB for now. Caveat: They do not accept CCs. A Japanese Restaurant is scheduled to open on RI shortly. Politically incorrect, but I guess that's our great yellow hope.

That resident like my family is awaiting the opening of the Japanese restaurant slated to open perhaps this Spring. Nonno’s was a great addition but we need more choices. We certainly have enough residents to sustain a few more restaurants.