Saturday morning I planned to leave the house at 8:45 so I could pull into the parking garage across from Daughter’s building in the city by 10:00 and get the special Saturday rate of $10 for the day. Daughter and I would then walk to Union Square and hop on the L train to Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and from there make our way to the McCarren Park Pool, site of the Fourth Annual Renegade Craft Fair, the most artistic and authentic handmade craft exposition of the year.
As I was getting into my car at home, our contractor showed up unannounced to finish some odds and ends of the work he’s been doing for us. Contractors are like soul mates and job promotions – you don’t refuse them when they appear even if you’re not ready because you never know if they’ll come by again. So I walked him around to go over things as my carefully choreographed minutes slipped away.
I foolishly decided to take the bridge instead of the tunnel and in so doing encountered a police caravan on Queens Boulevard pacing the traffic to ensure the 30mph speed limit. This is an infamous stretch of road with repeated pedestrian accidents so I applaud the NYPD’s efforts in enforcement. I can now report from personal experience that if you travel the entire length of Queens Blvd at thirty miles an hour you will catch every single red light whether there’s a cop car in sight or not.
I hit Daughter’s general vicinity at 9:45, just in time to have the street blocked off in front of me for the 2nd Avenue Street Fair which I had forgotten about. Mired in a mass of redirected traffic, I nonetheless arrived at the parking garage at 10:03. The attendant informed me that I missed the special and it would be $26 for the day. I told him it was just three minutes. He said it wasn’t up to him; it was monitored electronically. I considered further discussion but he gave me a look that said, “Until I get my green card this subject is closed,” so I decided in a ridiculous act of rebellion to get back in the car and try for a spot on the street.
I circled the heavily congested area once with no luck and then noticed a garage right opposite Bellevue Hospital advertising a full-day special for $10. I thought this was sweet since anyone visiting a patient at Bellevue could certainly use a break. When I was a kid, my father’s mother fell and broke her hip and was taken to Bellevue late at night. We rushed to be with her and in the crowded emergency room there was a young guy on the pay phone with his bloody hand over his stomach saying into the receiver, “Hello, Richie? Yeah, it’s me. Tell Mom I got shot.” Feeling fortunate at Bellevue for a second time, I left my car in the garage and proceeded on foot to pick Daughter up and head south to the land of our birth.
The Renegade Craft Fair is held every year in Brooklyn, Chicago and San Francisco and it attracts over 200 highly skilled and original vendors offering handmade jewelry, clothing, home décor, artwork, and items you will see nowhere else. It is a genuine cutting-edge craft fair, not the bastardized $3 sunglasses and knockoff Gucci handbag display we’ve come to expect of city street fairs. This year it fell on a picture-perfect summer day that I enjoyed with a perfect companion who always takes pictures. Throw in all-day bargain parking and it was a little slice of heaven in Williamsburg.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos offer a Summer Tour Thru the Boros
riding the wave in Williamsburg
danny meyer is building a restaurant in union square
tights in the city, part 3
no thanks, honey, i’ll pick up some breakfast on the street