Labor Day at the Beach
Letter from .... New York! In this campus.leben series, Luise Müller enjoys a promising start at the university and late summer swimming weather.
Sep 18, 2015
Luise Müller in front of Low Memorial Library at Columbia University
Image Credit: Fabian Stelzer
A direct connection to the beach: the NYC Beach Bus
Image Credit: Fabian Stelzer
Labor Day at Jacob Riis Park Beach, a broad sandy beach at the western end of Long Island
Image Credit: Fabian Stelzer
I’ve just arrived in New York, and the very first Monday in September is a holiday: Labor Daytraditionally marks the start of fall – which means, for me, the start of the semester. But this year, there is no sign yet that summer is coming to a close. With temperatures above 30°C (86°F), I decided to spend Labor Day at one of New York’s many beaches.
It doesn’t take long to get to the ocean from where I live in Brooklyn, either by public transit or, even better, with the NYC Beach Bus. The bus takes you to Jacob Riis Park Beach, a broad sandy beach at the western end of Long Island, in half an hour. And incidentally, if you were to drive along Long Island, which starts in the west with Brooklyn and ends in the east with Montauk – which will be familiar to German-speaking readers from Max Frisch’s story of the same name – you would reach the Hamptons, an exclusive coastal area where wealthy New Yorkers have their summer homes with private beaches.
Back in Brooklyn, school starts the next day. The long commute to Manhattan is worthwhile. The first seminar I look at sounds very promising. The format is very similar to that of a German colloquium: Young scholars from other universities present their work in progress for discussion during the first block meeting and come to New York for the second session to take questions and comments from students for three hours. I’m looking forward to next week!
In our campus.leben series "Letters from ..." six students, two doctoral candidates, and an apprentice are reporting on their experiences abroad. Here we introduced the nine travelers.