Mothers’ Day on City Island
Posted: May 17, 2012 Filed under: Food | Tags: City Island, Lobster Box, Mother's Day, The Bronx Socialite, traffic Leave a comment »I was totally off my game this Mothers’ Day. I don’t know what I was doing all last week, but before I knew it, it was Saturday at 7 pm, and I was like “Aaah, reservations!!!”
So, I called up Havana, only to find out that, of course, they were all booked for Mothers’ Day. (Dunkin Donuts had to substitute. *insert sad face*)
Luckily, my mother was already making dinner plans for my grandmother, so we headed over to the Lobster Box. This was my second time going there, you can actually read about my first by clicking here. [TL;DR I went for my Grandmother's 90th birthday, it was fun. I liked it.]
This time, of course, we didn’t have a prix fixe menu, so I got to see the actual prices of everything. If this were Yelp, I’d give it two dollar signs. It was super crowded (did you hear about that traffic?! Two hours from Castle Hill to City Island. It’s like the whole borough was going out to CI), so our waiter wasn’t as attentive as he could have been. I got the filet of sole, which was okay. I thought it was a little bland, but everyone else at the table enjoyed their dishes. We also ordered a caraffe of white wine sangria that was very good.
Verdict: It’s a nice, spacious restaurant with decent food, just avoid high traffic days.
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The One Where Two Girls Try to Rob Me
Posted: May 4, 2012 Filed under: Other | Tags: 48th Precinct, Bronx Crime, The Bronx Socialite 1 Comment »As noted in the “About” section of this blog, I state my dedication to providing fair and honest coverage of the Bronx. Though many of the posts on here have been very positive (mostly because I stay away from politics), it’s obviously not all art galleries and cute restaurants out there.
Case in point, I’ve been tutoring a student who lives over by Crotona Parkway for a couple of months now and on my usual walk yesterday, I was approached by two young female teens. I had seen them out of my peripheral vision and thought they were walking suspiciously close to me, but it was a narrow sidewalk, so I thought they might be in a hurry try to get around me. Our conversation was as follows:
Girl 1: We wanted to know why you looked at us wrong back there.
Me: What are you talking about?
Girl 1: You looked as us dirty.
Me: I’m certain I didn’t. However, if I did, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even know you were there.
Girl 1: We want to fight.
Me: Well I don’t.
Girl 2: We want to fight.
Girl 1 throws a punch, which I block because I’ve taken self-defense and kickboxing a little ways back. But I was clearly outnumbered and caught off guard. (Seriously. Who is so forthright with their intentions like that?) They threw me to the ground, and while I don’t remember much from being on the sidewalk, my next memory is of seeing my bag a couple feet away from me and Girl 1 going for it. I got up and pulled her back by her hoodie. Girl 2 came at me yelling “Let go of her!” Then, two men ran from across the street, so the two delinquents ran away. Apparently, during all of this my shoes had come off (which means I ran after the girl barefoot, which IMO is kinda badass). Either way, the two neighborhood guys hop in a car and drive after the girls.
I spent the next couple hours or so with the cops, looking for them and filing my police report. As it turns out, though, the neighbor actually was able to chase one of them down and got her information, so she most certainly will be arrested and I have a very strong feeling that she will rat out her friend, who was the main aggressor anyway.
Physically, I’m fine. My adrenaline was up, so I didn’t even notice the scrapes on my feet until about a half hour afterward. Today, I’m just nursing a bruise on my knee and my muscles are sore like I was working out or something. Plus, I have all of my possessions, so I win. 
I can’t thank the police officers of the 48th precinct who helped me enough (I wish I’d gotten their names). I know NYPD gets a really bad rap (which is sometime warranted), but these guys were nothing but helpful and responded really quickly.
The point of me telling you this is not to freak you out or make you super paranoid. It’s just to present the reality and work in progress that is the Bronx. It isn’t perfect and I can’t pretend that it’s some utopia it’s clearly not. But this could just as easily have happened anywhere else in the five boroughs. And to those that subscribe to these tired old Bronx stereotypes, I want to make it especially clear that it has nothing to do with the location. Delinquents and reprobates exist everywhere; none of this Bronx is burning bullshit. I don’t intend to run away or move or anything of the sort and the moral of the story is that I will continue with the mission of this blog ( Also, don’t use those damn white ipod earbuds/try not to wear headphones at all. It was daytime, around 3:45 pm, so I thought I’d be ok. Obvs. not. )
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R & R at Tones Spa
Posted: April 24, 2012 Filed under: Awesomeness | Tags: Boyz Rule Our World, Bronx Cheapskate, Bronx Mama, Bronx spas, Mommy's Mingle, The Bronx Socialite, Tones Spa 1 Comment »Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being invited to a spa day hosted by Tones Spa and had the opportunity to hang out with the lovely ladies of Mommy’s Mingle, Bronx Mama, BX Che@psk@t3, East Bronx Macaroni Kid, and Boyz Rule Our World.
The spa was beautifully decorated with soothing music and super friendly staff. Catherine, the owner, made sure that everyone was attended to.
I had a paraffin hand treatment, facial, and got my eyebrows threaded. The hand treatment was wonderful. To be honest, my hands look all kinds of grody on a daily basis, but after the treatment they were silky smooth. Because I’m on my whole broke recent college grad thing, I try to convince myself that I can DIY beauty treatments at home and it’ll be the same thing and it’s better because “I’m saving so much money!” but I can tell you that I could NEVER recreate the relaxing and rejuvenating facial experience at Tones. When it was over, Ruby asked, “So, how do you feel?” I said, “I actually look awake.” I felt so relaxed and my skin was glowing. I’d never had my eyebrows threaded before, but afterward I was shocked at how amazing they looked. How could everyone just let me walk around with my Shrek eyebrows this whole time?! I know I’ll definitely be back and with Mothers’ Day right around the corner, Tones Spa is an ideal and convenient present.
Postcard: Bronx River
Posted: April 21, 2012 Filed under: Outdoors | Tags: Bronx River, The Bronx Socialite Leave a comment »It’s such a gorgeous day out! Check out this picture I took of the Bronx River today:
How the Other Half (Still) Lives at BDC
Posted: April 5, 2012 Filed under: Arts, Events | Tags: Ana Brigida, bronx culture, Bronx Documentary Center, How the Other Half (Still) Lives, South Bronx Churches, The Bronx Socialite Leave a comment »
Ah, this post is a little late, but bear with me, it’s been a crazy week (and it’s only Tuesday!)
Friday, I finally made it to the Bronx Documentary Center for the opening reception of Ana Brigida’s How the Other Half (Still) Lives: Bloomberg’s Legacy. The photographs depict residents living in deplorable, toxic conditions in NYC’s public housing complexes.
And I don’t mean the piss in the hallway, freakishly large rats racing each other type of situation (although, that’s horrible as well). This exhibit captures the city’s repeatedly failed attempts to rid apartments of mold, install doors where they should be in the first place, leaking ceilings ready to cave in type mess. The great thing about this exhibit is that there were also copies of the NYCHA complaint forms that the residents filled out. It’s one thing to just stand and look at pictures of these horrible conditions but it’s an entirely different beast to see the sheer volume of complaints and the way that NYCHA has gone about repairing some of these damages. You don’t need to be a professional model removal contractor (yeah, apparently that’s an actual job title) to know that painting over mold will not only fail to work or fix the problem, but it just makes the situation worse. These residents have developed serious respiratory ailments that didn’t exist prior to them moving into the complexes.
SMDH.
Alas, luckily they do have groups advocating for them, such as South Bronx Churches, which sponsored the event.
To see for yourself (which you should), the exhibit is on display until this Friday.
We’ve got to do better. There’s no excuse for this.
