While my wife edged back toward the sidewalk, pretending she didn’t know who I was, I angled past an unlatched gate and got a look inside. My photo wasn’t much, but it clearly identified a Trader Joe’s in the works.
By David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
More than a few years passed since my furtive times of sneaking peeks into the closed off adult world. The fun of getting a look, though, at what the adults were up to hadn’t left me.
Keeping myself out of the picture, I placed my camera directly on the glass and angled away. Sure, I looked ridiculous, the foodie version of a peeping Tom, but before anyone came out to stop me, I clicked.
Not until I got home and blew up the photo did I realize what I got… Along the left, a row of TJ’s signature wooden checkouts. With a projected October opening already reported, all they need now are registers, card readers and electrical hookups.
If anyone asks, don’t say where you got this. I may have been trespassing — so, what else is new? — but who needs the hassle?
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What the Promenade Remembers
The light on the East River in the early morning is different from the light anywhere else on the Island. It comes in low and sideways, catching the water in long, uneven flashes. On certain days it makes the promenade feel less like a walkway and more like a corridor someone once meant to finish but never quite did. When I was younger I found the suggestion to stop and look at it faintly ridiculous.
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