Day Ten - Queens!

PENNSYLVANIA STATION

This morning I walked over to Penn Station and took the Long Island Rail Road out to Queens.

I stopped in Kew Gardens to visit Queens Borough President, Helen Marshall. Ms Marshall gave me a tour of the Queens Borough Hall and told me a lot about the borough's history. She explained to me that this is her last term in office as Borough President, and she has made increasing Queen's tourism one of her top priorities. Queens has many interesting destinations for tourists to visit, but it still remains the NYC borough with the lowest annual tourism revenue. 

BOROUGH PRESIDENT MARSHALL AND ME!

One of the most significant changes that has occurred in Queens during Ms Marshall’s office, is the construction of the new stadium for the New York Mets. Up until April of 2009, the New York Mets played in Shea Stadium, which was constructed in 1964. In 2009, Citi Field was completed, and opened to Mets fans in April. The stadium has helped to increase tourism in Queens, drawing many more visitors than its predecessor. The stadium is especially filled during a subway series, when the Mets play the NY Yankees!

Borough President Marshall is a huge Mets fan, and guess what….she surprised me with tickets to today’s game! Today the Mets are playing the Philadelphia Phillies. I am so excited that I got to go to TWO baseball games while I was here!

ME AT CITI FIELD

At Citi Field there are so many fancy restaurants to choose from it’s hard to pick one. Ms Marshall told me that for a real Mets experience, we had to forsake all the fancy restaurants and have what New Yorkers call a “dirty water dog”. At first I thought it sounded like a terrible idea! However, I soon learned that a dirty water dog is a hot dog, but it isn’t dirty! 

Dirty water dogs are hot dogs that go for a swim, then a soak in boiling water to heat them up. It's kind of like a day at the spa for a hot dog! Sabrett's franks are the dog of choice, although some places serve Nathan’s franks, or Hebrew National. The dirty water dog is a long and thin natural skin cased frank, the bun is at air temperature and mildly soft to slightly firm. These dirty water dogs are served with Sabrett’s onions which looked to me like orange relish. Men and women walk around in the stands at Citi Field carrying big square metal boxes of these hot dogs to sell to the Mets fans. I ate two, and they were absolutely delicious!

MY DINNER!

Fun NYC Factoid:

How did Queens get its name? Queens was one of the original counties of New York, formed (and named) in 1683, by the British. It included the land that is now Queens and parts of Long Island called Nassau and Suffolk counties. Adjoining Brooklyn was named King County in honor of King Charles II.