City Island

City Island is a tight, community focused community. Most of the community members know each other. City Island has two elementary schools, one public and one private. What is interesting all the island residents send their children to the public school since it is the zone school. The children grow up going to school together, can go outside the school to the local deli for lunch and play with one another after school. It seems that people who live on city island have been living on the island for many generations. City Island has multiple church’s, variety from catholic and Lutheran. There is also one synagogue on City Island. However what brings the community together are the local block and beach get together. All the residents get together on their respective blocks and participate in BBQ or nautical outings.

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City Island is an island of only a mile and a half long. In this tiny community, we see a big support within the community and numerous community related activities. City Island has three churches (St Mary Star of the Sea, Trinity Methodist and the Grace Episcopal Church). City Island also has one synagogue. I found the symbol of the Star of David Very Interesting. It incorporates the nautical theme of the island. What is even more interesting is that the synagogue has a female rabbi.

 

“Temple Beth-El is led by Rabbi Shohama Wiener, a spiritual leader with a visionary background in Jewish spirituality and rabbinic education.  Rabbi Shohama was the first female president of any Jewish seminary in history”

 

City Island also has a community center where it has monthly resident meetings and even hosts music events for teenagers and other residents to come and enjoy some local teenage bands. More importantly I see the residents all sticking together and hosting numerous block/beach parties. It seems as if there is a organized beach at almost every block and that are the common gathering points for residents of all ages

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Part II

I am so glad I got to stay and focus another 8 weeks on this community. I can see in these last 8 weeks, the traffic on the island dramatically reduced. It feels almost as if it is a ghost town. It is impossible to imagine that this ghost town has bumper to bumper traffic in the summer.

 

A few additional events I witnessed with this community, as a new mother, I was interested how kid friendly this community is. The Island has one library and the library offers a lot of programs including “mommy and me” programs. During these programs, a group of new mothers gather with their kids and sing songs and read books.

 

During these eight weeks, the new bridge opened up. Regarding the community, they are still angry and expressed a lot of resentment towards the city because the construction has caused traffic. Then restaurant owners, for once, side with the residents because the construction has also caused delay and has been hurting their businesses.