2014 NYC National Road Meet (June 28-29, 2014)

[dgolub]

To avoid morning rush hour, either get into the city before 6 AM, or after 10 AM.
To avoid evening rush hour, either get out of the city before 3 PM, or after 7 PM (8 PM on Friday).

If you are going to sightsee in Long Island Monday morning, watch out for the second - be across the Hudson River before 3 PM, or suffer.

Decided to stay on LI Sunday night, plan to spend most of the day Monday on LI sight seeing and taking in some beach time, any suggestions?

Monday is a good day to see some beaches, since most people will be at work. Fire Island is the classic "amazing" beach, but I wouldn't say it's a must-see. But I prefer the less-visited beaches, so don't listen to me. Anything along Ocean Parkway is probably good.

Cool! I would liek to get out to Montauk point\ light house and Fire Island light house, I will be staying in the Medford area, smack in the middle of LI.

Montauk is one of my favorite places anywhere, but I'll warn you that it's a shlep to get out there, and there can be a lot of traffic on NY 27 during the summer months.  Make sure you leave a decent amount of time.

[dgolub]

To avoid morning rush hour, either get into the city before 6 AM, or after 10 AM.
To avoid evening rush hour, either get out of the city before 3 PM, or after 7 PM (8 PM on Friday).

If you are going to sightsee in Long Island Monday morning, watch out for the second - be across the Hudson River before 3 PM, or suffer.

Decided to stay on LI Sunday night, plan to spend most of the day Monday on LI sight seeing and taking in some beach time, any suggestions?

Monday is a good day to see some beaches, since most people will be at work. Fire Island is the classic "amazing" beach, but I wouldn't say it's a must-see. But I prefer the less-visited beaches, so don't listen to me. Anything along Ocean Parkway is probably good.

A lot of the beaches along the Ocean Parkway are restricted to residents of the towns of Oyster Bay or Babylon.

Regarding Fire Island, if you're heading out there, make sure you drive the full length of the Robert Moses Causeway.  It's totally worth it.

[Duke87]

Montauk is one of my favorite places anywhere, but I'll warn you that it's a shlep to get out there, and there can be a lot of traffic on NY 27 during the summer months.  Make sure you leave a decent amount of time.

Let me put this in more practical terms: Google says it takes 2 1/2 hours to get from Montauk Point to the George Washington Bridge. This is a lie. It will take longer than that. NY 27 east of the end of the freeway portion moves quite sluggishly even in February. I shudder to think what it must look like in the summer. If you plan on being through the city and in NJ before rush hour, figure you have to make it out there before noon, earlier if you do anything else along the way back.

Something nice you can do which adds time but cuts the slog of backtracking down NY 27 in half: take NY 114 through Shelter Island up to the north fork. This involves two ferries, a scenic and secluded island (of course, since it can only be accessed by ferry), and a US 114 shield heading southbound (assuming that hasn't been fixed in the past 14 months).

The fact that you're starting from Medford does help. Still, leave at least an hour earlier than you think you have to in order to see everything. Trust me on this.

Long Island is deceptively huge: Montauk Point is 120 miles east of Manhattan. If you head due north from the tip, you end up in Rhode Island.

[Pete from Boston]

Long Island is deceptively huge: Montauk Point is 120 miles east of Manhattan. If you head due north from the tip, you end up in Rhode Island.

Not really relevant to the trip but interesting while we're on the subject is the fact that at their closest, the soils of New York and Rhode Island are just about two miles apart!  Of course, this is Fishers Island I'm talking about, and not even the "mainland" of Long Island, but still, it stretches the brain a little bit.

https://goo.gl/maps/rr8yN

[Duke87]

Indeed. Fishers Island being part of New York is even weirder than Staten Island being part of New York.

[empirestate]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so. To that, I would also add Long Island generally, and its north shore specifically. I've heard it said, and I think it's apt, that the south shore is more aligned with the Mid-Atlantic region: coastal Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay does evoke some similarity there.

Staten Island is harder to pin down. Parts of it feel like New Jersey, while others have more of an Upstate NY or even eastern Pennsylvania-grade level of development. It is certainly unique among the boroughs: never fully urban, but rarely suburban either, at least in the post-war sense. It often feels like a collection of outer neighborhoods of a mid-sized Northeastern city.

[Pete from Boston]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so. To that, I would also add Long Island generally, and its north shore specifically. I've heard it said, and I think it's apt, that the south shore is more aligned with the Mid-Atlantic region: coastal Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay does evoke some similarity there.

The New England regional route system did start at the Hudson, after all.

The most New English place I know in the City of New York is City Island.  I tell folks from up here if they ever get homesick when they move down there, there's a quaint New England fishing village kept in the Bronx for such emergencies.

I've heard Tottenville on SI is similar, but never explored it off the expressway.

[dgolub]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so. To that, I would also add Long Island generally, and its north shore specifically. I've heard it said, and I think it's apt, that the south shore is more aligned with the Mid-Atlantic region: coastal Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay does evoke some similarity there.

Presumably they deliver the mail via the ferry from New London.  To the best of my knowledge, it's the only place with a zip code starting with 06 that's not in Connecticut.

[jeffandnicole]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so...

Zip codes were originally only meant to be used by the postal service to speed mail sorting and assist mail carriers on their routes.  The fact that the zip code starts with 06 only means one thing: The mail is to be delivered to a specific postal sorting office.

Generally, this is how a zip code works, using the format 12345-6789:

123: The Regional Post office where the mail is to be delivered and sorted.
45: The Local Post office where the sorted mail is to be delivered and sorted per carrier
6789: The street, complex, or other information the post office can use to further identify where the mail should go.

The 06 (or any other part of the zip code for that matter) is not supposed to relate whatsoever to a specific state or municipality.  The zip code is often exclusively for a specific town, but not always.

There's been cases where people will look for houses based on a zip code, and wind up being clueless to anything else.  This can happen when people have kids and want a specific school district, believing that everyone is a certain zip code goes to that school.  Those people will find a house that's a bit cheaper than the rest in the zip code, think they found a deal, and buy the house.  When they go to register their kids for school, they are shocked to learn that the house is actually in the next town over, and no matter how much complaining they do, they aren't getting their kids to the school that is in the same zip code as theirs.

[Pete from Boston]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so...

Zip codes were originally only meant to be used by the postal service to speed mail sorting and assist mail carriers on their routes.  The fact that the zip code starts with 06 only means one thing: The mail is to be delivered to a specific postal sorting office.

Periodically statistical analyses appear that use ZIP codes instead of FIPS/ISO codes, probably because more people are readily familiar with ZIP, and it leaves me scratching my head every time because ZIP isn't designed for that.

[Dougtone]

Fishers Island is about the only place in NY that I've never gotten around to visiting.  It's actually on my to-do list.

SCH-I545

[Duke87]

Presumably they deliver the mail via the ferry from New London.  To the best of my knowledge, it's the only place with a zip code starting with 06 that's not in Connecticut.

I vividly recall an old Hagstrom Fairfield County atlas indicating that a tiny piece (like, half a block) of Port Chester, NY was in Greenwich, CT's 06831 zip code, and that a correspondingly sized piece of Greenwich, CT was in Port Chester's 10573 zip code.

No other map I've ever seen shows any such jog in the line, though, and I can't imagine why one would exist. This probably was simply a copyright trap on Hagstrom's part.

[Laura]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so...

Zip codes were originally only meant to be used by the postal service to speed mail sorting and assist mail carriers on their routes.  The fact that the zip code starts with 06 only means one thing: The mail is to be delivered to a specific postal sorting office.

Periodically statistical analyses appear that use ZIP codes instead of FIPS/ISO codes, probably because more people are readily familiar with ZIP, and it leaves me scratching my head every time because ZIP isn't designed for that.

The first two numbers of the zip code came first. Addresses around here used to say Baltimore 21, Maryland.


iPhone

[empirestate]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so...

Zip codes were originally only meant to be used by the postal service to speed mail sorting and assist mail carriers on their routes.  The fact that the zip code starts with 06 only means one thing: The mail is to be delivered to a specific postal sorting office.

Generally, this is how a zip code works, using the format 12345-6789:

123: The Regional Post office where the mail is to be delivered and sorted.
45: The Local Post office where the sorted mail is to be delivered and sorted per carrier
6789: The street, complex, or other information the post office can use to further identify where the mail should go.

The 06 (or any other part of the zip code for that matter) is not supposed to relate whatsoever to a specific state or municipality.  The zip code is often exclusively for a specific town, but not always.

There's been cases where people will look for houses based on a zip code, and wind up being clueless to anything else.  This can happen when people have kids and want a specific school district, believing that everyone is a certain zip code goes to that school.  Those people will find a house that's a bit cheaper than the rest in the zip code, think they found a deal, and buy the house.  When they go to register their kids for school, they are shocked to learn that the house is actually in the next town over, and no matter how much complaining they do, they aren't getting their kids to the school that is in the same zip code as theirs.

It almost seems like you're suggesting that New England-ness cannot cross state lines, whereas ZIP codes can. To me, what you've written actually strengthens my point.

[Pete from Boston]

Well, Fishers Island is inarguably part of New England–even its ZIP code says so...

Zip codes were originally only meant to be used by the postal service to speed mail sorting and assist mail carriers on their routes.  The fact that the zip code starts with 06 only means one thing: The mail is to be delivered to a specific postal sorting office.

Periodically statistical analyses appear that use ZIP codes instead of FIPS/ISO codes, probably because more people are readily familiar with ZIP, and it leaves me scratching my head every time because ZIP isn't designed for that.

The first two numbers of the zip code came first. Addresses around here used to say Baltimore 21, Maryland.


iPhone

Before being rebuilt, the Harvard Square PO façade read "Cambridge 38, Massachusetts."  The zip there is now 02138.

[dgolub]

Before being rebuilt, the Harvard Square PO façade read "Cambridge 38, Massachusetts."  The zip there is now 02138.

I've heard that they used to do the same thing with New York City.  I now live in zip code 10025, so it once would have been New York 25, NY.  Now the number is redundant, so it's just New York, NY.

[agentsteel53]

I wonder if any building still has the old-style address on the facade.  New York has dozens of stores with the old-style phone number (KL5-1234) and I know of a single, solitary one in Los Angeles (it's a pizza place on Figueroa just south of Pasadena, btw). 

[Alps]

I wonder if any building still has the old-style address on the facade.  New York has dozens of stores with the old-style phone number (KL5-1234) and I know of a single, solitary one in Los Angeles (it's a pizza place on Figueroa just south of Pasadena, btw). 

Troy Fence, DEsomething. (Denville) On a fence though, not a facade.

[Roadgeek Adam]

I'm officially in.

Now the only requirement is that I try my road test again (and pass).

[Alps]

I'm officially in.

Now the only requirement is that I try my road test again (and pass).

Bullshit. You could walk to the meet.

[Duke87]

There's an interesting question here: has anyone ever walked to a road meet? From home, not from a hotel or other lodging. I most certainly have not, this meet will be the closest to home distance-wise that I have ever attended (Newark and Kearny in 2011 were closer to where I am now, but I still lived in CT at the time).

[Alps]

There's an interesting question here: has anyone ever walked to a road meet? From home, not from a hotel or other lodging. I most certainly have not, this meet will be the closest to home distance-wise that I have ever attended (Newark and Kearny in 2011 were closer to where I am now, but I still lived in CT at the time).

The Tulsa Road Meet was held at Jeremy's apartment.

[froggie]

There's an interesting question here: has anyone ever walked to a road meet?

Not the same as walking, but I biked to a DC meet once.  And there have been 2 other DC-area meets where some attendees took transit to the meet.

[jpi]

I could have walked to my meet at the end of march since it was accross town from my house but needed the mini van

[SSOWorld]

I could "technically" walk to the day-2 venue, but I don't know what's under the GSP