Need a great read for your tween? Search no more. Veera to the rescue! I’m lucky to have met Veera through the very creative Westchester community where we live. She’s a super talented, award-winning children’s book author. Her latest “The Night Diary,” tells the story of 12 year old Nisha and her family’s difficult and often heartbreaking journey through letters written to her deceased mother during the time India became a divided country. It’s a recent Newbery Honor winner and has been lauded by NPR, The New York Times and every Best Children’s Books list around. I LOVED it. My daughters were fans of her novel “The Whole Story of Half a Girl” and the fun Phoebe G. Green series. Growing up with a Jewish-American mom and Indian dad has helped to inform Veera’s writing, but then again, so has being a mom to 2 kids of her own. Here’s how she extols about her favorite place in the Riverdale hood of the Bronx.
Some couples have a special song or a special restaurant. My husband and I have Wave Hill, not a song or a restaurant, but a park.
In 1996, right after I graduated college, my then boyfriend, now husband, and I rented a one-bedroom apartment on Palisade Ave, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. We lived there for two years. It was close to the city, where I worked, and New Jersey, where he worked. Back then, we could get an apartment with a Hudson River view for half the rent of anything in Manhattan.
At first we were thrilled with Riverdale, the greenery, the old-school feel, our airy apartment. We secretly laughed at our friends paying too much for their shoeboxes in the “city.” After a year, the joke was on us. We started to long for the action and glamour that we imagined lay on the other side of the Henry Hudson Bridge, even if it meant an overpriced shoebox.
Often, though, on the weekends during those two years, we’d walk a mile down the road and spend the afternoon at Wave Hill. The incredible view of the Hudson, the gravel paths, the numerous gardens, the stone walls, drinking tea in the café, the mansions, and even the gift shop made us feel like we had been transported into a Jane Austen novel. It was our oasis.
We eventually moved to Manhattan, then down to Brooklyn, then finally after two kids, up to Westchester, but still visit Wave Hill. We wanted to have our wedding there, but our guest list was a little too big and the price was a little too high. After we were married and had kids, we took our babies there, strolling them around the paths while the leaves turned in the fall, or when the flowers of the many gardens exploded in the spring. We would sit in the special green-gray Wave Hill Adirondack chairs, pause our lives for a bit, and look out at the river. We have teenagers now. And it’s been a few years since we’ve sat in those chairs. We’re due. I think we’ll stop by this weekend.
Wave Hill, 4900 Independence Ave & W 249th Street, Bronx. Mass Transit: Metro North Hudson Line-Riverdale stop or Subway-#1 line to 242nd St stop.