It became our place to get away from Brooklyn on summer Sundays and the occasional weeknight

Illustration: Dov-Ber Cohen

We first discovered the park at Breezy Point/Fort Tilden when our oldest was a baby; I don’t remember how. Maybe it happened on one of the drives we sometimes took to the well-groomed streets of Belle Harbor, sentimental journeys with the extra perk of ocean views (we were married in the shul there). Maybe once we took a wrong turn and noticed the picnic tables under roofs and a grassy area.

No one else seemed to know about the area; it was typically deserted. I remember our first picnic there, our oldest in an infant seat perched on the stone table, the breeze whipping at her hat and blanket. The park was just a short drive over the Marine Parkway Bridge, and it became our place to get away from Brooklyn on summer Sundays and the occasional weeknight, an escape from the sweltering, humid air and fetid smells of garbage cans pulled out to the curb.

Breezy Point wasn’t exactly high-end entertainment, but our kids were young and still content with simple pleasures. There were only the two picnic tables, a couple of steel structures for kids to climb on (one was in the shape of a horse, I recall), and an old, painted missile lying on the grass. The entire lawn was smaller than a football field. There was a corral at the other end, so sometimes the kids saw horses. One evening, the park staff set up a band shell and hosted a little concert, a band playing American classics to a small audience of locals on folding chairs.