Inside the Bronx, There’s a Tiny Fishing Village That Most New Yorkers Have Never Visited

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Pull out a map of New York City and find the Bronx. Then look to the east, where the borough meets Long Island Sound. There’s a small island there, connected to the mainland by a single bridge. Most New York guidebooks don’t mention it. Most New Yorkers have never been.

And the people who live there, mostly, prefer it that way.

Where in the World Is City Island?

City Island is a one-and-a-half-mile stretch of land in the northeastern Bronx, jutting into the western end of Long Island Sound. From Times Square, it’s about an hour by subway and bus. From the look of it, it’s roughly 300 miles north.

Weatherboard houses. Fishing boats in the marinas. Clam bars with outdoor seating. A main street — actually called City Island Avenue — lined with seafood restaurants, bait shops, and a general store that looks like it hasn’t changed since 1962.

If you dropped someone here without telling them where they were, they’d guess Cape Cod. Or maybe a small town somewhere in Connecticut. They would not guess the Bronx.

How City Island Became What It Is

City Island was first settled by English colonists in 1685, long before New York City existed as a unified entity. For most of the next two centuries, it survived on oystering, fishing, and boat-building.

The boat-building piece turned out to be significant. Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, City Island became one of the premier yacht-building centers on the East Coast. America’s Cup racers were built here. The island’s boatyards attracted serious craftsmen and serious money — but neither changed the character of the place.

City Island stayed working-class.

The Seafood That Keeps People Coming Back

When the boatyards gradually closed, City Island had a choice: fade away quietly, or reinvent itself as somewhere people wanted to visit. It chose seafood restaurants.

City Island Avenue has been lined with seafood restaurants for decades. The tradition has outlasted every trend in New York dining — farm-to-table, the burger revival, the ramen wave — and the formula has barely changed. Piles of fried clams, steamed lobsters, platters of shrimp, eaten at tables overlooking boats.

Some places have been serving the same menu for over 40 years. Johnny’s Reef Restaurant, at the southern tip of the island, has been a City Island institution for generations. You order at a window. You eat at outdoor tables right on the water. Seagulls patrol the perimeter. On a summer evening, there is genuinely nowhere better.

The prices are New York realistic, not New York astronomical. This is a neighborhood that feeds families, not just expense accounts.

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The People Who Never Left

What makes City Island genuinely unusual isn’t the seafood or the boats. It’s the people.

City Island has a residential population of around 4,500 — roughly the same as it had a century ago. Many families have been here for three or four generations. In a city where displacement is constant and neighborhoods are perpetually in flux, City Island is strikingly stable.

Part of this is practical: access. There’s only one road onto the island — the bridge from Pelham Bay Park — and the BX29 bus provides the only public transit connection. You can’t stumble onto City Island. You have to decide to go there.

That filter keeps out the speculators. It keeps in the families who’ve been here since before anyone was calling the Bronx cool. If you’d like to understand how that Bronx transformation happened, the story of the borough’s comeback is one of the great urban narratives in American history.

The Island That Barely Knows It’s New York City

There’s a saying on City Island: the place is “five miles into the Sound and thirty years back in time.” The people who live there say this with pride, not complaint.

There are no coffee shops with exposed brick and $7 lattes. There are no concept bars or artisanal ice cream parlors. There is a yacht club, a maritime museum the size of a living room, and a couple of bars where fishermen drink after coming in off the water.

The island has a quiet charm for visitors who know what they’re looking for: a leisurely afternoon along the waterfront, lunch at one of the seafood spots, and the strange, disorienting pleasure of standing in New York City and feeling like you’ve escaped it entirely. And just a few miles away on the mainland, Arthur Avenue offers another side of the Bronx that’s just as overlooked and just as worth finding.

Frequently Asked Questions About City Island

How do you get to City Island from Manhattan?

Take the 6 train to Pelham Bay Park — the last stop in the Bronx — then transfer to the BX29 bus, which crosses the bridge directly onto City Island Avenue. The full journey from Midtown takes about an hour. If you’re driving, take the Hutchinson River Parkway or Pelham Parkway.

What is City Island, New York known for?

City Island is best known for its seafood restaurants, its maritime history, and its character. It was historically one of the East Coast’s premier yacht-building centers and remains a working waterfront community today — a place that genuinely feels like a different world inside New York City.

What are the best seafood restaurants on City Island?

Johnny’s Reef Restaurant is a longtime City Island institution, known for its fried seafood and waterfront tables. The Lobster Box and Sammy’s Fish Box are also well-regarded local spots. Most restaurants serve fresh seafood in a casual, no-frills setting that’s been the island’s signature for decades.

When is the best time to visit City Island in New York?

Late spring through early fall — May to October — is ideal, when outdoor seating is in full swing and the waterfront is at its best. Summer weekends are the busiest; a weekday in June or September gives you shorter waits and a more relaxed experience. Winter visits are quiet but surprisingly atmospheric.

City Island isn’t a secret in the dramatic sense. It’s not hidden underground or behind a locked door. It’s just out there, quietly being itself — a mile and a half of waterfront life that New York City grew around without ever quite absorbing.

If you want a day that feels like a small adventure, the bridge across Pelham Bay is shorter than you think.

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Plan Your New York Trip

City Island makes a perfect half-day side trip from anywhere in the city. For a full picture of what to eat and explore across all five boroughs, our New York City food guide covers the best of everything.