Tales from The Social Club: The Social Club Springs Ahead
- Shane Holmes
- Apr 14
- 6 min read
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Meeting Location Start: Outside of the Hole in the Wall Restaurant, 445 E 35th St, New York, NY 10016
Meeting Location End: Brooklyn Bridge Park Next to Jane's Carousel Ride Amusement Park Ride on East River Waterfront, 1 Old, Dock St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
What do springs, water, clocks, and this The Social Club (TSC) outing all have in common? Well that is what you are about to find out.
For this outing, TSC took advantage of a sunny abnormally warm evening to take an East River Commuter Ferry from the East 34th Street Ferry Terminal to the DUMBO/Fulton Ferry stop, where DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass in Brooklyn.
Just getting to the meeting's start location was a personal victory for me as I was struggling with hyperacusis, which is a syndrome that describes hypersensitivity to sound. Far from feeling my best, just to get through the adventure I relied on medication to manage it.
The adventure begins in of all places outside of a restaurant called Hole in the Wall across the street from a Ferry Terminal on the East River.
Why is the restaurant called Hole in the Wall? Well, it turns out that according to the following Yahoo article, it's due to this restaurant's "not-so-central location." Sure enough it is tucked away adjacent to the elevated FDR Drive but only visible at ground level. The sign for the restaurant does not even label it as a restaurant as shown below.
From the Hole in the Wall Restaurant, we had a great view of the Empire State Building.
At the Hole in the Wall, I met with Juliette, our group leader, and five other TSC members including one new member.
From there, we crossed FDR Service Road (the name of the street under an elevated portion of the FDR Drive highway) to get to the East 34th Street Ferry Terminal on the East River Waterfront. The ferry had two decks, an upper deck which was outside and louder, and the lower deck which was inside and quieter.
We then waited on a long line, although the line moved relatively quickly, to board the East River route of the NYC Ferry. The fare is $4.50. Below is a view off the rear of the boat.
The Ferry Ride to DUMBO itself was only 20 minutes with a few stops in between. The views were so beautiful that it felt magical. The weather was unusually warm with a high of 79 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Central Park. It felt more like summer than spring so much so that the Metro North train I took into Manhattan was air conditioned. It was noticeably cooler on the boat because of the breeze and the cold water temperatures of the East River. The coolness was refreshing. This weather followed the snowiest winter NYC had in five years and the coldest winter NYC had in about a decade.
From the ferry we had a brand new brand new perspective of the NYC Skyline and East River.
As we continued moving on the East River, we got views of the Domino Sugar Refinery and the Williamsburg Bridge.
Domino Sugar Factory Williamsburg Bridge
Below is a picture of some of us.
I had some good conversations with some of the group members. I found out one member had a passion for water an interest I also share. I also shared with one member that there are 3 springs: The Astronomical Spring (the one most people are familiar with from about March 20 to June 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, but the other springs are the solar spring (February, March, April) which has to do with the increasing length of the day hence solar, and the meteorological spring in NYC (March, April, May). The meteorological summer is the 3 hottest months of the year in NYC (June, July, August). The solar summer is the months with the most daylight (May, June, July). The astronomical summer is from about June 20 to September 20. One member shared with me they went Adelphi University while I shared I went to Manhattan University.
We arrived at the DUMBO stop where we had views of One World Trade Center, the Manhattan Skyline, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
We then got some ice cream at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream at 1 Water St. in Brooklyn. I ordered a small cup of vanilla. Due to loud music playing inside the venue and my sensitive hearing, I stayed outside while Juliette and the rest of the group ordered their ice cream.
In Brooklyn Bridge Park, we had a new group member so everyone went through detailed introductions. We discussed our names, pronouns, and astrological signs. Our newest member has a passion for astrology and astronomy. I have nothing particularly against astrology but do not I believe the stars impact our lives the way astrologers do. I do think it is something people can do for fun. On the other hand, astronomy is a strong passion of mine. I remember our newest member asking me to give her a fact about astronomy she did not know. I shared with her that before the New Horizons Spacecraft reached, but did not land, on Pluto in 2015, scientists did not know what its surface was really like. To illustrate this point, the best images of Pluto we had before this flyby were from the Hubble Space Telescope. Trying to analyze images from the Hubble Space Telescope of Pluto was the equivalent of trying to analyze a golf ball located 30 miles away from you, information I learned from watching a DVD called Stargaze - Hubble's View Of The Universe which was produced and released in the year 2000. Below are the first pictures of Pluto taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope on March 7, 1996.
I shared that the Pluto flyby felt like my parents generation watching the first man step on the Moon. Below is a picture of Pluto from the New Horizons Spacecraft taken 280,000 miles away. The spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 at 7,750 miles above the surface. My memory of this is vivid because I saw the first images one day later in a USA Today article at a hotel in Ohio on a business trip.
I remember also discussing on the way home how, back went I went backpacking in Colorado, those were the darkest skies I had ever seen (no light pollution). I also remember when I got home from the TSC Meeting looking up at clear skies and being captivated by the beautiful and spectacular stars.
So as a final note, TSC literally sprung ahead (a reference to the title of this blog entry) because 2 days prior clocks were moved ahead one hour for Daylight Saving Time. We did not discuss this topic that much during this outing but nonetheless.
Were you able to solve the riddle at the beginning of the blog "what do springs, water, clocks, and this The Social Club (TSC) outing all have in common?" The answer is springs and water are a reference to two conversations I had with TSC members, and clocks are a reference to Daylight Saving Time.
Tip: I wanted to share with you a way to make the Daylight Saving Time transition easier (which is surprisingly absent from all of the tips I have read on the internet over the years). Set the clocks back the Saturday before bedtime (the early the better) but before bedtime at the latest. Why does it work for me and hopefully for you? For a couple reasons, 1. it gives your body an extra day to adapt to feeling like waking up at an earlier time. 2. for manual clocks, it is one less thing to do on Sunday.
