Astoria: the moving image and the great pool
Greek bakeries, the film museum, and the WPA pool with the Hell Gate Bridge arching over it. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. 30th Avenue
Start on the avenue under the elevated tracks, the spine of Greek Astoria. Bakeries, fishmongers, coffee places where the order is a frappé. The Egyptian and Balkan blocks fold in a few streets over; this stretch wears its neighbourhood plainly.

2. Museum of the Moving Image
Built into the old Astoria Studios, where the Marx Brothers and early Paramount once filmed. Inside is the history of how the image moves — cameras, costumes, a whole gallery of arcade games you can play. Worth the detour east before you head for the park.

3. The Astoria beer gardens
Bohemian Hall, on 24th Avenue, has poured beer in its garden since 1910 — the last of the old Czech-and-Slovak halls still working. Stop for one in the afternoon shade; you've a park ahead of you.

4. Astoria Park pool
The great WPA pool from 1936, vast enough to have held Olympic trials, with the Hell Gate Bridge arching straight over the deep end. You don't have to swim. The view of the pool, the arch and the river together is the reason to come.

5. Hell Gate Bridge & the river walk
Follow the path under the great steel arch to the East River edge. The Manhattan skyline sits downstream; the water here is the churning tidal strait that gave the bridge its name. Quietest at the northern end of the park.

6. Astoria–Ditmars Blvd
The end of the N/W line, a short walk up from the park through the Ditmars blocks — more tavernas, more bakeries if you've room. The train runs elevated all the way back into Manhattan.

Astoria: the moving image and the great pool