By Everett Potter

When my wife and I were looking for a getaway from New York last summer, we had only a couple of days to play with and a real need to get close to the water. We found our getaway on Block Island, 13 miles off the Rhode Island coast, one of those islands that gets overlooked in the mad rush to visit trendy Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket off the coast of nearby Massachusetts.

I had not been out to Block Island since 1981, when it was carefree and cheap, a place that could accommodate day trippers from the Rhode Island mainland and groups of young urbanites who wanted to rent a funky old barn, sip a beer, catch bluefish and stripers and watch the sun set over the water. Thanks to fields and old stone walls and shingle-style houses — with a town that was a bit timeworn, filled with a ramshackle collection of old New England hotels and a handful of bed and breakfasts and seafood joints — it was a dream of an escape from steamy Manhattan … continue reading