At Coney Island, only the slightest breeze is in the air. The flags above the rides are limp, but even the faint easterly wind is enough for Charles Stewart.
The kite expert selects carefully from his quiver. Inside are a giant red octopus, a yellow smiley face and a huge, 11-foot-wide swath of red cloth that skirts the wind like a banshee. For this mission he selects a colorful bumblebee with wings outstretched.
He lets out string, tilts his head up to feel the wind and then instructs this reporter, holding the kite, to let it go. And with the Zen of a master, the kite lifts up and hovers over the beach like a Day-Glo Mothra. He stays in place as it rises, not running like Charlie Brown might have done. Running is exercise, he says, adding, “Kite flying is when the wind does the work.”
Meet New York City’s own kite whisperer.
“Kite flyers are like another breed,” the 74-year-old Flushing native says. “We call kite flying a closet hobby, especially for adults. Everybody who comes around talks to me about flying kites as a kid. They never seem to think of doing it as an adult.”
Stewart has grown increasingly enthusiastic about kites since he picked them up back in 1986; he now owns 200 of his own and has an additional 3,000 he sells.
Like many failed Charlie Browns before him, he tried to fly a kite as a kid in the 1950s, but was quickly discouraged when it never got much height.
But then he learned how to read the wind — and how to listen to the kite, which is always telling you exactly what it wants.
“You just watch and listen to what the kite is saying,” he says. “The kite tells you what the problem is, if you understand what it’s saying.”
Kites need the right balance and the right flight angle. Too flat of an angle, it’ll skate on the wind or turn over and die; if the line is too slack, it’ll spin and take a nose dive. Just throwing it up in the air doesn’t work, but a gradual loosening of the line, with the occasional aggressive tug to increase wind pressure, will have it climbing higher and higher.
The most important part is balance. Hold it upside down by the tow point (the point where the flying line connects to the kite); if it hangs level, the kite is good to fly.
Stewart is a retired technician from Northrop Grumman, where he worked on installations on Navy ships and learned about the same wind and lift that both planes and kites use.
He now lives in Harlem and spends time selling kites wholesale and teaching kids’ workshops on how to make them. Stewart also travels the world to appear at different kite festivals and demonstrations.
One of his favorites is the Isla Blanca Kite Festival, which is held every February in Cancun to help entertain and raise money for kids at a local orphanage.
He’s known in kite circles not only for his deftness with the string but also for his distinctive style: Stewart always wears a fisherman’s hat, a trick he learned from security experts at Northrop that lets him size up new people while they’re distracted by the hat; and his collection of dragon shirts, which goes hand in hand with flying.
“There’s a strength element, a whimsy,” he says of dragons. “Just like kites.”
Stewart’s big kite-gospel selling point is that both making and flying kites is easier than everybody thinks.
“Most people can throw together a diamond-shaped kite with stuff they can find around the house,” he says. “You can make it out of broom straws if it’s going to be small.”
The kite whisperer, who can be fou
nd at letsflykites.com, shares some tips (below) on how you can make a simple kite that will have you surfing the skies all summer.
Top flight spots
The key to a good kite spot is a steady, uninterrupted wind. Many of the buildings in New York City chop up the wind so it’s tricky to find a good location. Here are Charles Stewart’s favorite flying spots in the area:
* Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ: With ample, unobstructed space on the Hudson River waterfront (and easy parking, Stewart points out), this is the best flying spot around.
* Coney Island: Beaches are great for flying because you can get a nice onshore wind that comes in from the water.
* Jones Beach Field 6, Wantagh, LI: The spot is often uncrowded, with plenty of wind to go around.
* Central Park, Great Lawn or Northern Meadow: This is a little hit or miss, but if you can catch a good wind coming off the surrounding buildings, you’ll have a solid day of kite flying.
Make your own!
1. Cut a trash bag or cheap plastic tablecloth into a 20-by-20-inch kite shape; kite guru Charles Stewart uses the familiar, diamond-like shape. You can download dimensions and patterns at kiteplans.org or through the American Kitefliers Association at aka.kite.org.
Cut a small hole about 5 inches down from the top of the kite, for the string to pass through. If you used a white trash bag, grab some markers and decorate it.
2. Lay two 20-inch-long wooden dowels (about 6 millimeters thick), available at a hardware store, on the kite, and make them into a cross so the ends touch each corner of the kite. Fasten them together where they cross, using rubber bands or string.
3. Lay the kite front-side down on a table. Place an address label, adhesive side up, beneath each of the four corners, about halfway under the kite. Make sure the dowels are lined up perfectly to the tips, and then fold over the labels. Press your fingers along the labels so the dowels show through like a spine.
Before you press them into place, tug the kite material a little to eliminate any wrinkles, but not so much that it’s completely taut.
4. To make the tail, measure about 10 feet of flagging tape (also available at the hardware store); fold it at the middle and scrunch that bit up. At the bottom of the kite, attach half of another address label, adhesive side up. Put in the scrunched up part of the tail and fold the rest of the label over it.
5. Take your string and make a loop at the end. Put it through the hole on the front of the kite, wrap it around the center point and pull it back through the loop, but not too tight.
6. Go fly a kite!
tdonnelly2@nypost.com