When A Local Ride Turns Into A Journey

The other day, before I wrote my 9/11 commemorative piece, I took a ride:  a ramble through Queens and Brooklyn on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear.

My ride included some familiar streets and sights.  But I also took in some streets--or, more precisely, segments of them--I hadn't ridden before.

One of those thoroughfares, Carroll Street, spans the breadth of Brooklyn in two sections.  The first begins at Hoyt Street, near the borough's downtown hub and cuts through the brownstone neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Park Slope on its way to Prospect Park.  On the other side of the Park, Carroll continues along through neighborhoods less known to tourists:  Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights and Ocean Hill-Brownsville.  It was along that second section, in Crown Heights, that I chanced upon these houses: 

They combine the brownstone facades one sees on the other side of the park with Victorian-style cornices--and rounded, almost turret-like fronts I've seen only in Ridgewood and a couple of other Queens neighborhoods.  That block of Carroll--between Kingston and Albany Avenues--lies in the heart of the Hasidic neighborhood of the Heights.

After I took the photos, I walked Tosca (Carroll is a one-way street) to check out a store where I didn't think I'd buy anything but I wanted to see because it's unlike any in my neighborhood of Astoria, or in most other places.

Turns out, the place moved around the corner, to Kingston Avenue.  I peeked in; the young man working in it knew full well that I wasn't from the community and therefore wouldn't buy the mezuzahs (Star of David medallions found on the doorways of homes), prayer shawls or other items ultra-Orthodox Jews use in their daily lives and worship.  But he didn't seem to mind my being there and we exchanged greetings of "shalom" on my way in and out.

As I turned to my left, I noticed an alleyway in the middle of the block.  

The first painting, closest to the street, seems like a conventional representation of a Torah lesson--until you look closely.  But the sky-blue background gives the scene an almost ethereal feel and the rabbi's expression makes him seem, simultaneously, like a relative and an ancestor, as if the kids might be in a room with him or that he might have come to them in a dream or vision.

To their left were two other murals.  Is the girl--woman?--in awe or fear?  I couldn't help but to think about Edvard Munch's "The Scream"--which, I'm sure, the artist intended.  But is it a scream of ecstasy or terror, or something else?  I might've asked the same questions about the man in the other mural which, of course, evokes Van Gogh's "Starry Night."

Even though the compositions echo (pun intended) Munch and Van Gogh, I felt that the artist's real inspiration may have been one of the greatest Jewish modern artists:  Marc Chagall.  At least, the colors--themselves and the way they play off, with and against each other--reminded me of his paintings and the stained-glass windows he created for the cathedral of Reims, France, to replace the ones blown out during World War II.  In fact, in walking past the murals with Tosca, I felt as if I were in an open-air temple or synagogue.

On the other side of Kingston is another alley, with this portrait by the same artist:

I thought it was interesting how that artist used blue differently from the way it's used in the painting of the Torah lesson.  Here, it makes the man--whom I assume to be, if not a rabbi, then at least some sort of elder in the community.  

It never ceases to amaze me how taking a random turn during a ride in my city can take me on a journey!

Change And Reconnection

Early yesterday morning I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along the waterfronts of Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.  Another heat wave, like the one we had last week, was on its way.  But that was just one reason why I took an early ride.

After showering and a cup of coffee, I pedaled my "beater" to Court Square, near the much-missed (by me, anyway) Five Pointz building.  Riding there allowed me to take a more direct subway ride to Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn.

There, I met two old (OK, longtime) friends:

On previous trips to France, I've spent time with Jay and Isabelle who, I now realize, are my longest-standing friends. They came to town because their son has just begun to live and work in New Jersey, for an American branch of a company for whom he'd been working in France.

 

Meeting in Bushwick was Jay's idea.  This wasn't his or Isabelle's first time in New York--Jay actually lived here for a time--but he was looking through the Guide Routard (a sort of French counterpart of the Lonely Planet guide) for something "different."  So, as per the guide's suggestion, we started at the Montrose Street subway station, crossed Bushwick Avenue (the bane of Brooklyn cyclists) and wended our way through the back streets of a Bushwick industrial zone.

I have cycled through those streets, sometimes as a destination, other times en route to or from other places.  While I've seen buildings torn down and built up, spaces opened and closed, people and organizations coming and going, I don't think there's any neighborhood or district that shows me how much this city changes over time.  For one thing, some of the murals themselves change.  Also, I remember when the graffiti on the buildings wasn't of the kind that people like Jay and Isabelle would take a subway ride, or people like me would take a bike ride, to see. About twenty years ago, people--mostly men--worked in the warehouses and workshops during the day.  Anyone who stayed after business hours was too poor to live anyplace else.  Young people didn't move to the neighborhood; they looked for ways out of it.  And whenever I rode through it, I was the only adult cyclist for blocks, or even miles, around.

Of course, people change, too.  After a morning of wandering through one of the most expansive displays of truly public art in this city, we went to Christina's (Was our choice influenced by the mural? ;-)) in Greenpoint. It's a sort of cross between a New York/New Jersey diner--complete with Frank Sinatra and '70's pop tunes playing in the background--and a working-class eatery one might find in Cracow. I think we were the only non-Polish people in the place. Over pierogis and blintzes, we talked about their son, Jules, and how he wants to "voyager a travers  le monde"--see the world--just as we did when we were young. Actually, there are still places I want to see, and to re-visit.  But the pandemic has postponed travel plans for the past two years.  And, although I am fully vaccinated and take precautions, Jay reminded me of why I want to wait.  He and Isabelle didn't plan on coming here until a week or so before they arrived, which meant that their flights were expensive.  But, more to the point, he said that if, by some chance, he or Isabelle were to test positive and had to quarantine, or new restrictions were imposed--or a flight were abruptly cancelled--it could cost thousands of euros or dollars.

I told them that, if everything works out, I hope to return to France in January.  Seeing them gave me hope for that.  If nothing else, I felt as if I'd reconnected with what and whom I have known and loved, in all of changes and the ways they haven't changed.  

After I send this post, I will take another early ride and get home in time for brunch.

Images And Icons

 Yesterday afternoon I meandered through back streets of central Brooklyn and Queens.  It still amazes me that even after riding those byways so many times over so many years, I still find things I hadn't noticed before.

In a still-ungentrified part of Bedford-Stuyvesant, when I chanced upon one of the best names for a house of worship.

I can't help but to wonder what services--and the music-- are like in a place called "Rugged Cross."  I also wonder who came up with that name.  Could that person have been thinking about the kinds of lives so many people in the neighborhood have lived, and still live?

Or could that person have anticipated what someone would paint directly across the street from it?

You can't paint something like that if you've grown up on Park Avenue and 72nd Street or Fisher Island--even if you watched every single Pink Panther cartoon!

A couple of miles away, in Bushwick, I had to search for the name of this church.

Even if I hadn't found it--Saint Barbara, by the way--I would've remembered the wonderful carvings and towers on it.  

The building next to it seems to have been a rectory or convent, or to have served some other church-related purpose.  Now it's the Bushwick center for El Puente, an organization that, for nearly four decades, has worked to keep young people from becoming tragic statistics.  Its founder, Luis Garden Acosta, understood something that, I believe, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were coming to understand just before they were assassinated:  Social justice comes with educational and economic equity.  

I am not religious, but I understand that for many people who live in neighborhoods like the ones surrounding Rugged Cross and Saint Barbara, their churches were places where they could find refuge from the hardships they faced.  Knowing that, it's not so surprising to find a very urban murals across the street from one church, and next to another, in the heart of Brooklyn--and to have the privilege of seeing them on an afternoon bike ride.

Bikes And Murals For The Community

Although murals have painted for about 30,000 years (if you count such works as the Lascaux cave paintings), they really weren't a major art form in the United States until the early 20th Century, when the Progressive Era engendered protest against big business and imperialist wars.  They really became a part of American life during the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of his New Deal,  commissioned artists including Diego Rivera who, along with some fellow Mexicans, were sponsored by their president, Albero Obergon as part of a nationalist cultural program during the previous decade.  

It was as if Depression-era America and murals found each other:  the medium was ideal for expressing the hardships of the time as well as elevating workers and other everday people.  (How hard do I work if I'm writing sentences like that?)  In other words, murals are a "people's" art form, which is exactly what the nation and society needed as it was confronting the failures of an economy and culture in which a focus on individualism had run riot.

I admit that I am not an art historian, so what I've presented is a comic-book version, at best, of the history and importance of murals.  But I think it will help to make sense of what I'm about to say next:  Bicycle Recycleries and murals go together like, well, cycling and people.

If murals are the most democratic visual art form, then bicycle recycleries (like my local Recycle-a-Bicycle) are the people's bike spaces.  Not only is it possible to find reasonably-priced reconditioned and rebuilt bikes in them, but most offer bike repair classes and volunteer programs.  Some also offer internships as well as other community services and programs.

For years, Recycle Bicycle operated out of a warehouse on Atlas Street in Harrisburg which, in spite of being Pennsylvania's capital, is one of the state's poorest communities. (It tried to declare bankruptcy ten years ago but a judge blocked it from doing so.)  Its people suffer from the same lack of opportunities and health problems that afflict people in other poverty-stricken areas.  So the need for affordable transportation and recreation is as great as it is in other impoverished urban enclaves.

The mural on that building became part of the organization's identity. So, when the building was sold and Recycle Bicycle was forced to move two years ago, some feared the work of public art would be gone forever.

That is, until longtime volunteer and board member Jennifer Donnelly climbed a ladder into the loft of the warehouse.  There, among tools, she found something familiar:  the stencils used to create a whimsical scene of children and swirling purples and blues.  

Other volunteers pulled panels from the mural and Ralphie Seguinot, the self-taught artist who painted it, recreated it, with some modifications, on the new location.

From The Burg

Donnelly explained that Recycle Bicycle raised half of the funds for the project from community donations.  That is fitting because, she says, having the mural--which became closely identified with Recycle Bicycle--on the new building is important to the organization and its mission of creating a community space.  

That's what bicycle recycleries are, and what murals help to define:  community space.

An Epic And CNN

One of the great things about cycling is that you can get from place to place faster than you can walk, at eye level. And you can stop without having to alert a bus driver so you can hop off.  An example is a ride I took yesterday afternoon. I zigzagged through industrial areas along the Broooklyn-Queens border.  Some of the old factories and warehouses have become studios and shops but, thankfully, there's still a lot to see from the street.

You can even witness an epic battle that doesn't involve gangs.

One piece I saw in Bushwick, however, reminded me of old-school hip hop, when it wasvcalled "the CNN of the ghetto.

Is he warning the neighborhood about something?

The world moves on.  Things change--including ourselves and, in some cases, our bikes.  I just hope that we don't lose the spirit of those graffiti murals--and that I can see them simply by taking an afternoon bike ride!

Change of Scenery

When I cycle to work, I follow the same basic route on most days.  Sometimes I'm detoured.  For example, about three years ago, the RFK Memorial Bridge was closed, so I had to go through the East Side of Manhattan rather than Randall's Island.  At other times, however, I take short side-trips that more or less parallel my normal commute.

This morning was one of those times.  For some reason, when I got to the Bronx side of the Randall's Island Connector, I decided to turn right rather than left on 133rd Street.  Then I took a left onto Walnut Avenue, which cuts through the industrial heart of Port Morris and ends at 141st Street.  Normally, I would take Willow Avenue, which parallels Walnut but ends at 138th Street.  

Along Willow Avenue, I pass a great piece of street art.  But on 141st, where I rode this morning, I encountered an even grander (OK, the artists themselves probably wouldn't use such a term!) urban artscape:

Tats Cru is a group of graffiti artists who have become muralists.  Depending on who you ask, they "evolved", "went mainstream" or "sold out".  I suspect that when they reached an age at which they had to support themselves, and possibly others, they took whatever someone was willing to pay for their work.  I can't say I blame them.

What it means is that some of their work, at least, will survive.  And so will they.  I am happy for that.  So many people and things haven't--except in the memories of people who've lived, and cycled, in this city.

Riding Every Linear Mile

One of the great things about cycling in my hometown of New York is that it allows me to see a lot of street art close-up.  My commute to work takes me through an industrial area of the Bronx where murals of one kind and another cover the walls of industrial buildings.  It's become such a part of the landscape that nobody, it seems, refers to it as "graffiti", a term that implies impermanence and echoes disdain.

I have also seen street art, or the art of industrial spaces, while pedaling through streets and along canals and railways (some disused) in other cities on both sides of the Atlantic.  I'm sure other cyclists have had their minds and senses similarly enriched in cities I have yet to visit.

Detroit is one of those places and Thomas Leeper is one of those cyclists.  Except that he claims he's "not really a bicyclist."  Whatever he chooses to call himself, he's ridden 2200 miles of The Motor City's streets during the past sixteen months for his passion project, Every Linear Mile.  

He's been photographing graffiti, murals and other kinds of art, including found-object-art, he's seen along the way.  His goal, he says, is to "give kudos" to folks who are "helping to beautify the city" with their work.  "Ninety-nine percent of it was created with no financial incentive in mind," he explains, so their efforts don't cost anything to the financially-strapped city.

Since he began the project, he's had 11 flat tires, stepped on seven nails, has had nine verbal offers of drugs and been chased by eight dogs.  "I've learned how to ride fast when I need to," he says, and keeps pepper spray on him, but "has never really felt unsafe."  

Welcome To Port Morris

When you enter a neighborhood, town, city, state or nation, you might see a sign that says "Welcome To..." or "Entering..."  Or the sign might consist only of the name of the place.  

Most people don't realize that there isn't a neighborhood called "South Bronx."  Rather, it's a section of the borough that consists of a number of different neighborhoods.  Depending on whose definition you believe, they all lie south of the Cross Bronx Expressway, Tremont Avenue or Fordham Road.

By any definition, I work in what's now being called "SoBro".  (Uh-oh.  There goes the neighborhood!)  I also enter it--and, specifically one of its neighborhoods--when I ride off the Randalls Island Connector:

They really let you know where you are, don't they?  To be specific, that mural graces Willow Avenue between 134th and 135th Streets in the heart of Port Morris, a mostly industrial area at the very southern tip of the Bronx.

But that's only half of the mural.  Here's the right-hand side of it, with a detail:

I first saw this mural a couple of weeks ago, when I decided to vary my commuting route a bit.  Actually, I decided to take Willow Avenue when I saw a sign for a bike lane that recently opened along its side.

I know I've been critical of bike lanes.  The one on Willow Avenue is, like others in the city, separated from the street by a couple of lines of paint and a few poles.  But there actually isn't much traffic on Willow:  Most of the motorized vehicles are on the nearby Bruckner Expressway.  But you do have to watch for trucks pulling in and out of the driveways that cross the lane into factories and lofts.  I must say, though, that truck drivers are generally (at least in my experience) more careful and courteous than others.  They often honk and wave to me!

And I get to see some street art.  Those, I think, are good reasons to change up my commuting route.  At least I know exactly where I am!