20 June 2013

Less Powerful Than Sandy, But Hotter Than Liberty

Today I took a ride I've taken many times before:  up to the Bronx, across to Harlem and the George Washington Bridge, then down the Palisades to Jersey City, Bayonne and Staten Island.  

Although high, puffy clouds floated across the sunny sky and breezes lightened the early summer warmth in the air, surprisingly turbulent waves chopped against the Jersey City shoreline:





The water is actually closer than it appears: It lapped up against my tires.  If the Hudson River--really an estuary of the Atlantic at that point--could be so roiled on such a serene day, you can only imagine the storm surge that Sandy brought.   

On the ferry from Staten Island, I got to talking with a young woman and a friend of hers who'd just arrived in New York from California.  So, of course, he wanted to get a look at the Statue of Liberty.  We exchanged e-mail addresses before embarking.  As I crossed Battery Park from the ferry terminal, I chanced upon this:

"My Girl Is Hotter Than The Statue of Liberty"
    

3 comments:

  1. I've been to New York twice: both visits were more than 20 years ago. I was into cycling at the time, but I don't recall seeing any cyclists other than an occasional bike messenger. I never would have dreamed of trying to ride in the city. It just seemed to scary. It's nice to see that cycling is really taking hold and is considered an everyday activity.

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  2. Isn't Liberty a small statue at Alki Point in West Seattle?

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  3. Steve--If you say it is, I'll take your word for it, as you grew up in Seattle and I've never been there.

    MT--You wouldn't recognize the city today, at least in a bicycling sense. Twenty years ago, I was living in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Almost any time I rode up Kent Avenue in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, or Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City or Astoria (near where I now live), I was the only cyclist. The same was true when I rode into upper Manhattan, except on weekends on the streets approaching the George Washington Bridge.

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