The World Cup football tournament starts in a couple of weeks.
Perhaps even the US, which didn't qualify, is getting ready:
Will the "ball" go through the" posts"? If it does, and Andres Cantor isn't there to announce it, does it count as a goal?
Interesting, what you can see on a bike ride in the Bronx!
OK, boys and girls, I'm going to give you one more kind-of-sad (or, at least, melancholy) posting. Then I'll try to stick to happy topics, as this is the holiday season.
Anyway, six weeks after Hurricane Sandy, it seems that I see more and more of its aftermath everywhere I turn--especially when I get on a bike. Here is what used to be nicknamed "Barretto Beach":
This postage stamp-sized piece of Barretto Point Park has sunbathers and picknickers on it when the weather is warm, and people fishing from it at other times. It's usually full of sand and is clear of rocks and other debris, if not litter. And, before the storm, this plot was about twice the size it is now.
It is closed off. So is the pier at the other end of the park, and the barge that houses a swimming pool. As much devastation as I saw, I was surprised, frankly, not to see more.
Here is another part of the park that was eroded:
I guess the '60's Schwinn Collegiate didn't want me to look at it for too long. You never know what kind of effect such things can have on a young sensibility like mine, you know.
At least Randall's Island, through which I ride to get to Barretto, didn't seem quite as badly damaged--or, at least, more of it has been fixed up. Here is a shot of one of the island's native plant gardens:
I found the color change on this tree particularly interesting:
Usually, I assume that trees with needles rather than leaves are evergreens. Apparently, this is some sort of deciduous tree with needles. Whatever it is, I love the effect of its color change.
Well...I guess this wasn't such a depressing post after all!
It seems--at least in this part of the world--that the colors of October are celebrated more than those of any other month.
Reverence for the hues of that month are certainly just. However, some of what I saw on today's ride left me absolutely stunned.
I saw this on the wooden bridge in the Randall's Island nature preserve:
Oh, but the visual feast didn't end there. Barretto Point Park was closed, probably because of flood damage and weakened trees that might fall at any given moment. However,through the fence, I saw this:
and this:
I know that the hues of autumn sunsets are particularly rich. But lately it seems the skies are outdoing themselves. I wonder whether it has anything to do with the recent storms.
My ride today was short. But the name of this park, about three miles from my place, says it all:
This piece of real estate is in Rego Park, a Queens neighborhood that is currently home to thousands of emigres--many of whom are Jewish-- from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia. It gets its name from the Real Good Construction company, which developed most of the neighborhood in the early 20th Century.
If you are visiting the neighborhood for the first time and it seems familiar, you've probably read Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus. The scenes with his aged Polish Jewish father are all set in the neighborhood, where Spiegelman grew up.
Anyway, as you can probably tell, today's ride was short but Real Good.
I got up late today and had to run a couple of errands--including a trip to the farmer's market on Roosevelt Island. As the day was a hot and humid day, I waited until it was almost over to go for a ride.
So I let Tosca take me wherever she wanted. Being a fixed-gear bike, she tends to favor flat areas. As I am still not in my best shape, I am happy to go along with her.
Among other places, we went to this:
And this:
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In Newark, there's a section of the city called "The Ironbound" because railroad tracks form its borders. That's not where I rode today. But the part of the Bronx shown in the photos could just as easily have been so named. It's ringed, bound and criss-crossed by elevated highways and railroad tracks, all in steel of one kind or another.
I don't spend enough time in the neighborhood on weekdays to know whether or not the tracks shown in the photos see very many trains. I know that the neighborhood is still an active industrial area: the fleets of trucks and vans parked in lots and on streets are testimony to that. But on the weekends, it could just as well be one of those ancient Greek and Roman ghost towns I've seen along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. The people are gone, but the looming monoliths stand, and probably will stand for some time to come.
As you might expect, on the other side of the tracks and highways are low-income neighborhoods populated almost entirely by people of color. Hip hop music was born on those streets. Someone, I forget who, referred to the Bronx as the "Atlantis of Hip-Hop."
Sometimes I feel as if I am cycling in Atlantis, or among shipwrecks. However, the viaducts and buildings, while gritty, are hardly ruins: They're intact, and on Monday they will be full of people and vehicles. But, for now, they're empty.
All of the neighborhood is near water--specifically, the East River, which is really an inlet of the ocean. However, you wouldn't want to swim in it, even if these guys do it:
Actually, they're in the Bronx Kill, which is a branch of the East River. It separates the Bronx from Randall's Island and may be the most polluted waterway in the United States. I took the photo from a spur of the RFK/Triborough Bridge.
If you're in the neighborhood and want to swim, this is where you go:
It's a floating pool in Barretto Park. I always thought the idea of swimming in one body of water that floats on top of another was rather surreal, though, in practice, it's not much different from swimming in any other kind of pool. Well, I don't know whether I can generalize. I've swum in only one floating pool: the old Piscine Deligny. Going there was more like going on a cruise than it was like going to any other pool I've ever seen.
I understand that a new Piscine Deligny is being constructed to replace the one in which I swam. But that's not the reason why it's being replaced: The old pool sank in 1993. (I had absolutely nothing to do with that!)
And so people will continue to swim in one body of water that floats on another. Then again, any journey-any bike ride-- we take is a bit like surfing the march of time.
