For The Skyway, Higher Goals Than For The High Line, I Hope

There are many definitions of a "true New Yorker."

Here's one:  We don't go to the Statue of Liberty, and we wouldn't be caught dead in Times Square (at least in its current iteration)--or on the High Line.

I took a walk up on the High Line once, shortly after it opened.  At the time, I was recovering from my surgery and couldn't ride my bicycle.  I liked the idea of taking an old industrial railroad viaduct and turning it into a venue lined with art, plants and unusual buildings, from which one could take in some stunning views of the skyline and even the sky itself.

The next time I went, a few months later, I was on my bicycle.  I knew riding wasn't allowed, but I discovered that you couldn't even bring your bike onto the High Line.  And I wasn't about to lock it up on the street.

So I returned another day, sans bike.  I found myself hating the place, but not only because I couldn't ride my bike.  What I realized is that the High Line is just another tourist trap offering a sanitized view of the city--except, of course, for the part where you get to see inside the apartments that line part of the High Line.  I'm long past being titillated by what people do in their own rooms, on their own time!

Anyway, other cities are starting to think about ways they could use abandoned or disused railroad trestles, elevated highways and other kinds of viaducts.  One of those cities is at the other end of New York State: Buffalo.

Like other industrial towns in the "Rust Belt", the Nickel City has gone through some very hard times.  That has left abandoned and seemingly-obsolete structures.  They won't lure young people with education or money back into town unless they're used in appealing ways.

 

One such structure is the city's Skyway.  Slated for demolition, it's now the subject of a $100,000 contest for alternative ideas.  One such idea is to turn the old highway into an urban linear park for "use by bicycles and pedestrians, like the High Line."

The local news media report, of course, has misconceptions about the High Line.  Now, if they actually allow bicyclists on the Skyway and make it truly pedestrian-friendly--unlike the High Line, which is clogged with herds of tourists that move at an amoebic pace and stop for sunbathing and "selfies"--they might have something that could help turn Buffalo into a livable, sustainable city.

The Promenades

Here's what I had for breakfast today:

Now, you might have a difficult time finding this product in your local store.  However, it might be worth finding, as it promises really good things:

The nutritional value goes like this:  Joie de vivre, 19 9 grams  Soleil (sunshine), 33 grams.  Synergie, 12 grams.  Energy, 13 grams.  Poesie (poetry), 21 grams. Addictif, 2 grams.  The "sacoche de banane" is what the French call a "fanny pack", "waist bag" or "bum bag."  Sometimes they're simply called "banane".

"Menil Monkey" is the name of a collaboration between the office of the 20th Arrondissement--which includes the neighborhood of Menilmontant, or "Menil" for short--and DJ Joachim Touitou, or Joachim.T.

Menilmontant is a neighbor of Belleville, the neighborhood that gave the world none other than Edith Piaf.  Both neighborhoods are in the hilly northernmost area of Paris that includes Montmartre and the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, where none other than Chopin, Oscar Wilde and, yes, Jim Morrison are buried.

On Menil Monkey's "cereal box", there's a warning that consumption of the contents can cause addiction to the 20th Arrondissement, among other things.

Well, I was there the other day...and the last time I was in Paris...and the one before that.  The 20th is indeed interesting because it's Parisian and cosmopolitan at the same time.  It's an area where you can eat and drink at old-school Parisian cafes or in West African, Middle Eastern, Asian or  Kosher (mainly Sephardic Jewish) establishments.

And I saw a lot of bike riders--of all kinds.  Some were on Velib (the Paris bike share program) machines; others rode bikes older than themselves; still others pedaled classic touring and racing bikes.  It was, in short, an interesting procession of un-self-conscious utility cyclists, cognoscenti  and folks on trendy bikes.

That procession seemed to spill down the Avenue de la Republique toward the bike lanes of the Canal St. Martin. There were some hipsters and wannabes on fixed-gear bikes.  (These days, most fixed-gear bikes in New York are being ridden with single-speed freewheels.) And there were a few riders on the kinds of bikes that seem to be sold, under different labels, but with the same cartoonish graphics, everywhere in the world.  But I got a kick out of seeing young people on bikes that would be considered "vintage" but to their riders are simply bikes that are getting them from wherever to wherever--and, possibly, did the same for an older sibling, parent, aunt, uncle or someone else before them.

The canal, like most others that are no longer used for shipping, offers a calming time for those who ride along its paths or sit on its banks.  I've been told that some of those romantic or painterly photos that look like they were shot on the Seine were actually taken along the canal.

Its calm surface, though, belies a tragedy that took place just steps away last November:

The Bataclan bar and concert hall, a site of the November 2015 terrorist attacks

But that didn't stop people from enjoying their afternoon there, whether they were dangling their feet into the water or spinning pedals.  

One equally-pleasant place where you're not allowed to ride, though, is the Promenade des Plantes.  You can bring your bike up there, but you're not allowed to ride it.  Still, it's worth climbing the stairs from the Avenue Daumesnil, near the Bastille and the Gare de Lyon  (where the Orient Express originated), to see what became of a former railway.

At the Grand Train exhibit I saw the other day, sections of old railroad tracks in a disused rail yard were turned into patches.  The Viaduc des Arts is, in contrast, a botanical garden about two kilometers long in the former track beds.  At street level, cafes, restaurants, shops and art galleries are in the vaults that hold up the railroad by way.  

This project is said to be the inspiration for New York's High Line, which was also a disused railway.  The difference, though, is that while the High Line does indeed have gardens, it's lined with all of the kinds of touristy shops and restaurants you can find at the South Street Seaport.  With the Viaduc des Arts, you can choose to go to the galleries and shops on the street level, or go up to the Promenade des Plantes for the flora and fauna--which, interestingly, do more than anything on the High Line to evoke (at least in my imagination) the tracks that once lined, and the trains that ran along, them.

After descending from the Promenade des Plantes, I rode by the Gare de Lyon--faster than any of the trains ;-)--to the Seine and the bridge back to my hotel.

Ah, yes, another fine day!

Scapes and Escapes

Today's ride was pleasure without revelations, or epiphanies--at least regarding bicycling or The Meaning of Life, anyway.  And those are all you really care about if you're reading this blog, right?


All right...My ride, which took me up by Throgs Neck, led me through an industrial area of the South Bronx.  I've mentioned it before:  I enjoy cycling there on weekends because there's absolutely no traffic.  But sometimes I see things, too, that I hadn't been expecting.


From a block away, I thought I saw the kind of sand-art-in-a-bottle that was so popular in the 1970's, rendered in the entropic colors of dystopia:  just what someone might see if he or she were to watch Miami Vice while coming down from an acid trip.  

Then I could swear I saw someone--trying to escape? or simply "losing it?"  

I couldn't help but to think of the woman in the pattern of the yellow wallpaper of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story, which I've read and assigned to my students more times than I'll admit!


The "prisoner" or "captain" or whomever you see in the second photo was actually in the window of a factory.  The other photo is of another window on that same building.  As best as I could tell, some sheet or something that was used to black out the windows was falling off or wearing away.


I guess I could rescue him (or her) by climbing on this:

I'm pretty sure that both are still used by trains; it's been a couple of years, at least, since I've seen a train pass over either of those trestles. Then again, that's about how long it's been since I've seen those trestles on a weekday, and I suspect that those trains run when the factories are open.


But if they aren't in use, I'd love to see them become the next High Line or Viaduct des Arts--except, of course, that bicycles would be allowed on it.

Blood Under My Cleats

"Le sang coule dans les rues..."


Yes, I've ridden my bike in Paris--but not in 1572 or 1789 or 1871.  So I never got to see blood running in the streets, at least not in the City of Light.  


However, I did see blood running on the streets--and sidewalks--here:

To be precise, it was underneath the viaduct that I saw a thick crimson current.  Back in those days, the street scene looked more like this:

And one could see things that would turn him or her into a vegetarian on the spot:

I found this photo, and the one before it, on one of my favorite websites:  Forgotten NY.  The neighborhood shown in these photos is the Meatpacking District.  Ironically, it's now home to some of the trendiest shops and cafes in the city, as any fan of Sex and the City knows.


I rode down there today.  Actually, my doctor's office is a few blocks away and, after having my blood drawn, I ended my fast in the nearby park with tea and a corn muffin from The Donut Pub.  (I also bought a cherry donut for later in the day. I guarantee you that if you ever go there, you'll never even look at a Krispy Kreme again!)  


Fortunately, I didn't see any animal offal before or after consuming my impromptu brunch.  But, as I rode, I recalled a time when I was riding back from New Jersey.  Just after I got off the Staten Island Ferry, it began to rain.  The rain grew heavier as I pedalled up West Street and, finally, when I could barely see where I was going, I ducked underneath the viaduct you saw in the first photo.


I had just begun to ride with Look road pedals.  Those of you who ride them know that those cleats, like most road racing cleats, aren't made for walking.  I unclipped my left foot and touched down on the sidewalk--actually, in a pool of blood on the sidewalk.


The cleat at the bottom of my shoe was nearly smooth and flat.  It could just as well have been covered with grease.  My foot slid out from under me and I landed on my side--in another pool of animal blood.  When I got back up, I saw that my left side was covered with it, and it had spattered me on the front.  


Being covered with blood that is not your own is disconcerting enough. But what really upset me was that it ruined my favorite jersey I owned at the time:  a replica of the one Bernard Hinault and Greg Le Mond wore in the 1985 Tour de France.

In those days, I was skinny and could get away with wearing it!  


When the rain let up, I continued riding.  Eva had been visiting some friend of hers who didn't like me, and I didn't expect her to be back at the apartment when I arrived.  


"What the hell happened to you?"


All I could do was laugh.  Trying to explain it made me laugh even harder.  Soon, she couldn't help herself, either.  And, in one of the nicer surprises of the time we were together, she actually bought me a replacement for it.   


Every once in a while, she'd go for a ride with me.  I can guarantee you, though, that we never went to the Meat Packing District.  And we never walked or rode on the viaduct--which,in those days, never looked like this:

Now it's called The High Line.  It's supposedly inspired by the Viaduc des Arts in Paris, which, like the High Line, is an abandoned railway.  The High Line does have some nice flora and fauna tucked in among cafes that serve hundred dollar plates of spaghetti.  And   cycling isn't allowed on it.


Back in the day, one might have seen something like this on the Line:

When I was young (believe it or not!), the New York Central, which gave its name to Grand Central Station, was the second largest railroad in the country.  The Pennsylvania Railroad, for which Penn Station was named, was the largest. (It was once the largest company of any kind.)  But they, like most American railroads after World War II, were in decline.  So, someone had the bright idea of combining them into a company that would be "too big to fail".  The marriage was consummated, so to speak, in 1968; it lasted all but two years.  When Penn Central failed, it caused a crash on Wall Street and nearly brought down the US economy with it.


I know, banks and brokerage houses are different.  But you'd think that among all of those people with fancy degrees, someone would've remembered at least that much economic history.


After I finished my corn muffin and tea, I continued riding.  At least that's one thing nobody forgets how to do.  And there was no blood to clean afterward!