There's No College There, But There's An Education

This weekend included a change of seasons and cultures--and rides.

While, officially, we're deep into Fall, from Thursday through the middle of Saturday, it felt more like early summer.  I took Friday's ride, to Connecticut, in what I might wear around Memorial Day or Labor Day--a pair of shorts and a fluorescent green T-shirt.  The breeze took some of the edge off the humidity.

Saturday morning, I pedaled out to Kesso's for some fresh Greek yogurt.  Alas, they were closed.  I hope everything is OK there: Perhaps they, like so many other shops--and people--couldn't get some thing or another they needed because of the interrupted supply chains that have emptied store shelves.  Later in the day, wind drove hard rain against leaves, windows and faces.

Yesterday, the wind let up--for a little while--and temperatures were more fall-like.  I took a spin along the North Shore of Queens and western Nassau County, which took me into a neighborhood frequented by almost nobody who doesn't live there--in spite of its proximity to a mecca for in-the-know food enthusiasts.

On a map, College Point is next to Flushing.  But the two neighborhoods could just as well be on diffeent planets.  The latter neighborhood, one of the city's most crowded, has been known as the "Queens Chinatown" for the past three decades or so.  There are dozens of places where one can sample a variety of regional cuisines, and have everything from a formal dining experience to chow on the run.  Those places are centered around Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, at the end of the 7 line of the New York subway system--and one stop away from Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, and the US Tennis Center, site of the US Open and other events.

College Point is "off the grid," if you will--away from the city's transit systems and accessible only by winding, narrow streets that dead-end in inconvenient places or truck-trodden throughfares that, at times, resemble a moonscape, that weave through industrial parks, insular blue-collar communities and views of LaGuardia Airport and the Manhattan skyline one doesn't see in guidebooks.

Until recently, College Point--which, pervesely, includes no college--was populated mostly by the children and  Irish, German and Italian construction workers and city employees who were the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Irish, German and Italian construction workers and city employees.  Their houses were smaller versions of the nearby factories and warehouses: squat brick structures framed by latticeworks of steel or wooden trellises, cornices  and fences.

In that sense, this place fits right in:

The New York Hua Lian Tsu Hui Temple is--you guessed it--a square brick building framed with wooden cornices and a steel fence.  The cornices,  though, are different:  They signal the purpose of the building, and signify other things.  Apparently, Chinese and Korean people who needed more space to raise their kids--or simply wanted to escape the crowding of Flushing--have "discovered" the neighborhood.  

Some have families and pets:

Marlee, though, was not impressed!  All she knows is that when I'm on my bike (or doing anything outside the apartment), I'm not there for her to curl up on.

Different Rides, Different Folks

 There are some things non-cyclists just don’t believe, or understand.

About the former:  my neighbor and new riding partner, Lillian, has a friend named Beverly who can’t ride. Her husband—whom I knew slightly before I met Beverly—is a gruff blue-collar Queens guy who reminds me a bit of Frank Barone of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He’s seen me on a bicycle, and knows I ride, but simply does not believe it’s possible to pedal to Connecticut.  Mind you, he doesn’t believe that I, personally, can traverse distances: He simply doesn’t think it can be done.

Well, I rode to Connecticut on Saturday,—after trekking to Point Lookout on Friday and spending Thursday pedaling to Freeport and up to the North Shore.  Moreover, I did each ride on  different bike: 

 Dee-Lilah, my prize Mercian Vincitore Special to Connecticut

Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic, to Freeport and the North Shore, and

a bike I’ll mention later to Point Lookout.

Oh, and I took a spin to Bayside on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, yesterday morning.

All of that brings me to the second point of this post.  I did four rides on four different bikes.  Most non-cyclists can’t understand having more than one bike.  

Which Side Of The Gate?

 We are passing out of this year.  I don’t know many people who are sad to be leaving it, even with all of the uncertainty that lies ahead.

I know there are three more days left in this year after today.  Somehow, though, yesterday—the last Sunday of the year—felt more like the denouement.  In a normal year, not much happens during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  Then again, what has been “normal” this year?

I thought about all of this while riding along the North Shore yesterday.  The funny thing is that I didn’t stop until near the end of my ride.  But I think you can see why I paused in Astoria Park, only a kilometer and a half from my apartment.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, this bridge is called the Hell Gate Bridge, after the stretch of the (misnamed) East River it spans.

If that is indeed the Gate of Hell, which side of it are we on?

From A Blocked Path To Latimer's House And Gatsby's Shore

Sometimes art imitates life...

and journalism really conveys what's going on in the world

or your bike ride.

The Post article I referenced in yesterday's post talked about bike lanes that hadn't been plowed. Sure enough, I encountered one. 

What's worse, though, than finding an impassable path (Is that an oxymoron?) is to ride the path for, say, a kilometer or two before it tells you, "Vous ne passerez pas!"

At least I am accustomed enough to riding on streets--and familiar enough with the street in question (20th Avenue, Astoria) that switching over to the roadway felt like a return to normalcy. (Yes, such a thing is actually possible in 2020!)  Even finding snow piled between the parking and traffic lane--which, of course, gives you no room to maneuver--was a return to the status quo of winter riding as I've known it.

All right, I'll stop complaining.  Although the afternoon was the warmest we've had in nearly a week, it was still raw, with overcast skies and damp air.  I actually like riding in such conditions, just as I enjoy riding along the sea through chilly winds, under gray skies:  Few people are out; there is just me, my bike and my ride.

Even after so many years of riding in this city, there are still streets I've rarely or never seen.  I ventured down one, near the Whitestone Bridge and chanced upon this:

I'd heard of  Lewis Latimer  and knew something of his work with Thomas Edison, but I didn't realize he lived in the neighborhood.  It's too bad the house was closed, probably because of COVID.  But I'll return one day.  While people normally associate African American New Yorkers with Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, there have been many others who, like    (and Malcolm X, John Coltrane and Duke Ellington) who lived in Queens.

Some may have even spent time

in Fort Totten Park was, until the 1980s, an active Army base.  Today, parts of it are used for Army Reserve, NYPD and NYFD training, but the rest is a park.

Its part of Queens--Bayside--is near the western end of Long Island's North Shore:  Gatsby country.  If you had one of those terrible English teachers who beat the symbolism of the green light to death, I apologize.  Such a teacher might've taught you that the novel is about the desire to reinvent one's self--and the question of whether or not such a thing is truly possible.  Or, perhaps, you realized as much yourself.  More than a few writers and scholars have argued that raising such a question makes it the "quintessential American novel."

Perhaps it is, but for a different reason.  When I re-read the novel a few years ago, I couldn't help but to feel that it was conveying a profound loneliness. Nick Caraway, the narrator, expresses it, intentionally or not.  Jay Gatsby, the title character, embodies it; other characters are enacting it--unconsciously, I believe.

Perhaps this is the light they were following, even if they were looking for another kind:

Me, that light suits me fine.  At least, it feels about right, for this day, for the times we've been living--and I rode--through.