Joaquin Is Going That Way...

Everybody’s been storm-watching for the past 24 hours or so.  They all remember Sandy and, from what the weather reports say, Joaquin is even more powerful.  But the wind and rain that’ve battered us today aren’t his fault:  A Nor’easter has worked its way along this part of the coast.

Joaquin, as of today...we hope!

Sandy became a “superstorm” when  merged with a Nor’easter before making landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey.  It doesn’t seem that Joaquin will do anything like that:  He seems content remaining out to sea, well to the east of Montauk Point.  Still, he could gift our Nor’easter with even more wind and water than it might have whipped against, and dropped on, us:  As meteorologists tell us, the course of a hurricane is one of the most difficult things to predict.

There seems to be an interesting divide in how much concern people who lived through Sandy’s ravages are expressing about the prospect of another Nor’easter, hurricane or—superstorm?! From what my own admittedly unscientific observations, the folks on the South Shores of Staten Island and Brooklyn, and in the Rockaways, are bracing themselves.  Whether or not they’re making actual preparations, they are taking the reports and warnings seriously—more seriously, some admit, than they did when Sandy approached. 

On the other hand, residents of Long Beach and other communities on the South Shore of Nassau County—which, arguably, incurred even more damage than Brooklyn and at least as much as the Rockaways—seem more blasé.  As one man said, “I lost everything then.  I’m not worried now.”  But people in other devastated areas also “lost everything”.  In fact, in the Breezy Point area of the Rockaway Peninsula, houses that weren’t blown apart or washed away burned to the ground when water wreaked havoc with the electrical wires.  I recall seeing people who were able to retrieve only family photo albums before fleeing, or upon returning.

As for me:  I am watching the storms.  Aside from not having classes for a week, I wasn’t affected much by Sandy.  I want to make sure I can say the same thing about Joaquin or the Nor’easter.

Then again…Joaquin couldn’t possibly affect us as much as Sandy did.  After all, Joaquin is a male name, while both males and females are named Sandy.  Hell hath no fury like that of both genders, combined!

Cyclists Can't Get Off (Or On) The Island

Every decade or so, some resident of Staten Island tries to resurrect the movement to “free” his homeland from the colonial clutches of New York City.  Much of that impetus is really no different from the change in politics people undergo when they morph from single city dwellers to suburbanites with lawns, SUVs and broods of kids:  No matter how much evidence (statistical and otherwise) they are shown to the contrary, they become convinced that the taxes they’re paying for their plots of land and shelters are subsidizing freeloaders in the city they’ve left behind.

Ironically, there is a strong argument for those Staten Islanders who want to liberate themselves from the Big Apple, even though they never use it:  geography.  You see, although the Island is one of the five boroughs of New York City,  it’s actually closer to New Jersey than it is to Gotham—or, for that matter, any other point in New York State. 

Early governors of both states noticed as much and nearly fought an intercine war over it.  The reason each side wanted it is that the Island, which sits at the point at which the Atlantic Ocean meets New York Bay (at the Verrazano Narrows) and the Hudson River, is the Gateway to New York Harbor.  That distinction was even more important then, long before trucks hauled goods on Interstates and airliners ferried passengers across the ocean. 

So how did the island become a county (Richmond) of New York rather than New Jersey?  It was the “prize” in a boat race.  Or so legend has it. Really, you can’t make this stuff up.  Ever since, some New Yorkers have wondered whether the Empire State actually lost and Staten Island was the booby prize.  That, of course, begs the question of what New Jersey won.  The Nets?

Joking aside, this capsule history is actually relevant to this blog and, in particular, to the subject of this post.  You see, the secessionists’ worst nightmare has come true, in a way—at least if any of the secessionists are cyclists.
  

From Bikensurf

Right now, it is impossible to pedal to or from the Island.  And the only way to get to or from "the forgotten borough" with your bicycle—aside from hauling it in or on a motor vehicle—is to take the Staten Island Ferry to or from Manhattan.  According to a Port Authority official with whom I spoke yesterday, this situation will continue for “about two years”.  That, of course, begs the question of whether those years will consist of “New York minutes” or Biblical days.

Of the bridges that connected Staten Island to the rest of the world, only the Bayonne had a walkway cyclists were allowed to use.  It was closed in September of 2013 for an extensive rebuild which will result in raising the roadway higher above the water so that newer, larger ships can pass.  From May to October of last year, the Port Authority operated a bicycle shuttle across the bridge.  But that shuttle will not be available this year, as the bridge is closed to all traffic, motorized and otherwise. 

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might recall that I've crossed the Bayonne fairly often.  I could do a nice half-day ride by pedaling across the RFK Bridge, up through Harlem and Washington Heights to the George Washington Bridge, along and down the Jersey Palisades, then to the waterfront of Jersey City and Bayonne before crossing to Staten Island and taking Port Richmond Boulevard, which snakes from Superfund sites to the hill of Snug Harbor and some of the most stunning views of the lower Manhattan skyline.  Then I’d hop on the Ferry and, after disembarking, I could pedal or take the subway home.

Now, I would have to end that ride in Jersey City or Hoboken and turn back—or take the PATH train or one of the boats to the World Financial Center.  I’ve done both, and they’re not disagreeable.  But, to me, neither quite compares with taking the Ferry from Staten Island. 

Besides the Bayonne, three other bridges go to and from Staten Island.  One is the Goethals, which had a very narrow path just barely wide enough for most people to walk across.  When my parents were living in New Jersey, I used to take that path because, while not the most pleasant ride, it was convenient:  Once I disembarked from it, I could ride across Elizabeth to State Route 27, where traffic wasn’t terrible.  However, I tried to use it about three years ago, only to find a gate across it.  When I asked a Port Authority officer whether it would open again, he claimed that it never was legal to ride or walk across.  When I explained that I used to take that path “all the time”—and I wasn’t the only one who did—he said it simply wasn’t possible, for there never was any path.  "Well, I guess I broke the law," I said half-jokingly.  "Maybe you did," he replied, suppressing a grin.

Anyway, the PA official with whom I spoke yesterday told me the Goethals is getting similar treatment to the Bayonne and will have—as the Bayonne also will—a “twelve-foot wide bike and pedestrian lane”.   Yes, in “about two years”.

As for the other two connections—the Outerbridge Crossing and the Verrazano-NarrowsBridge—neither ever had bike/pedestrian lanes. The Outerbridge (which is actually named for its builder and is not, as many believe, so named because it’s the “outer” of all of the crossings) takes motorists from the west shore of the Island to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. 

The Verrazano, on the other hand, brings cars, buses and other vehicles to and from Brooklyn.  In his infinite wisdom, RobertMoses didn’t want to deface his last great project with provisions for people who want to walk or pedal.  (It's claimed that he didn’t want buses to cross the span.)  In his vision of the world, everyone would have his or her own car and get in and use it to get in and out of the city—where he or she would work and perhaps shop, but not live.  Even how people played would be determined by the internal combustion engine:  He built Jones Beach, accessible Long Island’s highways but not by the Rail Road or any bus line. 

(Given what I’ve just described, it’s surprising that he actually built the Kissena Velodrome—and that he himself never learned how to drive!)

For me and other cyclists who don’t live on Staten Island, the situation I’ve described is an inconvenience or annoyance.  But those who live there can’t get off the Island—or escape from New York.  I just hope, for their sake, that they aren’t secessionists.  Somehow I don’t think very many of them are.

A City Ride After Lunch, Thirty Years Later

Today I rode into Manhattan for a couple of errands and to have lunch with Bruce.  Even though I rode my "beater" (the Le Tour), I decided take a bit of a ramble around the city.

Somewhere along the way, it seems, a hipster couldn't bear giving up his bike when he got married and had a kid:

This Peugeot "Nice" was parked across the street from where the World Trade Center once stood.  I've seen bikes like it--which may also have been Nices--in France and Montreal.  But this is the first time I've seen one  here in New York.

To be fair to hipsters, that paint job is pure '80's.


Aside:  I didn't go anywhere near the WTC for a couple of years after 11 September.  Although I didn't lose anyone I knew, I simply couldn't bear to be around it.  


I continued down Broadway to the ferry terminals.  I missed the day's last ferry to Governor's Island and I decided I didn't really want to take the ferry ride to Staten Island, as much as I enjoy it.   

Another aside:  Staten Island is at its closest to the rest of New York at the Verrazano Narrows, where the eponymous bridge crosses it. At that point, SI is about 4300 feet from New York.  However, the island is only 600 feet away from New Jersey. After the English took New York and New Jersey from the Dutch (who took it from the Lenape Indians), they supposedly settled the dispute over whether Staten Island belonged to New York or New Jersey with a boat race:

Was anyone accused of doping?  Maybe they can use the Tour de France to decide whether France or Spain gets Andorra.


Anyway, I rode up the Greenway that skirts the Hudson.  Lots of the cyclists I saw today probably moved to New York in the last few years.   They don't remember the city without the Greenway.  They also probably think the Christopher Street Pier always looked something like this:

I remember when it looked nothing like that.  My earliest memories were more like what you see in this photo Ross Lewis took in 1993:

Believe it or not, I actually ventured out onto the pier when it was something like that.  My first adventure there was during my high school years, in the mid-1970's.  I don't remember much about it because, well, I did something teenagers sometimes do when they're someplace they're not supposed to be.  I don't think I would've gone onto that pier if I weren't intoxicated.  In fact, I probably wouldn't have crossed under the elevated West Side Highway.  A truck crashed through it in the early 1970's; although it was closed immediately, it wouldn't be demolished for another 15 years.  In the meantime, only those who were intoxicated, adventurous or simply had noplace else to go would cross under that highway to get to piers that were, in some cases, literally falling into the water.  


For a long time, those derelict quais were among the few places to which the public had access on New York City's hundreds of miles of shoreline.  New York is different, in that sense, from other seaport towns like Boston, San Francisco and Istanbul:  Until recently, there was really no individual or civic pride in the waterfront. It seemed as if one's social status was directly proportional to how far one was from the water.  That might be the reason why addresses along  Fifth Avenue, which is further from the waterfront than any other New York City Avenue, became the most prestigious in the city.

I have long said that New York could be, by far, the most beautiful city in the world if its waterfront were cleaned up.  I'm glad to see that's happening, finally.  Still, it's almost surreal to see the shorelines become places of recreation. 

 One of my uncles worked on the Brooklyn docks; as a teenager, my mother worked in a factory just steps away from those docks.  When I was a child, my father worked in a factory that was less than a block from the 57th Street pier, which is only about half a mile from the Intrepid.  Those workplaces, not to mention those jobs, are long gone.  In fact, the old Maritime Union headquarters in Brooklyn, which took up an entire square block, is now Al-Noor, said to be the largest Muslim elementary school in the United States.


I continued up the Greenway past the Boat Basin, Harlem toward the George Washington Bridge

On my way back, I saw this charmingly theatrical facade:

This building was the old Audubon Ballroom.  Many jazz performers played there; in addition, the Audubon was a movie theatre and a meeting-place for labor activists.  However, it seemed not to recover from having been the site of Malcolm X's assassination until Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center turned it into a research laboratory during the 1990's.


How much else will change by the time I take another ride like the one I took today? 

Dreaming of A Bridge To The Next Journey

It's a little odd to write in a cycling blog when you haven't ridden in a couple of days.  We've had some rain, and I feel like I have a chest cold.  I think it may have developed when I fell asleep the other night in front of my open window with neither a blanket nor very much clothing on me.  And the temperature dropped steeply.




Anyway, the parts I ordered from Velo Orange came today:  handlebars, brake levers, fenders and a bell.  They're all going on the Schwinn I bought over the weekend.  I guess it's appropriate that I ordered Velo Orange parts to go on the orange bike.  But I also have Velo Orange stuff on my Mercians, and my Miss Mercian will also have some of their parts and accessories.  Sometimes I think a velo orange is a state of mind--even if the bike is "flip-flop purple/green," a.k.a. Number 57 on Mercian's colour chart.




Now that I haven't ridden in a couple of days, I've found myself thinking about someplace where I'd like to ride again, but can't.  Actually, one can ride there only once a year:  during the Five Boro Bike Tour.  I've done that ride a number of times, including a few of the early editions.  Those were the best because it wasn't quite as big as it is now.  Although I'm happy to see more people cycling, I get wistful sometimes about the days when we were the fringe.




But I digress.  There's one part of the ride that can be done only on the day of the ride, for it is off-limits to bicycles at any other time.  Here it is:

I took this photo from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry, on my way home from my ride in Jersey.  Even though I have seen this image--or some reflection of it--thousands of times, I still get woozy with deja vu, as Kurt Vonnegut said in Breakfast of Champions.  




I saw an image very much like the one you see here from the window of my room on Dahill Road in Brooklyn when I was a child.  It was like a neon sign in a window of my dreams.  And, of course, when I woke from the dream, I saw the bridge and wanted to cross it, wherever it went.




The bridge in the photo is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  There is a promenade that winds under it as curls around the rocks and flotsam on the Brooklyn shore, from Coney Island to near the old Brooklyn Army Terminal. If you're ever down that way, take the ride:  The bridge, the rocky shores and the wide expanse of the bay could make you think, if only for a moment, that you're in San Francisco.  




Even though I know exactly where the bridge goes, it still is the symbol for every crossing, if you will, I encounter.

And I think of it when I get on a bike, wherever I am and wherever I'm going--especially if I still haven't decided on my destination when I start to pedal.