I Didn’t Know It Well. I’ll Miss It Anyway.

Last week, an after-work ride zigzagged me through northern Bronx and Westchester County. Along the way I pedaled down a hill (I was on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike) to McLean Avenue in Yonkers. I had ridden McLean a number of times before but, ironically, last week was the first time since I’ve moved to my current place: From here, it’s only about 7 kilometers but about 30 from Astoria, depending on which route I took.

Anyway, on McLean, I couldn’t help but to notice a store that looked like it was being stripped to the walls. I stopped; indeed it was. Then I noticed a few bicycles, some with tags, bunched together in the middle of the floor.

I asked a man whether any of the ones without tags—which included a Cannondale road bike from, I believe, the ‘90’s, an early Schwinn Traveler and a Giant hybrid with a Brooks B17 saddle—were available. “They’re all accounted for. Sorry.”

I glanced to my left and saw another racing bike leaning against the wall. “Then I suppose that Eddy Mercx is also going to somebody.” He nodded.

I asked him why the shop closed. The shop’s founder retired; his son took over and things went downhill.  There was a “sugar rush” early in the COVID-19 pandemic followed by a “crash”: when supply chains reopened and new merchandise was available, people who already bought bikes and accessories weren’t buying more, he explained.

Both parts of his story—the bike shop passing from one generation to the next and the pandemic boom-and-bust—are familiar narratives behind long-established bike shops that close. It later occurred to me, however, that there may be at least one other reason County Cycle Center has closed.

It was one of many family-owned businesses that have lined McLean, the main artery of a longtime Irish enclave that straddles that part of Yonkers and a slice of the Bronx next to Van Cortlandt Park. Like so much of my city and its surrounding areas, it’s changing as longtime residents die or retire to the Sun Belt and their kids and grandkids move away. County Cycle, which graced McLean for nearly six decades, seemed to be the sort of shop where parents bought their kids bikes for Christmas or their birthdays, and those kids would return to buy their kids bikes and, perhaps, “grown up” bikes for themselves. (It was an authorized Schwinn dealer and later took on Fuji, Trek, Cannondale and GT.) Such shops depend on relationships they develop with people in the community; when those people leave or die, those who move in—especially if they are young or from different cultural backgrounds—may not feel inclined to get to know members of the neighborhood’s “establishment.”

I inferred the story about the shop’s relationship to its community after I got home. I realized I had stopped in that shop on at least one earlier ride and remembered that the man I met—the founder?—was curious about my bike because it was something that didn’t normally pass through his shop. I think I bought a small tool or water bottle, and he was happy for my business.

He may not be able to get you a custom frame or a replica of whatever won the Tour or Giro or Vuelta this year. Folks who ride integrated carbon fiber cockpits may turn up their noses at him and his shop. But folks like him are interesting and thankful for small things.  I will miss him and them, and their shops.

An After-Work Ride Falls Into Sunset

The other day, I took Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic on an after-work ride in Jersey City, Bayonne and Staten Island.  

I just missed a Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan.  The day was Classic Fall—clear, cool and crisp and I’d brought a book I’ve been reading (yes, a real book—nothing digital!) so I didn’t mind the wait—12 minutes, as it turned out—for the next boat.

That delay was rewarding—in an aesthetic sense, anyway.  What I witnessed from the deck of that ferry boat made me wish that my camera were as old-school (i.e. with film) as my book. Or, better yet, that I had an easel and palette.

There hardly could have been  a better ending to a Classic Fall day—and ride.  Some people say autumn sunsets are the most beautiful of all. I wouldn’t argue with them.

After I disembarked in Battery Park, twilight flickered to my left as I pedaled by the South Street Seaport, across the Williamsburg Bridge and up through the neighborhood for which the bridge is named to my place in Astoria.

Cycling Through The PTSD of History--My Own and This Country's

Spring arrived yesterday at 17:24 (5:24 pm) local time in New York, where I am.

At that moment, I just happened to be out on Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore, for an after-work ride.  I knew I'd have about an hour and a half of daylight from that moment on, and I intended to take full advantage of it.

The sun shone brightly; there was scarcely a cloud in the sky.  But the wind, gusting to 40KPH (25MPH), and the temperature, which barely broke 5C (40F), reminded me that winter would not loosen its grip so easily.  Still, the ride was delightful because of Dee-Lilah (Why do you think I so named her?) and because I'd had a full day of work- and non-work-related things.

Also, I may have felt the need to work with, if not out, the lingering sadness I felt:  Yesterday marked twenty years since the United States invaded Iraq.  If 9/11 was America's first step into the quicksand of a perennial war, on 20 March 2003, this country had waded into it, at least up to the waist. If I believed in karma, I would say that the trials and tribulations this country has suffered are retribution for that act of violence--which was precipitated by one of the more monstrous lies told by a public official.  (That so many people see such dishonesty as normal in political and official discourse is something else I might have taken as some sort of cosmic payback.)

US Marines in Kuwait, near the Iraq border, the day before the invasion.  Photo by Joe Raedele, Getty Images

I remember that time all to well.  For one thing, I marched in the massive anti-war demonstration a month earlier, where I was just a few bodies away from those horses NYPD officers charged into the crowd.  For another, I was preparing to live as the woman I am now:  I had begun therapy and counseling a few months earlier, and started taking hormones a few weeks before that demonstration.  All of the jingoism and drumbeats I heard in the lead-up to the invasion-- not to mention the invasion itself, premised as it was on lies--disturbed me because they showed how profoundly disrespectful some people can be toward other people simply because they are darker, speak a different language, worship differently (or not at all) or express their gender or any other part of their identity in ways that are not accepted by the society around them.

Sometimes I am called "over-sensitive:"  I have PTSD from a few things that have happened to me and sometimes I think I suffer it simply from having been alive when great evils were committed.  It's a good thing I have my bikes, and riding!

Riding Into The Season's Light

Sometimes I ride into sunrises.

Sometimes I pedal into sunsets.

Sometimes the day dawns as it ends.

Sometimes the day ends as a season continues.

And they're all journeys of light.

The other day, after work, Dee-Lilah--my custom Mercian Vincitore Special--took me into such a journey.

From a block away, I felt as I could see the day, the season, coming to us as we approached this tree

and it filled me with its light.

Do I need a better reason to ride?

 

After Work, Under A Cherry Blossom Canopy

Yesterday’s commute from work was a bit different from the usual.  For one thing, instead of my “beater,” I took Tosca, my fixed-gear Mercian, as I had little to carry and had left a change of clothes (a skirt, blouse and pair of low-heel pumps) in the office last week.

I left them yesterday.  So I rode home in a pair of bike knickers and a long-sleeved top, on Tosca.  Although the wind was a bit nippy, the spring afternoon called me to ride. My reward:

A canopy of cherry blossoms along the river, late in the afternoon, early in the Spring.  What more can I ask for an after-work ride?

Concrete Plant, Banana Kelly And Longwood

The past couple of weeks, we've had our best weather during the work week--just when I've had to teach classes and go to meetings.  And all through the past weekend, we had the sort of weather only Marlee could love--because it keeps me home and she can cuddle with me!

So, yesterday, I snuck out for a ride between classes and a meeting.  A curtain of clouds crept between us and the sun, but no rain fell and the air was rather mild.  Once again, I rode in the Bronx, within a few kilometers of my job.

Yes, that really is dust in the background.  But it has nothing to do with the tall cylindrical structures in the background

though it could have at one time.  Until the 1980s or thereabouts, they served as an industrial facility.  Now they are part of the Cement Plant Park along the Bronx River.  I've ridden by and through that park before.  It's small, and not exactly rustic, but is oddly quaint and bucolic in the way an old industrial town in New England or the Midwest might be.

Out the other side of the park, I followed a few streets to the area around The Hub, and into a neighborhood often referred to as "Banana Kelly" after the shape of Kelly Street.  On another street a couple of blocks from Kelly--Dawson Street--I saw this

and this

and this

all within a block.  Not surprisingly, that street is landmarked as part of the Longwood Historic District.

All of those houses, and others on nearby streets, were designed by the same architect, Warren Dickerson, in the 1890s.  At that time, the Bronx was still developing:  much of the northern and eastern parts were still marshlands, woods or farms.  

The houses in this district are 2 1/2 stories tall and semi-detached, separated from each other by side driveways and ornamental iron gates.  As attractive as they are, they seem, at first glance to be variations on a theme.  That is becuase they are, and that is what Dickerson intended.  He wanted to create a unified streetscape, and that he did.  While they started with the same basic design, they distinguish themselves from each other in the details in much the same way family members have their own individual characteristics but resemble each other.  But what makes them work together is that houses alongside or across from each other "mirror" the angles curves of each others' stoops and bays.  

The houses in that district were one of the first attempts--if not the first attempt--to create such visual unity in a neighborhood in New York City.  That such a block, and others like it, were created is all the more remarkable when you realize that there were basically no zoning codes in Westchester County--of which the Bronx was a part until it joined New York City, which also had no zoning laws, in 1898.

That those houses remained intact is practically a miracle given the devastation and abandonment that consumed nearby streets and communities during the 1970s.  While some of those surrounding areas in the South Bronx have been rebuilt, they do not have the character of the houses I saw on Dawson Street.

Then I biked back to the college, and a meeting.  Nobody tells you about such things when you're in graduate school!

Playing Hooky--Sort Of

Yesterday and the day before, the weather was more like May--or even June!--than February.  Best of all, I managed to get out of work early enough the other day, and have enough time between classes and a late-day meeting yesterday, to do some non-commute riding.

I wasn't really "playing hooky", but I like to feel as if I were.  (Do people who say "as if I were" play hooky?)  In my defense, I'll say that I took my "guilty pleasures" in the Bronx, where I work.

New York City's most maligned borough has some of the most amazing murals.  I saw this one while riding a bike lane in the Hunts Point Market area that must have opened in the last year or two.  At least, I hadn't ridden there in a year or two, until the other day.  

Then I took in a view of the East River and South and North Brother Islands--the latter of which was the site of one of the worst maritime disasters in this city's history--from Barretto Park.

Not a bad way to end a work day, don't you think?

Signs Of Other Times

The other day, I managed to sneak out for a mid-afternoon ride between classes and conferences with students.  It wasn't a long ride, and it didn't take me far from the college where I teach.  But it did, as rides often do, reveal some interesting and unexpected sights.

In both the "interesting" and "unexpected" categories was this:

One almost never sees a sign like that anymore in the New York Metro area.  For that matter, one rarely sees the kind of store that's attached to it, at least in this area.  

It's at the intersection of East Tremont and Park Avenues in the Bronx.  Yes, the Park Avenue you've all heard of--the one of Zsa Zsa Gabor--extends into the Bronx, hard by the Metro North (formerly New York Central) railroad tracks!

You wouldn't expect to find a store like this on Zsa Zsa's Park. But in this part of the Bronx reside folks not unlike some of my relatives, including two blue-collar uncles of mine who lived in Brooklyn and  went up to the Catskills and sometimes even the Adirondacks to hunt around this time every year.  Their ethnic origins may be different, but their lives and desires are, I believe, similar:  They need to live in an urban area and to get out of it every now and again.  

That is why, even though I've never had any desire to hunt, and have fished only a couple of times, I understand those who love those sports.  Of course, there are very practical reasons to allow hunting:  Deer and other animals that are pursued by hunters no longer have natural predators, so hunters help to keep their population in check. If they didn't, even more animals would starve and freeze to death during the winter.  Also, although I'm not too keen on guns (and support restrictions on access to them) I am not afraid of hunters and other sportsmen, such as competitive shooters, who use them. 

Anyway, the proprietor of the store caught a glimpse of me photographing his signs.  I think he knew that I don't hunt or fish and, barring the collapse of civilization, probably never will.  Still, he was polite and was pleased when I complimented his signs.  "You just don't see these anymore," I said.  He nodded.

The sales clerk gave me their business card.  I told them I'll be back:  I did see a jacket I really like.  And they have hiking boots as well as equipment for all sorts of other sports--but not cycling!

Sneaking Off To The Boardwalk In The Fall

The weather warmed up a bit today, but it was still pretty blustery.  Still, this day felt very October-like, in contrast to the last three days,  which felt more like Thanksgiving weekend.  Not that I mind cool or chilly weather; it just seemed to follow me from Canada after the mild weather this part of the world was experiencing as I embarked.

Anyway, this afternoon I had some time to sneak out for a Coney Island ride, and to return home via the path that passes under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge--about 65 kilometers all told.

One sign that it's really Fall is that the boardwalk was not full of the strollers, sunbathers and such one sees even on weekdays for a few weeks after Labor Day.  But, more important, the light and air take on different hues and feels around the time of the Equinox.

Is it my imagination, but has the Parachute Jump taken on the color of fallen leaves?  A few weeks ago, it seemed more like a reddish-orange.  Hmm...Could I be imposing my ideas of the season on things I see?  Is life imitating the season?

Whatever, Tosca seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did.  Even though I didn't have a lower gear to shift into when I was pedaling into the wind, I didn't feel as if I had been straining.  In fact, riding today seemed like a shorter version of my ride the other day, albeit with different scenery.  Maybe it has something to do with the way I respond to the light and air of this time of year.

On the Coney Island Boardwalk, this sign has a way of popping up where you've never seen it before, after you haven't seen it for a long time.  

I would have expected to see it during the height of the summer season.  As a matter of fact, a couple of times when I rode on the boardwalk during the summer, police officers motioned for me to get off my bike.  But today there were no cops in sight.

Still, I didn't ride along the boarwalk:  I had just a bit more than enough time to ride to Coney and back.  But it was plenty.

More Fruits Of The "Harvest", After Work

Today brought more of what we've had for the past couple of days--and what meteorologists are forecasting for the next couple of days:  summer warmth and early autumn light.

All right, they didn't forecast the light, except to tell us what time the sun will set.  But the sun is taking on an early twilight glow and, as I mentioned yesterday, I am seeing a few trees start their color changes.  It's quite lovely:  the first signs of autumn hues haven't yet brought the melancholy that comes later in the season (which, by the way, I often enjoy). 

Another day in the cusp of two seasons gave me another opportunity to relish my harvest, so to speak: I took an after-work ride to Coney Island.  While I enjoyed the ride, I did notice it more when I pedaled into the wind today than I did yesterday or on Monday, when I rode to Connecticut.  Perhaps it was a result of riding late in the day, after work.  Or it may have just been a matter of riding my  Schwinn LeTour instead of one of my Mercians.

Whatever the case, I had an easy ride back.  And it was interesting, to say the least, to see how much difference a week and a half makes on the number of people who go to the beach:

Some folks, like the ones in the photo, will go to the beach on any day the weather is remotely summer-like--and sometimes not-so-summery.  They are the ones who have decided it's still summer (which, of course, it still is--at least officially).  They are not like the ones who don't ever go to the beach after Labor Day or before Memorial Day, whatever the weather.

I guess we have equivalents to both kinds of people in the cycling world.  Some hang up their bikes as the days grow shorter, while others take any opportunity, at whatever time of year, to ride.

As for me, I will continue to enjoy the "harvest" for as long as I can--and continue to ride as long as the streets aren't covered with ice.

Late Summer

 While taking an apres-work ride on the paths of Astoria Park and Vernon Boulevard, I couldn't help but to think about how they--and the other streets and paths I've been pedaling--will soon be covered with leaves.

Concrete Sunset

On my way home from work, I took a detour through the Bronx.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, the borough offers some surprisingly interesting vistas--and short rides--not far from where I live.

And, as I've also mentioned in another post, one of my favorite quick getaways has become the Concrete Plant Park.  

 
All through the fall, and with the approach of winter, the park--and the stretch of the Bronx River that winds through it--remind me more and more of a New England mill town. 

Vera really seems to enjoy this sort of thing.

It could be that for a moment, she can imagine--as I do--that we are beside some old European canal or stream.

Even if we don't, there are still the colors of the sunset, which descends upon us early at this time of year.   

I hope that the city and state parks departments follow through on their announced plan to extend the riverside bike/pedestrian path up the length of the Bronx into Westchester County.

An After-Work Ride On A Late Fall Day

It seems that fall, as we normally think of it, has come late to this area this year.  Perhaps it has to do with Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent nor'easter, as well as the mild October weather that preceded them.

When I say "fall has come later", I'm thinking about the kind of light and the feel of the air.  Also, I'm thinking about the trees (the ones that are still standing, anyway), which seem to have shed their leaves later and have not taken on the sere, wizened facades so many of them have by this time of year.

Maybe the lateness of the season is one reason why Tosca was so enjoying this part of an after-work ride:

Admit it:  You're not above taking a roll in the leaves.  Tosca is a fine traveling companion; she's entitled.

As she so frolicked, I noticed that the house directly in front of us is for sale:

For decades, members of the Steinway family lived here, in the Astoria Mansion.  At one time, part of their piano workshop was housed on the grounds.  When that business grew (i.e., when Steinway pianos came to be regarded among the world's best), they had to build a bigger factory a few blocks away.

Michael Hiberian died about a year and a half ago after living all of his 82 years in the house.  He'd put the house up for sale a few months before breathing his last in it; now his son is trying to unload it.  At the time the house was put on the market, it had a potential buyer at $5 million.  But that deal fell through, and the current owner is looking for $3 million.

I've never been inside, but from what I'm told, it's even more impressive there than from where I stood.  The problem is that it's in, ironically, what might be the least desirable location in Astoria.  When the house was built, it was surrounded by meadows that rolled into the bay.  The house, on  the highest hill in the area, had some expansive views, to say the least.  But now the house has an even better view of the Con Ed powerplant along the shore--and the bridge to Rikers Island.  Also, in the area around the mansion are warehouses and a cement plant.

Anyway, from there, I continued to ride along the water, past LaGuardia Airport and the World's Fair Marina, to a waterfront area I hadn't seen before--at College Point.

My bikes just love waterfronts and sunsets!  

The Lighthouse Guides Another Ride

There may not be many lighthouses that still guide ships into and through harbours--at least not here in the US.  However, many are all but irrestistible as destinations, or at least landmarks for bike rides.

This one is only a few minutes' ride from my apartment.

It's at the northern end of Roosevelt Island, that sliver of rock between Manhattan and Queens.   It's what I usually envision when I'm pedaling over the bridge to the island, and it's the point at which I feel an escape from the city becomes a meandering, however brief, along the coast.

Ironically, following the lighthouse yesterday may have been one of my last opportunities for an after-work ride in daylight. 

When All Ways Lead To The Sunset

Today I did something I don't normally do:  I rode Tosca to work.  I had no particular reason; I didn't have much to carry today, so I thought it might be fun.


And I took a slightly different route home from the one I'd been taking.  I had just passed through Flushing Meadow-Corona Park when I saw how I was going to ride the rest of the way (well, most of it, anyway) home:

It was enough to make me ride alongside the railroad tracks.  The tracks are lined with, well, what one expects to see along railroad tracks: some warehouses and dirty, sad-looking dwellings facing the concrete barriers by the tracks.  But even they, and the wires over the tracks, felt serene, bathed in the simmering orange light:

As you know, my bikes are very well-trained, so Tosca knew exactly what to do.

And, yes, by the time I got home, everything was just starting to turn to dusk.  And Max, my dusty orange cat, greeted me.

Crossing Bridges After Work

Today I did something I often did when I was young and unattached:  I took a ride after work.  I'm not just talking about the commute home:  I rode through the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening--fifty miles after work.


The best part is that today's ride, like the ones I used to do, was spontaneous.  I took a route I've ridden a number of times before, but it was unplanned.  I did one part of it; then, feeling good, I simply continued.


From 34th Street in Manhattan, where I've been teaching a Saturday class for a technical college, I pedaled up the greenway that skirts the Hudson River.  Because I'm trying to make this story fit all of those cheesy narratives I've ever heard, I'm going to tell you that I was guided by a light.

If you've ever ridden, walked, run, skateboarded (Is that a verb?) or rollerbladed over the Greenway, you've probably seen The Little Red Lighthouse.  Actually, it's called the Jeffrey's Hook Light, but most people refer to it by the name I used, which is also the title of a children's book inspired by the structure.  It hasn't functioned as a lighthouse in decades:  It stands under the George Washington Bridge, which spurred development on both sides of the river, which in turn lit up that treacherous stretch of the Hudson even better than any lighthouse could.  

It was at the lighthouse that I decided to continue riding. So, naturally, I crossed the bridge and rolled along the edge of the Palisades through Bergen and Hudson counties to the Jersey City waterfront.

From there, I continued down through Jersey City and Bayonne to another bridge, which I took to Staten Island and the Ferry named for it.

After I got off the boat, I cycled past Wall Street, the South Street Seaport and up the East Side to one of those bridges, which took me home. 

The Day After An After-Work Ride

After yesterday's spontaneous after-work adventure, I just did a normal commute today, over one of my normal routes.  But, as the weather was about ten degrees (F) hotter than it was yesterday, and the humidity rose in tandem with the temperature, the normal commute was more of a workout than it usually is.  Plus, Marianela is a considerably heavier than Helene.  She can't help it; she's got heavier tubes in her frame.  At least she doesn't seem to have body image issues.

And I won't, either, even though my students surprised me with this today:

Hmm..,Maybe I should've taken another ride after work!

A Voyage After A Great Labour

This is the story of an excellent after-work adventure.  (Can you believe that twenty-two years have passed since that movie came out?  Can you believe that, just about every year, someone has managed to make a movie even dumber than that one?)

Anyway, about my excellent after-work adventure on an excellent and fair day:  It goes to show how English ladies, after getting a little bit of French culture, lead impressionable young women down all sorts of paths they never planned:

Well, OK, I'm not so young anymore.  As for impressionable....All right.  This lady certainly didn't protest when she whispered, "Let us abscond!"


And abscond we did, first through an exotic land:

West 139th Street, Harlem, NYC

From thence she transported me to a land where the language spoken was not mine:

Union City, NJ:  No es necesario para hablar ingles aqui.

Then, after our journey down a mighty river, we came upon a realm of ships and bridges: 

From the Staten Island Ferry

Thence we boarded a great vessel and countenanced many more bridges:

Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, seen from the Staten Island Ferry

Finally, we encountered an aged but fine vessel:

And so ended our great voyage: 

(Somehow I get the feeling that this is the image many people have of American History--or of immigration, anyway!)

Yes, twas a sweet voyage.  This young maiden gaped in disbelief upon realizing she had pedaled over 45 miles in her after-work ride.   She was well contented, for I am that maiden.     

So ends this tale of an excellent after-work adventure.