Yesterday I combined a daytime ride with “taking care of business.” That meant crossing into Harlem and pedaling—sailing, really, with the wind at my back—down the Hudson River Greenway to the World Trade Center, where I boarded a PATH train to Journal Square, Jersey City.
As I rode the streets of the Bronx, Manhattan and Jersey City,I was surprised at how little traffic I saw. Could it be that the NYC Metro Area is experiencing an “August absence “ like that of Paris and other European cities?
Traffic was so light, in fact, that when I resumed my trip in Jersey City, I rolled down JFK Boulevard—a “stroad” I would not take under other circumstances—all the way to the Bayonne Bridge, where I crossed into Staten Island.
Ironically, I saw the densest crowds on the Ferry’s observation decks. Most of the people were, of course, tourists. But the few who seemed to have ridden the Ferry before couldn’t’ve been blamed for standing in the cool breeze.
Tell me, where else can you go on a moonlight cruise for free?
And my “moonlight cruise” continued on La-Vande, my King of Mercia, up through Manhattan where, I believe, I could’ve navigated by the August blue moon even if all of the neon and street lights—and all of the headlamps on cars, trucks and buses—had gone dark.
I saw only one other cyclist and one runner as I wound my way up Central Park to Adam Clayton Boulevard *, where people seemed to enjoy the night as much as I did.
*—You can tell someone is native to the neighborhood if they call it “7th Avenue,” just as no New Yorker refers to 6th Avenue as “Avenue of the Americas,” its official name since 1945.
