Finding Another Path?

 I played hooky.

Well, technically I didn’t have to be at work. But I had some work-related stuff to do on an absolutely gorgeous mid-Spring morning. And my bicycles were calling me. (Is that a consequence of my naming them?)

So off I pedaled—to Point Lookout.

It’s funny that even on a ride I’ve taken dozens, or even hundreds, of times before, I can still see something I hadn’t noticed before:

Did someone carve a path into the dune? Could animals—or humans—have trodden it into existence?  Or did some unusual sequence of natural events—like the ones that cause rock formations to resemble dragons or even famous people—do their work ?

Trust Me, I Won’t

 When you’re riding your bike (or simply out and about) you’re sure to see certain signs:

Some, however, you won’t see unless you stop—as I did at an intersection near my apartment:

Boulevard Ochenta y Siete

 Yesterday’s rains left bright skies and brisk winds today: about as nice as can be expected this early in Spring.

So, of course, I went for a ride this afternoon. About 3.5 kilometers from my apartment I saw this:

I have passed that spot before, But today I couldn’t help but to notice how it was decorated. 

As colorful as the flowers (made of crepe paper) and ribbons were, that spot—a pocket park at the intersection of Southern Boulevard and Tremont Avenue—cannot be festive. That block of Southern is called the Boulevard Ochenta y Siete:  Boulevard 87.

And that name is the reason why that park can be decorated only in the sense that people who brave wars, disasters or other tragedies are “decorated” when medals are pinned on them. 

On this date in 1990–35 years ago—Julio Gonzalez got into an argument with his ex-girlfriend, who worked at the Happy Land Social Club, across the street from the park. Bouncers escorted him out of the club. Out on the street, he shouted, vowing to have the club shut down—which, ironically, he (or someone else) could have done, as it operated without a license.

In his rage, he went to a nearby gas station and bought a gallon of gasoline, which he would pour onto the staircase—the only way in or out of that second-story club—and light it.

In the wee hours of that morning, revelers, most of them Hondurans celebrating Carnaval, packed the darkened space. By the time firefighters put out the blaze, 87 would lose their lives.  

In a cruel irony, Gonzalez’s girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, wasn’t there. In another terrible twist of fate, exactly 79 years earlier—25 March 1911–the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire claimed the lives of 146 workers, most of them young Italian and Jewish immigrant women. The Happy Land Fire was thus the deadliest conflagration in New York City since Triangle Shirtwaist—whose victims, like those at Happy Land, had no way out.

It wasn’t lost on me that I enjoyed an afternoon ride aboard Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike, during a beautiful Spring afternoon that just happened to be an anniversary of two of the worst tragedies to befall my hometown, New York, before 9/11.

A Budding Season

 Wednesday, on my way to work, I rode by St. Nicholas Park, which sits on a bluff between City College and central Harlem. The day was just warm and bright enough to herald Spring, but the wind nipped just enough to remind me that, perhaps, Winter wasn’t finished with us yet. 

I decided, however, to focus on the advent of Spring when I saw this: