The Big Pun

 You never know who you might meet during your ride

even if it’s a commute!

Urban Range

 

West 59th Street, Manhattan, from the saddle of Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.

Hunger Ride?

Another heat wave. Tomorrow will be even hotter. 

I didn’t eat anything before setting out on an early ride to Randall’s Island. On my way back, I started to feel hungry about five kilometers from my apartment.

We’re the pangs in my stomach a result of the ride, not eating breakfast—-or seeing this?:

Ghost Ride

 As I ride around New York City, I sometimes see “ghosts.”

Now, before you assume that I’m going insane, I am—at least in the opinion of some people—already there. Seriously, though, among the “ghosts” I see are buildings that are vacant or being used for entirely different purposes than the ones for which they were intended.

Also, there are what Esther Crain, the author of Ephemeral New York (one of my favorite blogs) calls “ghost” signs.  They usually were painted on the sides of buildings to advertise some business or another.  As often as not, that establishment is long gone. I found an exception just a few blocks from my new apartment:

Tierney Auto Body works is still in the same location but the sign has to be at least 40 years old:  The lower part of the sign (not visible in the photo) gives the telephone number—without an area code. Until 1984, all five boroughs of New York City were covered by the 212 Area Code.  But as fax machines and, later, cell phones become more common, the 212 area code was running out of phone numbers and new area codes were added. It then became necessary to dial an area code when calling within New York City.

While riding the other day, I discovered another “ghost” sign that dates from around the same time, or earlier:

Prospect Hospital, its name barely visible at the top of the sign, closed in 1985. That sign, like the one for Tierney, gives a phone number without an area code.

Another thing I found interesting is the sign’s proclamation that “alcoholism is a treatable disease.” Although researchers and doctors had been saying as much since the 1930s (when, incidentally, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded) that idea started to displace, in public perception, the old notion that alcoholism is a moral failing during the 1960s.

Speaking of the 1960s:  By that time, artists and intellectuals who were associated with the later part of the Harlem Renaissance had moved to East Elmhurst and Jamaica in Queens or (as in the case of John Coltrane) to Long Island. But during the Renaissance, theaters for movies, plays, vaudeville and other kinds of shows and exhibits flourished in Harlem. The “ghost” of one “shadows” a building that now serves as a church on 145th Street:

So, if nothing else, my bike trips show that you don’t have to be Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze or Whoopi Goldberg to see “ghosts” during your ride!

Oxymoron Enforcement

 Even after half a century as a dedicated cyclist, I still don’t understand what goes on in the minds of traffic and transit planners.

There are the bike lanes to nowhere that seem to begin out of nowhere—not to mention the ones that are ill-placed, -constructed and -maintained.  Oh, and then there are lanes and turns that seem to be designed to put cyclists and pedestrians in the most possible danger.

Sometimes, though, I wonder whether those planners—those who enforce policies or the law—have any idea of what they’re trying to tell us or a working knowledge of the language in which they’re communicating.

In earlier posts I have given examples of signs that seem to contradict the intended message, or are simply confusing, because of poor logic, grammar or syntax—or seemingly-unintended oxymorons. To wit:

Now, perhaps I’m missing something but I don’t understand how something can be “loud” and a “muffler” at the same time.  And even if such a thing could exist, how could it be “enforced,” strictly or otherwise?  Is that sign warning people that if they enter New Rochelle without a “loud muffler,” they could be penalized?  If so, what does the city deem an appropriate punishment for something that, by definition, cannot exist?

For the record, I cycled into New Rochelle without a loud muffler. I wonder whether there will be a peacekeeping force of violent pacifists stationed at the border the next time I enter the city from Eastchester.

A Short Ride On The Longest Night—And The Day After

Last night, I took my Winter Solstice ride.  Although I didn’t plan anything about it—except for one thing, which I’ll mention—I more or less knew I wouldn’t ride a lot of miles or climb. So I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike.

The one planned part of my ride took me to a house about a kilometer from my apartment:

The residents of that house, on 23rd Street near the RFK Bridge, turn their porch into a kind of miniature Christmas village every year. The electric trains actually run on their tracks; the Ferris wheel turns and some of the figures walk, dance and even sing.

A few minutes later, I came upon another display that, while not as dynamic, filled the street with its lights and colors. 

I continued to ride. I’m not sure of which motivated me more: those lights and colors, the crisp cold air or the complete absence of traffic. 

About the latter: It was a proverbial “calm before the storm.” Not surprisingly, the holiday rush began this morning: A seemingly endless stream of cars crawled and honked down my street and, it seemed, everywhere: When I took a ride out to the Malcolm X Promenade today, it seemed like everyone in the world was entering or exiting LaGuardia Airport, the Grand Central Parkway or any street leading to them.

As I rode today, I couldn’t help but to think about last night’s ride—and a man who sold fruits and vegetables from a stand in Jackson Heights. I stopped and bought a bunch of red Swiss chard, a string of tomatoes and a small bag of cherries because they looked good—and out of respect to that man who, like me, was outside on the longest night of the year.

Stopped In My Tire Tracks

 Has something ever stopped you in your tire tracks?

While commuting, touring, day-tripping or doing just about every other kind of riding except racing, I have stopped when I’ve seen something unusual or interesting. I more or less expect to make such stops when I’m somewhere I’ve never been before:  Whether I was seeing the chateau at Amboise or an elephant in the wild for the first time, I knew that such sights—or a marketplace that only the locals know—is as much a reason for my ride as, well, pedaling on unfamiliar terrain.

Perhaps nothing is quite as surprising, however, as pedaling through a part of my neighborhood I hadn’t seen in months and encountering something that not only differs from its immediate surroundings, but would stand out almost anywhere.

While spinning the pedals on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along 36th Avenue, I couldn’t have missed a house with such a paint job.  I know it had to have been built recently because, while the stoop and other fittings seemed to match those of adjacent houses—at least at first glance—they didn’t have the nooks and crannies (like Thomas’s English Muffins) of bricks that have weathered seasons and been painted over.

I saw a name plate by the front door.  Looking it up, however, was fruitless because it’s a name common to the Indian-Bengali community in that part of the neighborhood. My guess is that it’s the name of the person or family who built it. Whoever they are, they’re probably rich and eccentric.

At first glance, it reminded me of a Buddhist temple. Perhaps the nearby spice shop and Punjab restaurant and bakery had something to do with that. (I know: Punjabi people are as likely to be Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims or even Christians. My Eurocentricity is showing!) Then, for a moment, I thought of San Francisco about 35 years ago, before tech money remade it: Victorian houses were painted in colors you never would see on similarly-styled houses in Brooklyn, Boston or Montréal.

I believe that if I’d seen that house anywhere, it would have stopped me in my tire tracks.

Sunrise Ride Before The Heat

I've been busy during the last two days.

This morning, however, I was able to take a "beat the heat" ride.  Today, yesterday and Monday were "90/90 days, with temperatures (in Fahrenheit) and humidity exceeding those numbers.  

But, even with such summer-like weather, the days are becoming more autumnal in that every day, there's a bit less daylight than the day before.  A few weeks ago, the sky would have been in full-daylight mode at 6:30 am.  This morning, at that hour, I crossed Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn and, as I glanced to my left--back toward Queens--I saw this:

Beating the heat was just one benefit of such an early ride:  Rarely do I see a sunrise so filling an urban canyon!  

  

A Surprise During A Ride Without A Plan

Errands and things that weren’t so complicated that a politician or lawyer couldn’t further complicate them took up my morning.  

So, by afternoon, I wanted—and needed—to ride  I had no destination or route in mind.  I didn’t even know which bike I’d ride.  For some reason, Marlee sniffed around La-Vande, my King of Mercia. For some other reason, that was the reason I wheeled her out my door.

I zigged and zagged along waterfront promenades and side streets from my Astoria neighborhood to Williamsburg. From there, a detour led me into industrial areas of East Williamsburg and Bushwick where I found myself following a string of graffiti murals that seemed to unfurl like a videographic collage along my ride and led me to this:

The word “truck” over the window hints at the building’s former role as a tire shop.  Given the location, drivers or owners of those hulking industrial vehicles were no doubt most of their customers.

The new clientele, I imagine, are more likely to be fixing or fueling their psyches and, perhaps, accompanying friends, dates or partners than to be hauling steel stock or power tools.  The Bushwick Triangle—where Johnson and Scott Avenues intersect with Flushing Avenue—is a lounge.

Even with its new look and purpose, its shape reminds me of a much larger and more famous structure:  the Flatiron Building, often cited as New York City’s first skyscraper  Somehow, though, I can’t imagine it adorned with a mural like the one on the Bushwick Triangle—even if the Flatiron’s owners were inclined to, and the city allowed, it.

I am glad, however, to have encountered a fun and interesting visual surprise during a ride for which I had no plan.

Voices Of My Rides

In "Sounds of Silence," Paul Simon wrote, "the words of the prophets are written the on the subway walls."

I've been riding daily and haven't been on the subway.  But I have seen, if not the words of the prophets, then at least expressions of the zeitgeist, if from different points of view.

During my Saturday ride to Point Lookout, I chanced upon this in Lido Beach:

I don't think I've seen such a large US flag anywhere else, let alone in front of a suburban house.  When I stopped to take the photo, I talked to a man walking his dog.  He said the house is "outsize for this neighborhood" and that he's seen "the flag more than the people who live there."  I quipped that I've lived in apartments smaller than that flag.

Not only is its size overwhelming:  It's placed so that in whichever direction you walk, ride or drive, you can't not see it.

As I've said in earlier posts, ostentatious displays of outsized flags--often seen on the back of "coal rollers"--seem less like expressions of patriotism and more like acts of aggression.

In contrast, during yesterday afternoon's ride down the waterfront, from my Astoria apartment to Red Hook, I saw something more inclusive on one of the last ungentrified blocks of Long Island City.

The author of that bit of graffiti, I suspect, also gave us this:

That person is not the enemy of the flag-flaunters and coal-rollers--and would surely know that I'm not, either. 

What Color Are Their Burgers?

 An after-work ride took me through some familiar areas of Queens and Brooklyn.

When I say “familiar,” I don’t mean only that I know which streets go where.  I’ve seen some of those neighborhoods when you lived in them when you had no other choice—or where the people in them were, well, like me and my family when I was growing up and less like the person I am now. Indeed, I don’t think any of us could have imagined a woman in, ahem, middle age riding a bicycle—and writing a blog about it. 

(Of course, we didn’t know about blogs because they didn’t exist!)

Anyway, I can remember when Cobble Hill was an enclave of blue-collar Italian-Americans, like some of my relatives.  Court Street was a corridor of stores, cafes and bakeries, some of which served and sold the sorts of things what the proprietors’ families made and ate themselves.  

In other words, whether it was American, Italian or Italian-American, it was rich but unpretentious: No one tries to make the pastas, pastries, pizzas and parmigianas (chicken, eggplant or otherwise) seem like anything other than what they were. 

So all I could say was, “There went the neighborhood “ when I saw this:

There was an old joke that people like me didn’t know we came from working-class or blue-collar backgrounds until we went to college and encountered those terms in a sociology class—or people who didn’t come from those classes.

Likewise, only people  who comes from privilege can go to a place like that because it’s their idea of “blue-collar,” just as they choose to go to “dive bars” (or even call them such) if they have the monetary or social capital to go to a place people are chauffeured into.

I wonder whether those “blue collar” burgers are made from organic New Zealand grass-fed beef—and served on avocado toast and washed down with a triple IPA aged in an oak barrel previously used for a vintage wine or single-malt whiskey.

A Journey Blossoms

 What would my younger self have thought?

My younger self was not only, well, younger, but also stronger, skinnier and perhaps sillier: Even after I’d given up on racing, I prided myself on riding like a racer.  Some of that may have had to do with living as male and riding, if not solo, then mostly in the company of male riders who were racers, ex-racers or wannabes.

Now I’m going to make a confession: While I sometimes rode just as hard and fast during my solo rides, on other solo rides—and only on solo rides, I’d stop to look at buildings, trees or flowers.

Which is what I’ve been doing lately.  In this part of the world, we are entering the peak of cherry blossom season and I’m becoming a blossom rider—or a cherry chaser?

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that few things make me happier, if for a moment, than those pink blooms.  (Lilacs, which should be showing up soon, are another.) 

It’s not just their prettiness that moves me.  I must say that I never understood haiku or Japanese art (or why it so inspired Monet and other Impressionist artists) until I paid attention to cherry blossoms.

You see, haiku isn’t just about the syllable count and Japanese painting isn’t only a style.  Both are about experiencing the beauty and intensity of something in a moment but appreciating that moment’s ephemerality. And that, I believe, is the reason why there’s so much respect for elders and ancestors in Japanese culture.

So…while my recent rides have been sensual and aesthetic experiences—which my younger self would have secretly embraced—they have also been lessons which, possibly, my younger self could not’ve understood.

To Which Side Did This Ride Take Me?

The days are growing longer, however slowly.  That's a sign of Spring approaching, even if the past week's weather has been colder than a month ago--or what I experienced when I arrived in Paris during the first week of January.

But I am happy to have enough daylight late in the afternoon that I can sneak in a ride after classes.  So I took a spin down "Hipster Hook" from my apartment into Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and back through the still-bluecollar and industrial areas along the Brooklyn-Queens border.

Along the way, I stopped in what has to be one of the strangest, and in its own way, charming stores in New York.  I thought the sign might have been a "leftover" from some previous owner:  The lettering fonts and overall styles look like they're from the '50's, and delis, bodegas and the like no longer have to announce themselves as "self-service," as customers are accustomed to picking up what they want and paying for it. On the other hand, in France and other European countries in marketplaces and  stores that aren't supermarkets, you ask the fruitier or fromagier or whoever is working there--who might be the proprietor--for what you want and they pick it out for you. That was still common in the US, or at least here in New York, when I was growing up.

Anyway, the reason why I call this store "charming" is that it is unlike any other I've seen here.  It has all f the things you'll find in a deli or bodega, from coffee to cat litter.  But it also has a hodgepodge of items you might find in a dollar, or any other thrift, store:  small tools, housewares, stationery and the like.  

If you go there, you'll probably encounter something like what I saw: Gnarled, dessicated and otherwise weathered old customers buying lottery tickets and brands of beer that, I thought, disappeared 40 years ago alongside hipsters and wannabes buying craft beers I hadn't heard of, organic hummus and light bulbs. 

Oh, and the store includes something that was a veritable industry 20 to 30 years ago but is now as rare, and dated, as cuneiform:  movie rentals.  I don't know of any place in my neighborhood, or any place else in New York, that still offers this service.  I don't plan to avail myself to it since I no longer have a functioning player, but it's interesting to know that such a service still exists.  Best of all, there are gnarled, dessicated and otherwise weathered old customers buying lottery tickets and brands of beer that, I thought, disappeared 40 years ago alongside hipsters and wannabes buying craft beers I hadn't heard of, organic hummus and light bulbs.

Speaking of relics and artifacts:  On the ride back, I encountered these:

Those graffitoes have graced the wall of Calvary Cemetery that faces, ironically, Review Avenue in an industrial area along Newtown Creek.  I remember seeing them as a kid, when my family and I went to visit relatives nearby.  (Calvary wasn't the only cemetery we passed.  How did that affect my emotional development?) And I've seen them a number of times, usually from the saddle of my bicycle.

I have wondered what those people were like (or if they were real!). Did Marty and Janet stay together--get married?  Divorced?  Did one of them "come out" in his or her 40's?  And Joe?  Sometimes I imagine a blue-collar Brooklyn or Queens guy, like an older brother of one of the kids I grew up with. Was he sent to Vietnam?  Has he lived a long and happy, or a turbulent, life?  For that matter, are Marty, Janet and Joe on the side of the wall from which I encountered their "tags?"  Or are they on the other side?

PEDs For The Mind?

Sports leagues and governing bodies are cracking down on the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).  At least, they want you to think they are.

Of course, if the overlords and oligarchs that reign over teams and tournaments are going to assure the public that their favorite performers aren't examples of "better living through chemistry," they have to clearly define what constitutes a PED.

Usually, those substances are seen as the ones that build muscle mass or sensitize nerves so that athletes can hit harder, jump higher, run or pedal faster or longer or exceed whatever they thought they (and their competitors') physical limits were.

Now, any athlete and anyone who coaches, trains or teaches one can tell you that the mind is as important as the body.  So, should drugs that calm or excite a person--or expand his or her consciousness--also be considered PEDs?

If so, someone who wanted to win the race, game or match, or set a new world record, but believed, shall we say, that the end justifies the means, might want to check out this:

Now, I'm sure that the pharmacy, located in Flushing (the "Chinatown" of Queens) is perfectly legit.  I couldn't help but to wonder, though, just what sorts of drugs Confucius would prescribe or dispense--and whether FIFA, the IOC, UCI or other governing bodies would approve of them.   

Commuting: A Detour Into A Season

 

Interesting, what detours on a morning bicycle commute (yes, I'm doing that again: more about that later) will bring into view.

First, in an industrial area of Long Island City just south of Silvercup Studios, I had to detour for this:

 

OK, I'd seen it before.  But if you're pedaling down 22nd Street and pass under the overpasses for the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge and the #7 train of the MTA, turn right and then left,  you'll run into something that disrupted the street grid: 

Some time in the past, I started a search I just may resume.  Specifically, I was (and am) curious as to whether that rock outcropping was left in place because it was too hard to break or blast  (there are a few similar outcroppings in Upper Manhattan for that reason)--or, perhaps too expensive.  Or, for all I know, someone or some group of people didn't want it destroyed.  Could it have been sacred to people who no longer live in the neighborhood?

The other morning brought a crisp, cool breeze and a blaze of color some living beings--I include myself, sometimes--hold as a store, a memory, against the season that inevitably follows.

Whenever I see a leaf or a flower, I see a hand.  Sometimes it is trying to capture water, light--or to hold whatever time it may have left.  I couldn't help but to wonder whether those leaves I saw not far from the rock were trying to hold onto their beauty in that moment--or whether they were bleeding away, however slowly, those last flickerings of the light they still hold.

I know that since I've returned to the classroom, my experiences, and those of my students, are different--whether in obvious or not-so-obvious ways--from what they, and I, experienced before the pandemic.  I wonder whether it has anything to do with bicycle commutes like the one I did the other morning.