I've a question for those of you who commute: How much do you vary your routes?
Also: Have you ever made a wrong turn, or even gotten lost, on a ride to work or a routine appointment?
Today, I could answer "yes" to the first part of my second question. After wheeling out of my apartment, I proceeded two blocks further on 23rd Street than I normally would before making a right turn. You might say that subconsciously (or, perhaps, not-so-sub-consciously), I wanted to make that diversion: I had left early and the weather could hardly have been better. In fact, if I hadn't had to go to work, I would have made a few more "wrong" turns!
At first, what I got was nothing more than a slight change of scenery: I was riding along 30th Avenue, which I know but don't cycle very often because it is narrow and lined with stores. Motorists frequently pull away from the curb, or dart into any parking space that becomes available, without paying much attention to other motorists or cyclists. Also, pedestrians frequently dart out from between cars in the middle of a block, or saunter into that narrow space between the parking and traffic lanes, seemingly oblivious to everything else.
But, ironically, there was less traffic as I neared LaGuardia Airport. Actually, it does make sense: Wednesday is not a heavy travel day. From there, it wasn't far to the World's Fair Marina Promenade. Today was one of those days in which even the metallic hues of Flushing Bay seem almost idyllic.
From there, I crossed the Northern Boulevard Bridge and made a couple more wrong turns under some trees that haven't yet begun to change color. You might say that I was in a kind of seasonal denial, that I was holding onto one last moment of summer before going in to work.
The greatest irony of today is that, in spite of my meanderings, my office mates and students remarked on how early I arrived.
Now here's an interesting way to commute by bicycle.
Arthur Hotchkiss envisioned this monorail for bicycles as the future of getting to and from work when he built it during the 1890's. Most roads then would make today's potholed city streets seem like magic carpets; amazingly, many cyclists still pedaled "high-wheelers" or "penny farthings, which were much less stable and were more likely than today's bikes to be toppled by ruts and potholes. Hotchkiss' bike "railroad" spanned muddy fields as well as a stream.
Hezekiah Smith backed the project. He owned a factory in a western New Jersey hamlet--named for him-- that, at the time, was making about a quarter of America's woodworking equipment. Poor conditions, particularly when it rained, caused tardiness in his workers.
The bicycles that glided along the rail bore little resemblance to today's two-wheelers. They had two mismatched wheels (one 20 inches in diameter, the other 12). Instead of pushing on pedals, the cyclist had to repeatedly depress a ratchet mechanism as if he were pumping air into a tire.
There was only single rail. So one cyclist had to dismount and allow the other to pass before resuming his trip. As you can imagine, head-on collisions were frequent and tempers flared.
But these problems were not the ones that doomed the "railroad." Rather, the introduction of the "safety" bicycle (with both wheels the same size, along with improving road conditions, made bicycle commuting more feasible. So, the railroad's ridership declined and it went bankrupt in 1898. No trace of it--or Smith's factory. His company didn't survive the Great Depression.
It's interesting to think of what bike lanes would be like today if Hotchkiss and Smith's "railroad had survived a few more years.
To myself, I debated whether or not I wanted to publish this. Most of the "commemorations" of the 9/11 attacks seem like mindless chatter or grandstanding to me; I can scarcely stand to hear anything about it save from people--or their families or friends--who were directly affected by it.
But I thought this photo would be a simple yet eloquent reminder of what happened on that day:
These bicycles and the rack were retrieved from the wreckage of the Twin Towers and are now housed, along with other items recovered from the World Trade Center, in Hangar 17 of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Some of these bikes are twisted, almost mangled. But they are still locked to the rack. People rode them--probably to work--and locked them to the rack, where they will probably stay forever.
