Here in New York--and, I suspect, in other places--people are whining that bike racks and bike share ports are "taking away our parking spaces."
To hear them, you'd think there's a kind of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" scenario, in which every bike takes away a parking space.
They should see this:
How often, when we're on our bikes, do we see some place and tell ourselves, "I must come back!"?
It can be an interesting historic site or natural feature, or some beautiful (or simply odd) street- or land-scape, or piece of architecture.
Or it might be a restaurant or coffee shop.
I don't often see businesses with my name on them. I certainly wasn't expecting to see one in the middle of the Bronx, just a few blocks (and one stop on the #4 train) north of Yankee Stadium.
Notice that it's called "Justine", not "Justine's". I wonder if its proprietor read Lawrence Durell's novel by that name, or the George Cukor film based on it. (Anouk Aimee plays the lead role.) Or, perhaps, the owner read another novel by the same name--written by none other than the Marquis de Sade.
One of these days, I'll go back there. I wonder if restaurant reviewers ever consider a restaurant's name in writing their critiques.
I went to Stonehenge once, a long time ago. I don't know whether I'll ever make it there again. If I don't, this might be the nearest thing--at least visually--I'll see for a while:
I didn't have to leave the country--or, for that matter, New York State--for it. In fact, I didn't have to go very far from Queens. To be exact, I found it at Point Lookout. What it's doing there, I'll never know.
More to the point, I don't know who put it there or why. I'd love to know.
