From The Fourth to Le Quatorze

 Whenever I wasn't in the US for "The Fourth"--American Independence Day--I was in France, for "The Fourth" and "Le Quatorze":  the Fourteenth, a.k.a. Bastille Day.  

Today's the day in France, and for Francophiles all over the world.

I count myself as one. But even if you're not, try to remember that American independence is intertwined with the toppling of the ancien regime in France.  In both countries, revolutions were spawned by homegrown philosophers who questioned ideas of hereditary monarchy and nobility (even as, ahem, they owned slaves).

It's kind of ironic, really, that so many people in both countries celebrate their national holidays with picnics or barbecues in normally-tranquil parks and backyards--as fireworks explode, sometimes in the distance, sometimes not so far away.

And some of us, it's about the bike:

From Falling Off Bicycles

When The Lights Went Out

From A Leslie Wong Blog

During my lifetime, all of New York City was plunged into darkness three times.  I was in the Big Apple for two of them, and there was no looting or any other kind of violence. Today, I am going to write about the third.

On this date in 1977, right around sundown, lightning struck a line that relayed electrical power to New York City. At least, that is the official explanation for why, on a sweltering night and day that followed, lights went out, trains stopped and fans and air conditioners didn't work.  As cellphones were all but non-existent and very few people had computers, about the only way to know what had caused the disruption was through battery-operated radios.

The heat is a partial explanation of why so many parts of the city plunged into lawlessness and general chaos for 25 hours in 1977.  Indeed, the blackout of 1965 occurred on a mild, clear Fall night and while the 2003 blackout came on an August night it wasn't, or at didn't seem, as stiflingly hot as that July night in 1977.

But the summer of 1977 was part of a particularly difficult time for the city.  Less than two years earlier, the city came hours away from bankruptcy; on the night of the blackout, many people were still without work or other ways of supporting themselves or their families.  Also, crime was increasing rapidly in the years before the pandemic:  The Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing the area for about a year, seemed emblematic. Some would see the crime rate as a cause of the general sense that nothing--not the schools, not any of the other city services--was working; others would see it as an effect.  Whatever the case, a sense of desperation and anger filled much of the city, especially in its Brown and Black neighborhoods, where much of the violence occurred.

I haven't been able to find any accounts of whether people navigated the streets by bicycle in the absence of street lights.  I can feel pretty confident in saying, however, that bike shops were looted, along with other businesses:  Really, just about anything of value was taken.

(Some have said that the 1977 Blackout spurred the growth of hip-hop, in part because some would-be DJs, ahem, acquired their equipment that night!)

So why wasn't I in New York?  Well, I was with my parents in New Jersey that summer--the last I would spend with them--and baby-sat that night for one of my mother's friends.  We didn't lose our "juice," but I saw accounts of the stores broken into (sometimes by attaching a rope or chain between the store's front gate and a car) and fires set on TV.  At first, I thought it was a trailer for some movie or another:  Science fiction was big that year. (If I recall correctly, Star Wars came out around that time.)  Now, if I had been in New York, would the 1977 Blackout have been as peaceful as the ones in 1965 and 2003? 

Don't Use This Bike Lane!

Lately, I've had to ask neighbors and friends not to wave or call me when I'm riding down the Crescent Street bike lane, which takes me directly to my door.  I've explained that for almost any ride I take--whether it's to run errands on Steinway Street or to Connecticut or Point Lookout--the Crescent Street lane is the most dangerous stretch.  It's less than three meters wide--for bicycles, e-bikes, mini-motorcycles, motorized scooters and pedestrians, sometimes accompanied by their dogs, who wander into it while looking at their phones.  

The thing is, unless I'm crossing Crescent Street from  31st Road, the lane is the only way I can get to my apartment.  There is simply no room between the traffic lane and parked cars on the west side of the street or the parked cars and traffic to the east side, where I live.  Before the lane was constructed, I could maneuver my way through traffic, which can be heavy as the street is one of the main conduits between the RFK/Triborough and 59th Street/Queensborough Bridges. Then again, I am a very experienced cyclist and didn't have to contend with the scooters, e bikes and other motorized forms of transportation.

In addition, and a couple of blocks up from me is Mount Sinai-Queens Hospital and the ambulances and other vehicles that embark and return.  Furthermore, there has been residential construction along Crescent, so trucks are all but continuously pulling in our out of, or parking in, the lane. Oh, and even when there's traffic, some drivers still seem to think Crescent Street is the local version of Daytona or Indy--whether they're young men who just want to drive fast and make noise or commuters or other drivers who want to beat the traffic jams on the 59th Street Bridge or the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

So, I would tell anybody who doesn't need to use the lane--as I do--to stay away.  It was poorly conceived and constructed and, to be fair, when it opened--early in the COVID-19 pandemic--nobody could've anticipated the explosion of e-bikes, scooters and other motorized conveyances.

Mind you, the Crescent Street lane doesn't share some of the defects I've seen in other bike lanes in this city and country.  It is clearly marked and relatively easy to access from the RFK/Triborough Bridge.  The transition from the end of the lane to the 59th Street/Queensborough Bridge, or the local streets around Queensborough Plaza, could be better, but is still better than others I've ridden.

In light of everything I've said, I must say that I can't blame Bike Cleveland for advising local cyclists not to use the new Lorain Avenue bike lane.  According to BC. the lane, near the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, "is short-lived, and quickly  disappears and drops riders into the sharrow (shared)lane that has existed there for years." The bridge BC notes, is "well known as a haven for speeding motorists on the move to make the highway connection at the other end."

I've never been to Cleveland, but that sounds very familiar to me.