From The Neighborhood

Yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks, I felt decent and had a few free hours at the same time.  So I went, naturally, for a ride.

The sky was as blue as the air was crisp:  Fall had arrived, if not officially, and yet another summer, another season, had passed.  On such a day, I can understand how someone can be agoraphobic:  An open space--whether of land or sea or sky--can seem like a huge, yawning emptiness when there are no markers, physical or emotional.

So all anyone can do--or, at least, all I could do-- was to move through it.  That I did by pedaling, by pedaling Tosca, my fixed-gear bike.  I had a feeling I wouldn't ride a lot of miles, and that I'd ride them slowly, so I wanted to get some kind of workout from them.

As it turned out, I rode about 50 or 60 km, or a bit more than 30 or 35 miles, along the steel and glass shorelines and brick byways that have lined so much of the path of my life. 

A meander from the East River and the bay took me into the heart of Brooklyn, specifically to this place:

On the sidewalks in front, and across the street, from this building, careworn and harried, yet content, men and women prodded groups of pale but energetic children as their feet stuttered about the grid of concrete blocks.  Although those children looked different from the way my brothers, my peers and I looked, something was very, very familiar about the rhythm of their steps and their calls to each other.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised.  Although I had not been there in quite some time, I know that building, and that block, as well as any in this world.  In fact, I know it so well that I can tell you that nearly half a century ago, it didn't have the canopy you see in the photo.

Nor did it have the gate that now encloses the courtyard:

By now, you may have guessed that I lived in that building very early in my life.  Some of my oldest memories, for better and worse, are of those days.  

I think it's a co-operative now rather than the building of rental apartments it was in my childhood.  Also, as you probably have guessed, it's populated by families of Hasidic Jews.  In my day, nearly all of the families--of whom my family knew most--consisted of Italian- or Jewish (non-Hasidic)-Americans.  The men worked blue-collar jobs or had stores or other small businesses and the women stayed home and raised us.  In that sense, I guess we weren't so different from the people who live there now.

Then, as now, it was very unlikely that a woman--much less one like me--would have been riding a bicycle down that street--or, for that matter, any of the other streets I pedaled yesterday.  I turned, not quite at random, down a series of avenues and roads and other byways until I reached the southwestern part of Bensonhurst, not far from Coney Island.

I wasn't feeling hungry, but I stopped at a pizzeria--Il Grotto Azzuro--on 21st Avenue, near 85th Street.  From the street, it looks like one of many others of its kind.  But I went in anyway.

"Can I help you?"  The man's accent seemed even more familiar than anything else I'd experienced throughout my ride.

After ordering a classic Neapolitan slice and a white slice, he chimed, "You're gonna have the best pizza there is.   How did you know you were gonna find it here?"

"I followed my nose," I intoned, playing along.  "I always follow my nose when I'm riding my bike."

Somehow I sensed his claim wasn't hype.  Even if it wasn't the best pizza, the guy really believed that it was.  After finishing both slices, I ordered another Neapolitan, even though I was quite full.  "You're right!," I exclaimed.

Those Neapolitan slices were certainly the best I've had in a while.  Even though they were slices and it was five in the afternoon--near the end of the lull between lunch and dinner--they and the white slice tasted fresher than many I've had from whole pies.  

Sometimes, in the course of a bike ride, a slice of pizza or a bottle of beer can seem like the best you've ever had because you're tired or hungry. (I think now of the sugar and lemon crepe I gulped down after pedaling up Le Col du Galibier.  I've had dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other crepes in France.  But that one was the best.) However, I felt surprisingly good in spite of my recent illness and, as I mentioned, I wasn't hungry when I found Il Grotto Azzuro.

It's been there a while.  As I ate, another customer--a lifelong resident of the neighborhood--told me he'd been going there for more than 30 years.  I hope it's there for at least that much longer: The neighborhood is changing. 

So fueled, I continued down to Coney Island where, after thumping and clattering along the boardwalk (All of it is now open), a guard waved me into Sea Gate, which counts Isaac Bashevis Singer and Beverly Sills among its onetime residents.   I'd heard the area, not surprisingly, took an even greater hit than the surrounding neighborhood from Superstorm Sandy.  But, while the beaches were as eroded as those in Coney Island (though less so than those of the Rockaways or parts of New Jersey), most of the houses seemed to weather the wind and tides well.  Most seemed little different from what they were at this time last year; a few were still being repaired.  

At one of those houses, someone who didn't know my name called me:

  
Of course I stopped.

He capped his head with the palm of my hand and tiptoed along the rails, rubbing the side of his body through my fingers.  I think he knew I'm "from the neighborhood."

Everyone's Riding Except Me

"Under the weather" is such a strange expression.

But, for the past week, it's how I responded to anyone who asked how I felt.  That, even though my respiratory system remained murkier and even more toxic than the Gowanus Canal through the week's meteorological cycles:   the mid-summer-like heat and humidity that cooked us until Thursday, that afternoon and evening's storm, and the autumnally crisp air and clear skies that have reigned ever since.

All I've managed to do, apart from a few errands, is two hours on Tosca, my fixie, late this afternoon.

It seems as if everyone else in the world has been riding a bike.  I know I should be happy for them.  I just wish I could be one of them, even if I don't plan on riding with them.

A "Bike Lane" Under The Tracks

In some of my earlier posts, I expressed ambivalence and even disdain for bike lanes.

While it can be very nice to be able to pedal on ribbons of concrete or asphalt where motor vehicles aren't allowed, too many bike lanes are as dangerous as, or even more dangerous than, the roadways and motorists from which the lanes separate us.

Such lanes end abruptly or make turns though intersections that put cyclists directly in the path of turning trucks and buses.  Others are not clearly marked--for pedestrians, motorists  or cyclists--which results in pedestrians walking into our paths as they're chatting on their cell phones, or drivers using the bike lanes to pass other motorists.

Still others go nowhere or are so poorly constructed that they're all but unusable.  But I've never seen one quite like this:

Above 10th Avenue in the very northern end of Manhattan, the #1 train of the NYC transit system rumbles and clatters. The tracks are supported by the steel columns posted every few feet in the bike lane.

I mean, if you can ride a bike, you can do anything, right?  Well, almost...I haven't quite mastered riding through immobile objects.

The sign in the photo is not an aberration:  One is posted on every other (more or less) steel column.    

A Peddler Pedals--Or A Pedaler Peddles

Most flea market vendors cart their wares in beat-up vans, pickup trucks or station wagons.  A few high-volume sellers, or those merchants who sell large items, might transport their goods in a semi.

Even with the increasing popularity of cycling,it's unusual to see itinerant entrepreneurs pedaling with the stuff they peddle.

That is what Marco does with the books, vinyl records and other items he sells in markets all over the city:

He was returning the bike to Hudson Urban Cycles, from whom he rents it. Such a bike is pretty difficult to store in a typical NYC apartment!

All Aboard The Bike Train

If you grew up in the US, or have studied American History, you know that the Underground Railroad isn't the New York City subway system and, in fact, has nothing to do with steel wheels screeching on tracks.

Likewise, a Bike Train isn't something Amtrak or any other railroad system has set aside for us.  It refers to a group of cyclists who ride, in a train, and are joined by other cyclists along the way.

I'll confess that I just learned about Bike Trains when I received a BikeNYC e-mail from Transportation Alternatives.  The cycling concatenation in question begins at the very upper end of Manhattan, near the Cloisters, and wends its way down the Hudson River Greenway to Midtown.  It departs at 8 on Friday mornings and is intended to provide "safety in numbers."

Bike Train in Brighton, England

More than two decades ago, I lived not far from the train's starting point.  Back then, they probably wouldn't have picked up very many cyclists until the caravan reached the area around Columbia University, nearly five miles to the south.  Or they may have had to go even further downtown before they had anything that could be called, without irony, a train.

 

Two-Wheeled Dreams

I rarely recall my dreams and, frankly, don't make much effort to do so.  I have enough trouble making sense of things that happen in my waking life, which are often less logical, and even more surreal, than anything I see after laying my head and closing my eyes.

That said, I have ridden bicycles in at least a few of my dreams, and bicycles I own, or have owned, have figured in others.

According to psychologists, there are all sorts of ways to interpret a dream of riding a bike.  It can be seen as a need or yearning for balance in one's life.  Some say that riding a bicycle uphill signifies bright prospects, while a downhill spin can be a warning sign.  

From Deniziazicioglu

Not long ago, I had a dream in which I lost and recovered Arielle.  And, last night, in yet another REM-induced vision, I was pedaling Tosca along a road that isn't one I ride every day, but I recognized from somewhere--somehow, upon waking, I thought it was France. Anyway, while riding through a valley, with sunflower fields fading from view, I spotted a bike I hadn't seen in years:  a Peugeot mixte my mother owned but didn't ride very much.  

I gave it to her one Christmas in my youth when I started to make some money and was trying to get everyone I know to ride bikes.  Actually, she talked about riding, as she was trying to get more exercise, in part, to ward off some of the illnesses that befell her mother.  

She hasn't had that bike in years.  If I recall correctly, she gave it away (after asking, almost apologetically, whether I'd mind) when she and my father moved. 

So, why was that Peugeot mixte doing in a dream that didn't include my mother?

 

An Inverted Ghost Bike

If you live in New York, or another city with a lot of cyclists, you've probably seen a Ghostbike:  a bicycle, painted white and locked to a signpost or other structure, to memorialize a cyclist (usually named on a plaque next to the bike) who was killed or severely injured.

They are stark and somber reminders of the fact that safe travel is still not seen as a right we, as cyclists, have in the same measure as motorists.  I also see it as a way to honor the memory of someone who, as likely as not, died needlessly.  On the other hand, such shrines probably convince others that cycling in urban areas--or cycling generally--is "too dangerous". 

Of course, succumbing to such a fear is not the way to make conditions safer, not only for cyclists, but also for pedestrians (who are probably killed as often as cyclists are), particularly those who are young children, elderly or disabled.

Likewise, one doesn't prevent war or any other kind of violence by acquiescing to one's fears about it.  As Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights movement showed us, the way to end or prevent war is to work for peace, and the way to combat injustice is to work for justice.

All right, I'll get off my soapbox now.  I got on it when I saw this:

I think of it as a kind of inverse--a photograph negative, if you will--to the Ghostbike.  The flower-festooned bike, parked at the corner of Hudson and Barrow Streets in Greenwich Village, is publicizing the "Peace Ride" led by Time's Up.  It leaves from the Ghandhi statue in Union Square Park at 2pm on the third Sunday of every month, and takes cyclists on a tour of the city's "peace sites".

Across The Bay

One of my more memorable one-day bike rides took me across the Golden Gate Bridge.

From Cyclelicio.us

Although, if I recall correctly, there is an ample guard rail on the side of the bike lane, I don't recommend the ride (or, for that matter, a walk across the bridge) to agoraphobics. The span itself is about 2.7 km long, and in the middle of it, you can see only the water beneath and on either side of you, and distant land in front of you.  

I haven't crossed the span in a long time.  But the memory of my ride was still fresh on 17 October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck California.  If you were watching the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants--the two Major League Baseball teams on either side of the Bay--you saw the quake strike as the two teams were warming up for a game scheduled that day.   

If you weren't paying attention to fall baseball, you saw later images of the quake, including those of the San Francsico-Oakland Bay Bridge, on which a portion of the upper deck collapsed.  The bridge later reopened, but questions were raised.

Thankfully, the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't damaged.  Still, I couldn't help but to visualize myself on it at the moment of the quake. I've been on drawbridges when they opened; I knew that the vibrations from an earthquake would be many orders of magnitude stronger than anything I experienced.  And, of course, had the quake moved in a slightly different direction, a part of the Golden Gate could have fallen out.

I recalled my ride, the day of the 'quake and my reaction when I saw an announcement someone sent me.  The eastern span of the new Bay Bridge will open on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, at 5 am.  The adjacent bike lane will open at the same time. The eastern span of the old bridge will be torn down as the western span of the new bridge is completed.

East Span of new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

I want to bike the Golden Gate again some day. And I'd like to cycle the new Bay Bridge to compare the rides--and, of course, the views.  

(I must say, I feel kind of sorry for both the old and new Bay Bridges.  The new structure looks like it will be lovely, and the old one wasn't bad. But they both have to compete aesthetically with the Golden Gate.  That's not a fair fight for any bridge!)

Two Views Of Cycling In New York

Guess where I took this photo:

You'd probably guess (correctly) New York, even if you've never been here.  After all, I haven't announced any trips to exotic places or given you any other reason why I'd be anywhere else.

I took the photo today, with my cell phone.  Now that you know what city is the setting, can you tell me which neighborhood?

You probably know that it's not Williamsburg.  I'll tell you that it's not Park Slope, Carroll Gardens or the Upper West Side. 

Actually, it's Harlem:  West 137th Street, between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards.  It's next to a part of Harlem called Strivers' Row and, to me, one of the most beautiful blocks in New York.

Now I'm going to show you another famous New York locale I've cycled many, many times, though not with the guys in the photo:

    
This photo, I'm guessing, was shot in the early 1970's, given the style of the photo and clothing,  from the blue-on-orange St. Mark's Place street sign--and, of course, the bikes.   
 

Always The Same: Revelations And Changes

Parisians and psychotherapists disappear for the month of August.  Sometimes I think of myself as a Parisian in spirit,even though I haven't been in eight years, but I have no illusions of being a psychotherapist.  So what's my excuse for being somewhat conspicuously absent this month?

Well, I've managed to be busy with other things, including writing projects.  Hopefully they'll remunerate me; for now I find them rewarding.  And, frankly, when I haven't been doing those things--or riding or playing with my cats--I've felt drained, spiritually and emotionally exhausted.  The pastor of the church I started attending a few months ago says I'm healing. She's right.

Still, I've managed, in the past week, to ride to Point Lookout (Nothing like a few hours riding Arielle to make me feel lithe!) and to take a few shorter rides--and to record a few things along the way.

I'll start with something I saw on my way home from some volunteer work:

Sometimes I think archaeology is the step between destruction and forgetfulness.  At least, that's how things seem to work in New York. Sometimes, when a building is torn down, a long-concealed sign,  like the one in the photo, is revealed.  

What particularly intrigued me was the bottom inscription:  "Separate Waiting room for women."  Talk about a relic!  My undergraduate college went co-ed only four years before I enrolled in it.  And, boys and girls entered my Catholic elementary school through separate entrances:  a practice that was abandoned a couple of years after my family moved away.

Given that I lived as a male until ten years ago, it's hard for me not to wonder and imagine what my life would have been like had I entered through the girls' and women's doors.  Of course, had I lived in such a world, I would not have attended the college from which I graduated.  In fact, I might not have attended any college at all.

In those times, I probably would not have witnessed this:

The stretch of Brooklyn waterfront between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges has been turned into a lovely park.  Not long ago, it was off-limits, as the neighborhood around it--DUMBO--still consisted of functioning and recently-ceased manufacturing and warehousing.  This stretch of waterfront, like so much of the rest of New York's shorelines, was used in various ways by those industries.  In fact, most New Yorkers had little or no inclination to spend any time by the water, as it was associated with rough trades and characters.  Fifth Avenue became Manhattan's most-desired address in part because, of all of the island's avenues, it is furthest from the East and Hudson Rivers.

Ah, but some things don't change:

That's one reason why I--and Arielle and, on occasion, Tosca--like to take a spin to Point Lookout.