It Could Have Been Me

Today I could have posted something faux-spooky or silly for Halloween.  But, as today is the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that hit close to home, I am going to repeat my post from the day after Halloween:

It could have been me.

I could not get that phrase out of my mind as I rode to work this morning.

It could have been me.

Today dawned bright and clear for me, as it did for them--yesterday.  A beautiful mid-autumn day, sunny, a little chilly but not unpleasantly so, with strong breezes shaking leaves turned red and yellow from their branches and rippling reflections of the sky, glass, steel and concrete at the mouth of the Hudson. 

In other words, the sort of day people picture in their fantasies about bike-riding in New York.

It could have been me.

And so they went for a ride, for fun.  I was riding, too, in an entirely different part of town, from my job back to my apartment.   Though they weren't going to work, many others who followed their path, on bike or on foot, no doubt were.  I myself have ridden along that path, to work and for the same pleasures they were enjoying.

I could have been one of them.

Five came from Argentina--old friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation from their high school.  Another came from Belgium, with her mother and sister.  They survived because they weren't with her.

I could have been her.

So could any of the kids who were leaving Stuyvesant High School at that very moment.  No doubt some of them sauntered along, or pushed or shoved each other (as high school kids are wont to do) into or along the path.  They would hang out with other kids.  Or they would go to practices in sports they play, languages they are learning, plays in which they are performing or skills for tests they will take and essays they will write in the hopes of getting into the colleges they or their parents choose.  One assumes that one day, at least some of them will be part of some 30th anniversary celebration, wherever in the world they may be.



They could have been among them.

Still others walked dogs, pushed strollers and held hands as they strolled along the nearby piers.  Or they sluiced through crowds on skates and skateboards.  They were all mere blocks away from the 9/11 Memorial and even closer to--though, as fate would have it, a world apart from--the Argentinian and Belgian tourists on bicycles.

I could have been with them.

For a time in my life, I was riding daily along the stretch of the Manhattan Greenway known officially as the Hudson River Greenway-- or more commonly as the West Side Highway Bike Path-- along the stretch that separates Greenwich Village, SoHo and Tribeca from the river.  At that time, it was part of my route to work.  Before and since then, I have ridden there for pleasure--sometimes as part of a city jaunt, as the tourists did yesterday; other times en route to a ferry or bridge that would take me to another part of my ride.  More often than not, I rode alone, but sometimes I'd accompany whomever I happened to meet--along the way to my job or wherever else I happened to go.

They could have been with me.

Every time I pedaled along that path, I was home within a few hours.  Today I will be home about 40 minutes after I leave work and get on my bike.  They, I am sure, thought they were going home, too--today, tomorrow, next week or the week after. 

I could have gone with them.

But they are not going home.  They probably never even imagined that they wouldn't:  They could not have foreseen the way their rides, their vacations, their journeys, would end.

It could have ended that way--for me, for anybody.

The Argentinians, the Belgian, never suspected that under a clear autumn sky in New York, death would descend upon them.  They certainly never expected it to come in the form of a van jumping the barrier that kept all of the other West Street traffic away from them, or for said van to be driven by someone who knew nothing about them except that they were riding bicycles peacefully.  On their bikes, they never expected to meet the fate of the folks sipping drinks at Le Carillon or listening to music at the Bataclan.  Or the ones enjoying a fireworks display on Bastille Day or shopping in a Christmas marketplace.  Or simply out on a summer day.

No one expects it to end that way.

Of those five Argentinians and the Belgian who went for a bike ride--and two others who went for a walk--on the West Side Bike Path, all that remain are mangled bicycles and shards of clothing and other personal items.  They went for a stroll, they went for a ride, and each of them is gone, gone, gone.

It could have been me.


I can only be grateful that it wasn't.  My thoughts are with the victims.

Where They Weren't Supposed To Go

Immigrants crowded together in conditions roaches and rats would have protested had Jacob Riis.

A couple of decades later, another exploited (and, to many, invisible) group of people had Lewis Wickes Hine.

Nearly a century before YouTube or podcasts, photographers Riis and Hine exposed the squalid and dangerous conditions in which the poorest and most vulnerable people lived and worked.  

Riis is most famous for his dispatches (He worked as a journalist.) from New York's Lower East Side--in particular, the Five Points area, which was believed to have the highest rates of population density, infectious diseases and murder of any urban neighborhood in the world.  Before Riis' photographs were published, few in New York's--or America's--more privileged classes had any idea of how people in such areas lived.

Hine, on the other hand, roamed the country and turned his focus (no pun intended) on child laborers.  Just as housing, health and safety codes were nonexistent during Riis' peak years of the 1880s and '90's, so were laws against child labor in the early 20th Century, when Hine did most of his work.

Among the laboring lads Hine documented were bicycle messengers, at least one--like the youngster in the following photo-- as young as ten years old:

In the documentation accompanying the image, he is identified only as "Western Union No. 5", working as an "extra" in Danville, Virginia.  He told Hine his boss was goint to lay him off for being too young, but an older messenger admitted they were trying to have him booted because he ate into their profits.

Earle Griffith and Eddie Tahoory worked for the Dime Messenger Service in Washington, DC. They said they never knew when they would go home at night--or whether they might get a call to the red light district.  "The office isn't supposed to send us" but "we go when we get the call."  As if to soften the blow--for themselves, perhaps--one of them added, "not very often."

Marion Davis, 14 years old, also made runs he wasn't "supposed to do" because he was under 16:  He went to the (Alabama-Coushatta) Reservation.  "The boss don't care and the cops don't stop me," he explained.

Here is another Texas messenger:

Unnamed, the 15-year-old was working for the Mackay Telegraph Company in Waco.  He seems almost stylish--or is he just cocky?  And is that a pipe in his mouth?

Also, look at his seat angle.  Did he have any children?

Speaking of style, look at the handlebars ridden by Percy Neville of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Like Marion Davis, he was working in an area where he "wasn't supposed to":  the city's red-light district.

Fall Contrasts

I'll admit that I've spent time looking at dying leaves, I mean, fall foliage.  This year it seems late in coming--or, at least, a little less colorful than usual.  I'm seeing fallen leaves in bike paths, on sidewalks and in other spots, but the leaves still on trees are green.

More noticeable signs of fall came, for me, on my ride to Point Lookout yesterday.

The reeds on the islands, and the plant life on the shore, never fail to reflect the season's colors.

Even more reliable, to my eyes,is the light surrounding them--especially on overcast days.  Clouds gather and seem to take on the depth of the sea; the sea and sky darken without actually becoming dark.  Yet the reeds and grasses stand, even as they age and turn sere.

Each of them stands alone.

I took a brief ride the day before, between bouts of torrential rain.  Ironically, I saw more color on one corner in Harlem than on my longer ride.

Looking at this building, you might guess that it's a studio or gallery. The latter assumption would be correct:  All of the work on the walls is done by local artists.  But this building serves another function.  Can you guess what it is?

Believe it or not, it's a pediatrics office.  Pediatrics 2000, to be exact.  Two doctors, as well as nurses and other professionals who help children, practice there.

Kids actually enjoy going there.  Their parents seem to like it, too.  The art is one reason.  Another is this:

There are no stairs anywhere in the building.  Only ramps connect the levels.  So, no kid (or adult) is stigmatized for being in a wheelchair.

The best thing is that everyone seems to think as highly of the doctors and other professionals in that building as they think of that building itself.

The kids get culture while doctors take their cultures. It sounds good to me!