We have this amazing invention called express service.
There are so many tracks that when one of our lines gets shut down, there’s always a workaround.
Our trains are filled with hip, weird, fashionable, messy, crazy, confident people. Loafer-wearing bureaucrats and terrified interns, not so much.
You can instantly tell one station from another because they’re all painted different colors.
Where else do you get to hear announcements like, “A crowded subway is no excuse for improper sexual conduct?”
We have the Manhattan Bridge, the best view in mass transit.
Randomly and without warning, a mariachi band will appear.
Got another reason the New York City subway is superior to the Washington Metro? Send it to me using the Feedback tab on the left-hand side of your screen and maybe I’ll use it in a future post.
There was a point when everything looked like hell. Banks were collapsing, threatening to take New York City down with them. Newspapers and magazines were folding all over the place. We lost Circuit City, the Virgin Megastore, and a lot of small businesses. Food supplies even got scarce enough to drive prices up. I remember talking to someone about the possibility that we might soon walk into a supermarket and find no bread on the shelves. This was only 2 years ago!
Today, the Dow closed up 2%, New York feels like its booming, and Newsweek magazine actually found a buyer. Even Blockbuster is still kicking.
“It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.” — The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1.
This summer I’ve been obsessed with “The Great Gatsby”. Yesterday I decided to ride my bike to the towns on the North Shore of Long Island where the book is set. How closely do these neighborhoods resemble the roaring ’20s kaleidoscope I see in my imagination when I read this story? Would I find Gatsby out there?
Important announcement: If you enjoy reading this blog, you should make a donation to the Livestrong Foundation. I will be riding my bike 100 miles in Pennsylvania on August 22 as part of Livestrong Challenge Philly. Your generosity will improve the lives of people with cancer.
On this especially beautiful Saturday, I rode my bike 72 miles out onto Long Island and back. Out there, I cruised around the north shore villages of Great Neck and Port Washington. There’s a very specific reason I chose these two destinations, which I will explain in a future post. Regular readers of this blog can probably guess what it is.
This evening I saw for the first time the MTA subway train which Target paid to have wrapped in ads, promoting a new store in Manhattan. This is the first time the MTA has covered an entire 10-car train with ads. The train is running on the 6 line.
How much? The reported cost of the ad is $250,000, though that might not be accurate. (It sounds high to me.) At any rate, the campaign is supposed to last 6 weeks and has been generally well-received by New Yorkers, who want the MTA to have more money and who find Target tolerable.
Today I rode from Brooklyn, up the West Side bike path, over the George Washington Bridge, and up through the Palisades (pictured) to Alpine, New Jersey. On the way back I took surface streets through Manhattan; I had to dodge a street fair (annoying!) on Bleeker Street.
My goal of this ride was to rack up some mileage on a hot day in practice for my Livestrong Challenge Ride next month in Pennsylvania. (P.S. – Donations welcome!) Round trip: 51.9 miles. Average speed 11 including breaks. Top speed of 32 achieved twice on downhills in the Palisades. High temperature in Central Park: 96. Bottles of water/gatorade consumed: 6.
“It’s as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots.”
— Gene Weingarten, writing about web comments in the Washington Post.
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Yahoo News is one of the mostpopular news web sites in the world. It has a problem, though. Every major story comes with a generous helping of the most vile hate speech you’ve ever seen.
Country radio stations recently started spinning a song called “Way Out Here” by Josh Thompson.
At first listen, it’s a celebration of the nobility of the American small town. On the second listen, it’s a rallying cry supporting God and guns, criticizing government welfare, and boasting that people from small towns are more likely to serve in the military. “If it was up to me I’d love to see this country run like it used to be,” Thompson sings.
So it’s a Republican political song. That’s fair. At least, until the chorus comes around, which goes like this:
“We’re about John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere, way out here.”
Special “heat advisory” edition. I need practice on hills, so today I rode over four bridges, in order: 1. Manhattan, 2. Queensboro, 3. Williamsburg, 4. Brooklyn. Not a perfect ride—I had to dodge some street fairs and got caught in Chinatown traffic trying to get from Delancey to Broadway during the last swing through Manhattan. Top speed: 31, achieved on the Queensboro bridge. Average speed: 10. Temperature in Central Park: 93. Map is below.
