Cycle Across America — Part 04
Cycling into New York City
Excerpts from the journal of my 1996 solo cycle across the US. Read the entire story from the introduction in Boston or see links to all segments of the trip.
[Excerpted from words I spoke into a tape recorder]
Monday night. New York City. In and around ten I think, I’m not sure.
Quite a day. Absolutely exhilarating. Cycling, into New York state and ultimately into Midtown Manhattan where I am now. Right through the Bronx, which is just fantastic, and then right through Harlem, which was also but not as much only because it was smaller, and finally you’re in Central Park. Cycling down Fifth Avenue, and Third Avenue, and Second Avenue.
Leaving Connecticut was odd. Thought I’d follow small roads parallel to Route 1 because I assumed it would be dangerously heavy with commuting traffic all heading into New York. But it was deserted. So I took it most of the way. The commuting traffic was all on I-95, stuck, or crawling. I could see it often up over my left shoulder through a gap between buildings, as I whizzed along faster on the large and empty Route 1.
Built up all the way. Two-storey buildings. Close in for the town centres and between the centres the buildings would step back from edge of the road to let a few trees grow. A lot of red brick. Which meant the more distinctive buildings were in stone or wood. Westport was the first place after Fairfield. It bleeds into Norwalk. The road gently snaked and softly undulated, like a kids roller-coaster, in an easy way, enough to give it interest without tiring you by making you climb repeatedly. And every time I went under or over I-95 I got to see its bumper-to-bumper nightmare while I ambled along on an empty 4-lane road.
After Darien was Stamford and the buildings leap in size. Greenwich and the buildings calm down again, but like Stamford I’ve heard of it so it must be near New York state. I was feeling the excitement. I remember that feeling when cycling into Paris. And London. A green sign. Welcome to New York, the Empire State.
Port Chester. All a bit nice. Then big roads everywhere. Interstates, dual-carriageways. Hold your nerve. Keep going. And then it all went green. Must be expensive to live by there. Mamaroneck and La Rochelle. Names I’ve looked at on maps for years. Liking the buildings. Three and four storeys, with flat roofs. A glimpse of tall buildings in the distance. Too near to be Manhattan though.
Before I came into the Bronx, in New York State, you hear zzzzhhhh, the window goes down beside you and the driver shouts across the passenger, presumably his wife,
-Where you headed? Florida?
-South, and then west. California.
And then the lights went green.
When the road gets too awkward, too dangerous to cycle on, you turn off it. You go with the flow and don’t stop, can’t stop, to unfold a map. Direction wise it’s all a funnel anyway, with all roads leading into the narrowness that is Manhattan Island. It’s just that you can’t go on all the roads if you want to stay alive. Then stone walls and leafy-ness. The Bronx Zoo. It felt cooling by the wall. Fordham Road and I’m thinking of the Wolfe Tones. I was aiming for Third Avenue to get me across the Harlem River between the Bronx and Manhattan.
Coming in through the Bronx there was an area which would’ve been — oh it was huge and it went on for maybe forty-five minutes — 100% black. With the exceptions of people inside cars, and ya couldn’t really see inside cars, I was the only white person around. But you had to stop and think about that. Probably after the first two minutes I didn’t.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as dirty on the bike as I was when I got in here. Just the sheer filth that I picked up coming through, not here — it’s clean here in Mid-town — but coming through the Bronx mostly — it stinks. It stinks like China smelt. Smog everywhere. My face was black. It was almost impressive.
There’s great views going across the Third Avenue bridge because you’re basically looking at loads of other bridges. They’re just fabulous. In fact you can see the Brookyln Bridge in the distance as well. The angle — I must check that on the map.
And then Harlem.
Straight off the bridge and the road throws me — I don’t know — but next thing I know I’m zig-zagging through neighbourhoods trying to look like this is where I intended to be. With my Dublin jersey, fully loaded bicycle, and white face. I had tried the same thing back in some town in Connecticut a couple of evenings ago when I ended up accidentally in a residential area going nowhere. Then a bunch of young black women all laughed their heads off at me. That never happens to me in Neilstown.
Huge brown tower blocks. People everywhere. They were talking to me. I was in the middle of a Spike Lee film. Clockers.
There was a buzz, a vibrancy, a vitality off the place. There was music everywhere. An old man oozing elegance, he was crossing the street and eased up to let me through, and as I went past said,
-Have a good ride!
In the middle of a city this big, that’s kinda nice.
Once you get through the Bronx and Harlem you’re into tidier streets, shall we say streets that don’t stink so much. It’s actually quite easy. And I was still shown courtesy by several cars, both in the rougher outskirts and down here in Midtown — and by taxi drivers as well, who would stop and let me do whatever. But you can’t really go wrong on a grid system.
I went through nineteen thousand traffic lights today and they slow you down drastically, which is why if I have to go back on myself at all tomorrow, those lights are going to slow me down, and it doesn’t matter if I’m going at five in the morning or ten in the morning, traffic lights are going to be red and I’m going to have to stop. Though no other cyclist here stops.
Cyclists don’t stop. Even going straight through junctions, never mind going right or at a t-junction. And in-line skaters also don’t stop. It’s quite impressive to watch them — do a swerve so poised to stop if necessary and then go straight through on red without slowing down. Enjoyed watching them speed through Central Park also. This one guy in particular — he was not pedalling at all, or whatever you call it when you’re skating, moving your feet? — well he did this 500-yard stretch, a huge sweeping bend, crouched over, hands behind the back, feet wide apart, head pointing down aerodynamically, and he just, he was going a lot faster than I could cycle. It looks frightening.
I spent an hour in Central Park, just messing around. I saw the Carnegie Music Hall. The Ed Sullivan Theatre — David Letterman up in big letters outside and big crowds there. I passed Planet Hollywood and there were a couple of the biggest stretch limos I’d seen — though New York does seem full of the things.
Always thought the best way to see New York City for the first time would be from the water, but it would be hard to better today’s experience. It was as if the buildings slowly grew with me as I progressed through the day. They got bigger and bigger, almost as if they were rising up to meet me, until finally you’re in midtown Manhattan and you are embraced by skyscrapers in a giant welcoming hug from one of the world’s great cities.
And what a surprise when I get here. I’m up on the 42nd floor. Fair enough, so is an awful lot of New York — but there’s no buildings immediately around. So the view is staggering, despite the mist. It’s dark now but there’s still quite a tremendous view.
You’re looking at all of Midtown — it’s just there, sitting up. You can see straight down 60th Street at the south end of Central Park. Let’s see, we’re on West 60th Street so I can see the east on the far side straight over to the edge of the island. I can see all of Central Park, running right up and ending on the far side.
You can see across the other side, across the Hudson on over to Jersey and the way I’d like to go tomorrow. You can see all the piers down there — which I’d like to go to also. You can see the World Trade Center and of course the Empire State Building. Just there. Right there.
You could see an awful lot more earlier when it wasn’t so hazy and was brighter. The Statue of Liberty, Staten Island. My friend never told me he lived this high, and it never occurred to me to think I’d be getting views as well as accommodation.
The Trump Building is just over there. Columbus is over there himself, on a circle up a pole.
Let’s go outside, will we? There’s a balcony up here as well. Get a load of that. Forty two stories up. I’m scared of heights — I don’t like touching this railing. It’s just traffic. It actually sounds a lot worse than it is. Oh my God! My legs tremble. I don’t like this at all. Fantastic view. It’s so lovely and cool. There’s barges out there on the Hudson. I don’t know all the buildings so I can’t help ya. Let’s go in.
Declan’s girlfriend arrived. I wasn’t expecting her. Because I didn’t know she existed. She didn’t know I existed either, but she invited me out with her, to see Tracy Chapman in Central Park. That would’ve been fabulous but I wanted to see art, and more of New York.
My friends had argued over whether if you only had time to go to one gallery it should be the MOMA or the Guggenheim. Brian in Connecticut asked what I was interested in, and based on my answer told me to go to the MOMA.
So I spent hours in the MOMA until I was thrown out when it was closing. There were Cezannes there that weren’t in the big Cezanne exhibition I’d seen recently in London. You turn your head and there’s a Matisse I’ve never seen before. And indeed some I have, but in books. The biggest surprise for me was a Jackson Pollock, the way it’s framed by the square arch, it was just hypnotic. Lots of other of his stuff around as well. That painting was called “One: Number 31”. Fabulous lovely Matisse with Morrocans. Clifford Styll, Barnett Newman, Rothko’s were excellent. There was just so much. Derain’s, Matisse’s, Starry Starry Night was there, a couple of Gaugains.
Afterwards I just walked about grid-like for ages, backwards and forwards, up and down between here — which is between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues — and went over as far as Fourth Avenue, and just kinda combed the ones in between, the various streets from — I went down to about 50th and up to about 65th. Just zig-zagged. Looked at a lot of restaurants and finally ate in a bad one. Over ate. Pasta and pizza and garlic bread.
Em, problem though. How to get out of this place. I’m supposed to be in Philadelphia tomorrow evening. Spoke on the phone to some girl in my friend Vinny’s place. Said I’d be there at five, maybe seven. Not a chance in hell I’ll be there at five. There might be a chance in hell I’ll be there at seven.
But there are problems. Bridges, ferries, tunnels, islands, construction, permits. The Gaugols Bridge from Staten Island to Jersey is closed for construction. So I can’t get off that island. Well I can, I can get off the Bayonne Bridge and come back on myself by about ten miles. There are ferries to Hoboken and Weewauken but you have to have a permit for the bike from the New York City Department of Transportation.
So I’m spending a lot of times peering at maps and drinking tea. The plan — because I keep coming up with plans — what I’m thinking of is a taxi. A taxi through a tunnel.
There’s the radio. Let’s higher this up a little bit:
<<radio>>
-the channel forecast. Clear skies, low 72 tonight. Sunshine and humid tomorrow, 89. Sunshine hot 88 for Wednesday. Wilting 73 at 77 at PLJ World Headquarters.
-Danny Knights here, hello
-Hi
-This is trivia. How long would the TV show ‘Baywatch’ be if you took out all the shots with bathing suits in them ?
-Forty Two minutes ?
-Oh forty two minutes ! That’s how long it is once you take out the commercials. Well thanks for trying. Hello.
-Hi
-What do you think ?
-Five minutes ?
-That’s right ((applause)) Put a stopwatch on it next week and see.
-Are you serious ?
-I’m dead serious.
-Oh my God that’s crazy.
-And I’m also very serious that I’ve tickets here for you and a guest. James Taylor at the Garden State Arts Center tomorrow night. And dinner before the show.
-That’s great !
-More commercial free music with Alanis Morrisette and The Police coming up on PLJ
-This summer in the Garden State Arts Center in one of over 45 performances in the 1996 Budweiser Concert Series coming shows include: The Beach Boys, August 25th; ’70s Music Explosion, The Village People, KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, and Kool and the Gang, this Friday; Meatloaf, this Sunday.
<</radio>>
I’m going to make more tea. Declan’s got a teapot as well. A big one. He’s got a big kettle and a big teapot. So life’s working out kinda ok.
Read the next segment: Part 05 — New York to Philadelphia
See: links to all segments of the trip
Read from the beginning of the trip in Boston
