New York on a Bike
I’ve ridden my bike along the Grand Union canal, through England and Wales, on the London to Brighton bike ride and from Calais to Genoa, but a 9 ½ hour bike ride with a friend in New York was more incisive than all of those put together.
I live on the Upper East Side, an area with more near-dead old ladies and cobwebs than any other area of Manhattan. There are a lot of clothes shops (for example, the shop on the corner sells extremely fashionable maternity dresses), high-priced delis, art and antiques shops, picture framers, restaurants, cafés and bars, but no place to buy an affordable drink. Old people, rich people, beggars, rich kids, pampered puppies, Mexican delivery boys… you get the idea.
We rode north through south Harlem, towards the Bronx. Harlem can be a scary place at night, but is fairly mild during the day. For example, the last time I walked through Harlem at night, down along St. Nicholas Ave. I was offered crack, prostitutes and stolen wares, saw an enthusiastic but verbal gang fight, a man beating a woman I can only imagine was his sexual partner, and met Marvin the diabetic, aids-infected, homeless, divorced, estranged alcoholic. This time we didn’t see much, and got onto the bridge.
The Bronx looks fairly similar to a third world slum. There are a few apartment blocks that house the entirely black and Hispanic population, and a lot of smaller houses that are run-down, windowless or boarded up. We passed broken down cars, abandoned factories and warehouses, delis with cages and bullet-proofing, a huge amount of litter and fast food joints so shiny that they looked almost obscene amongst this filth. Kids roamed the streets like stray dogs, wearing ridiculous outfits that gave the impression that the Bronx is currently going through the aftermath of an unsuccessful invasion by ghetto Hispanic smurfs. Speakers blared 80s Cuban disco and gangsta rap from cars surrounded by kids in amazingly baggy clothing (amazing because it doesn’t simply fall off them).
The level of poverty there is no joke, and yet there was actually a very light and friendly feel to the place. There were many pavement-side barbecues going on. It is not uncommon to see entire families, from tiny children to great-great grandparents, lining the pavements on chairs and chatting the day away with grilled food and beer. Still, I was amazed to find that my friend left his house unlocked, but we hardly stopped, picking up his dogs and taking them for a run.
Next came the Tri-Borough Bridge, which connects Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens over a small island called Randall’s Island. This Island has a strange feel to it, because it has baseball fields, tennis courts, football pitches (both “American” and, err, “world”), basketball, handball, netball, dog-walking areas, barbecues, picnic tables and a huge amount of grass, and yet it hides in the shadow of this giant concrete overhang with a constant hum of cars whizzing by. The poverty of the Bronx and Queens was still evident in the parked and run-down cars. On the bridge we passed used condoms and dirty knickers.
And yet here there was a golf range. I hit 120 golf balls, my first ever. It hurt. My co-golfers seemed fairly well-off, they all had the full golfing kit, and they were friendly enough to give me some “unauthorized coaching,” which, as a sign said on my way over there, was strictly prohibited. We went for a cold drink, ate a sausage and dropped off the dogs at his house. Oh, and we bought an ice cream from the driver of a Mr. Softie van, who admitted to us that he heard the ice-cream song when he went to sleep at night, and even sometimes hears it on his days off.
We made our way down the Hudson River bike-path. This is an exercise performance. America is not like England, where someone goes out in shorts and t-shirt and gets sweaty for a while. No. Here they look like professionals in the middle of a marathon, sporting sponsored bike tops, proper cycling shorts, American flagged bandannas, cycling gloves, wraparound sunglasses…it’s pretty strange to see. Even the joggers have to have all the right stuff. If they aren’t wearing varsity clothing they are in dedicated jogging tops, often with pouches at the base of the spine to hold small water bottles, complimented by miniature iPods strapped to their biceps. Mothers rollerblade behind high-tech prams. Huh.
Along the Hudson you pass the St John The Divine chapel, which is the biggest chapel in North America. There are outdoor cafés, a free kayaking pier, homeless people (funnily enough, I saw one of them with a sign which said “unhappy, homeless Jew” on it; both latter words rendering the former obsolete), sailboats, a trapeze training place, a helicopter port, a warship—the Intrepid Museum—covered in guns and planes, and a beautiful array of fountains, piers and walkways. At 42nd St there’s a pier from which it is possible to take a ferry ride either to Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty, or just around Manhattan. This pier is surrounded by tourists, and the people trying to make money off of them. A motionless person in a Statue of Liberty costume caught my eye. How could she stay with such grace and composure throughout all this heat? On cue she answered, getting off her soap-box and reaching around to unzip and remove the costume. Out popped a little mustachioed Mexican man. Now that’s NY.
We rode all the way down to Brooklyn Bridge, which connects the southern tip of Manhattan to Brooklyn. Near it there was a huge sailboat from 1811 called Peking, covered with ropes, and nearby a market offered free outdoor square-dancing lessons. But we went on, over the bridge, past all the swarming tourists (the bridge was packed), and into Brooklyn.
Everyone tells me that Brooklyn is a very cool place to live. It’s a little strange, because I think the transition from shitty to trendy happened rather quickly, and so there’s still a lot of boarded up windows and dodgy-looking streets juxtaposed with all these trendy bars. This is a different kind of trendy, though. Here these people are called “hipsters.” In England they’re called “twats.” Anyway, we had come to Brooklyn for pizza, and decided to go to Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, the most famous pizza in NY. But the queue outside was at least 45 minutes long, so we settled on a nice, dim bar, which served us beautiful $12 burgers and a pint of Newcastle.
Satiated, we set off, again, now into Williamsburg. Suddenly we seemed to be in the Hassidic version of the Twilight Zone. EVERYONE was Hassidic. The girls were dressed in long dresses and shawls, and guys in black gowns were topped with these strange hats that looked like someone had decided to coat a wheel of jarlsberg with black bear fur, and then stick it on their heads. They were all out with their kids, most of whom seemed pretty bored. Still, this is only on a Saturday. Normally this area is not very exciting. Everyone in Brooklyn looks cool and either unhappy or bored. Strange haircuts come as standard.
On the way back over the Williamsburg Bridge there is a large sign that says YOU ARE NOW LEAVING BROOKLYN. OY VEY! And on the other side, there is the East Village. The East and West Villages, as they are called, house the biggest nightlives in the city. Considering what we had just come from, it was quite a shock. We were almost immediately confronted with beautiful women, all over the place, wearing risky clothing and all the exclusivity NY can muster. It was like stepping into Hassidic hell, except for the fact that these people were very, very rich. Huge lines had formed outside clubs selling $300 bottles of Absolut.
For a final bit of fun we stopped at Magnolia Bakery, which sells Manhattan’s most famous cupcakes. I stood next to a couple of guys with cigars, and decided to try out a joke. “Excuse me, guys, could you spare some change? I only make $45,000 a year and I’m trying to make rent. I can’t even get my clothes dry-cleaned; I have to go to a laundrette!” I had forgotten that the more wealthy one is, the less funny they become. They both took me seriously. The comment that made me laugh the most, however, was when one of them said, “at least you’re honest”.
Finally, cupcakes on board, we set off home, first of all past an area with a melee of more incredibly beautiful women, this time in the most pretentious part of the city that I think there is: the West Village. Then, up past 4th St. (quaint and with bars), Union Square (where NY students feel camaraderie and skate, and BMX, and sit on steps, and play the drums), and over onto 3rd Ave., (cars, cars, cars) before he dropped me off on 96th St. It took 9 1?2 hours, to do all of that, and I got home with my T-shirt a wet, filthy mess and with inner thighs so painful I had to walk up the stairs like a cowboy with testicular elephantitis.
New York, NY. A mosaic of cultures.
