The weather yesterday was so beautiful that my lazy arse couldn't refuse myself a nice bike ride but i wasn't content with just a turn around the park, i wanted to explore other parts of Brooklyn. So I pulled out an old issue of TONY that featured worthy local bike rides and set off. I biked from Park Slope to Manhattan Beach and back. Who knew there's a Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn? I didn't. It's WAY better than Coney Island but also WAY smaller. But beach aside, the real interesting part to me was riding through the different neighborhoods. Having grown up here I know NY is a salad bowl but it's another scenario entirely when you see so much in a few short hours within the same borough. I managed to biked through Park Stroller into areas where there were signs identifying Punjabi restaurants, people speaking in Arabic, Asian folk playing handball, black folk hanging out on stoops, Hasidic Jews minding the kids, and finally Russians hanging out on the beach. I think I even saw a group of Nepalese men chatting in front of a bodega. In between there were some beautiful and ginormous suburban looking homes with manicured lawns on Ditmas Avenue, Brooklyn College (where Michael Cunningham teaches) in front of which i passed a trainer from my gym, before finally reaching a marina and ultimately the beach. I was in bike lanes pretty much the whole time but i wouldn't recommend the ride if you're afraid of car traffic.
I was reminded while i was riding that part of why I love NY is it's diversity. People fight all over the world, yes i'm mindful that this country is partaking in a grievous war, but in NY people of all backgrounds live in the same borough blocks away from each other. The fact that I could hop on a bike and encounter such a variety of people is amazing. I don't have to get on a plane to go anywhere. The world comes to NY.
On the ride back amidst comments coming from cars like, "hey, can i ride with you," and stares from small children in schoolbusses gawking at me on their way home, and the beginning of fatigue setting in since i was riding home on a flat rear tire I thought, 'hey, this is pretty cool that i got to do this.'
1 comment:
Totally cool B, I wish I was there riding with you insteadd of being stuck up in that stuffy office!
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