Thursday, January 26, 2006
Step outside and into adventure: Walk to work
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Since the transit workers have rejected the proposed MTA contract, it may be time to revisit this transportation alternative. I first tested it on December 20, Tuesday morning, and will try to include it in my routine, once in a while, for health and exercise reasons.
It was the first day of the Subway Strike, and I was going to walk to work, from 17th Street to the Battery. Out on the street after 10 am, the sun was shining, but the subzero frost bite was palpable, and I decided to stay on sunny 3rd Avenue/Bowery. With the sun in the East and the river on my left, there was no way to get lost, and, hoofing along briskly, I should be there in an hour, gathering information along the way.
A full schedule of soccer matches displayed at Nevada Smith’s (13th Street) caught my eye first. The previous Sunday, passing at 11:30 AM, we had wondered about the shouting emanating through the opened door, until at another sports bar I had caught notice that Arsenal was playing Chelsea, two top contenders. At the 12 Street megaplex movies, a few girls were shouting at the box office window, demanding tickets. The street was otherwise silent, few NYU students, and no crowds at the Astor Place subway entrance. The city seemed nearly dead, Cooper Union was quiescent, no flophouse derelicts lounged near the White House Hotel (“ATM on premises,” this is a new era) and Bowery Tattoo, no traffic at the Bowery Poetry Center and Café, nary a loiterer at the Slanta Bar (neons in window advertising McSorley’s Ale), until the restaurant supplies district came in sight, well south of Cooper Square. With the interspersed two blocks of lighting supply houses, it dominates the wide avenue clear down to Canal Street.
There, men were moving shiny refrigerated delicatessen glass cases out on the sidewalk, next to industrial size Hobart mixers and tall tray racks. At Prince Street, Bari Pizza equipment house is flanked by a cigar store Indian type display, of white- toqued storefront figures portraying chubby chefs, some seven varieties, of a clearly Mediterranean cast, painted to your specifications (further down the avenue, at Canal, another chefs’ display shows them with Oriental accoutrements).
The Bowery is sort of dilapidated, low buildings abound, punctuated by once magnificent columnated mansions and banks; one magnificent structure at 130 seems boarded up, except for an obscure Jay Maisel (photographer) sign. The banks fare better; unknown finance companies with makeshift signs and the omnipresent HSCB have taken over.
At Canal, the jewelry district seems to have shrunk, but shows no signs of fading into Oriental goods stores and Chinese restaurants. Crossing the Manhattan Bridge access road, past Confucius Plaza and bearing left on St James Place (a right there would have taken me to the courthouses, Park Row and City Hall), one passes Chatham Green, the spread-out apartment complex, and encounters a fleet of NYPD busses servicing headquarters traffic from nearby Police Plaza, Now the view opens to the Brooklyn Bridge overpass, with streams of walkers, both in and out-bound, moving briskly. Crossing the Avenue of Heroes reminds one that Ground Zero is not far away.
Here the road turns into Water Street, approaching South Street Seaport, my home stretch, ten minutes to Hanover Square. The walk was an hour, not bad, at a nearly three-mile per hour pace.
Going home, 6-ish and after dark, was a different experience. Water Street had lines of black-dressed men and women, block long, patiently waiting for corporate-hired Academy shuttle buses, looking like something out of 1920s German movies. Further toward the bridges, the avenue was jammed with cars, barely moving northward, fighting the Long Island-bound cross-traffic. The street was full of pedestrians. Two days later, on the last day of the strike, I waited until nearly 8 PM, until the street was clear, and my taxi (yes, I succumbed to the $15, two-zone lure) could move briskly.
The mid-towner’s alternative to walking downtown is the PATH route. We are interested in two of the four PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) lines, the 33 St/Journal Square line. which tunnels to New Jersey, and at Pavonia/Newport crosses with the Hoboken/World Trade Center line. We can enter it also at 23rd, 14th, 9th and Christopher Streets, cross the river, change trains (same side) and continue to WTC, a 20-minute ride. The walk to 14th and 6th Avenue was long, and finding the entrance was tricky. You buy two PATH tickets at a time, an easy machine transaction, compared to clicking through the MTA menus.
The trip takes you into the belly of the Ground Zero cavity, about five intimidating stories deep. On the trip back from the WTC, a direct (no transfer) line was available, on Track 1, with mobs of passengers packing in, like sardines. This was a longer, 26-minute ride. Counting the walk to 6th Avenue and the one at WTC, to my Hanover Square place of work, the travel was longer although less exhausting. You choose.
Since the transit workers have rejected the proposed MTA contract, it may be time to revisit this transportation alternative. I first tested it on December 20, Tuesday morning, and will try to include it in my routine, once in a while, for health and exercise reasons.
It was the first day of the Subway Strike, and I was going to walk to work, from 17th Street to the Battery. Out on the street after 10 am, the sun was shining, but the subzero frost bite was palpable, and I decided to stay on sunny 3rd Avenue/Bowery. With the sun in the East and the river on my left, there was no way to get lost, and, hoofing along briskly, I should be there in an hour, gathering information along the way.
A full schedule of soccer matches displayed at Nevada Smith’s (13th Street) caught my eye first. The previous Sunday, passing at 11:30 AM, we had wondered about the shouting emanating through the opened door, until at another sports bar I had caught notice that Arsenal was playing Chelsea, two top contenders. At the 12 Street megaplex movies, a few girls were shouting at the box office window, demanding tickets. The street was otherwise silent, few NYU students, and no crowds at the Astor Place subway entrance. The city seemed nearly dead, Cooper Union was quiescent, no flophouse derelicts lounged near the White House Hotel (“ATM on premises,” this is a new era) and Bowery Tattoo, no traffic at the Bowery Poetry Center and Café, nary a loiterer at the Slanta Bar (neons in window advertising McSorley’s Ale), until the restaurant supplies district came in sight, well south of Cooper Square. With the interspersed two blocks of lighting supply houses, it dominates the wide avenue clear down to Canal Street.
There, men were moving shiny refrigerated delicatessen glass cases out on the sidewalk, next to industrial size Hobart mixers and tall tray racks. At Prince Street, Bari Pizza equipment house is flanked by a cigar store Indian type display, of white- toqued storefront figures portraying chubby chefs, some seven varieties, of a clearly Mediterranean cast, painted to your specifications (further down the avenue, at Canal, another chefs’ display shows them with Oriental accoutrements).
The Bowery is sort of dilapidated, low buildings abound, punctuated by once magnificent columnated mansions and banks; one magnificent structure at 130 seems boarded up, except for an obscure Jay Maisel (photographer) sign. The banks fare better; unknown finance companies with makeshift signs and the omnipresent HSCB have taken over.
At Canal, the jewelry district seems to have shrunk, but shows no signs of fading into Oriental goods stores and Chinese restaurants. Crossing the Manhattan Bridge access road, past Confucius Plaza and bearing left on St James Place (a right there would have taken me to the courthouses, Park Row and City Hall), one passes Chatham Green, the spread-out apartment complex, and encounters a fleet of NYPD busses servicing headquarters traffic from nearby Police Plaza, Now the view opens to the Brooklyn Bridge overpass, with streams of walkers, both in and out-bound, moving briskly. Crossing the Avenue of Heroes reminds one that Ground Zero is not far away.
Here the road turns into Water Street, approaching South Street Seaport, my home stretch, ten minutes to Hanover Square. The walk was an hour, not bad, at a nearly three-mile per hour pace.
Going home, 6-ish and after dark, was a different experience. Water Street had lines of black-dressed men and women, block long, patiently waiting for corporate-hired Academy shuttle buses, looking like something out of 1920s German movies. Further toward the bridges, the avenue was jammed with cars, barely moving northward, fighting the Long Island-bound cross-traffic. The street was full of pedestrians. Two days later, on the last day of the strike, I waited until nearly 8 PM, until the street was clear, and my taxi (yes, I succumbed to the $15, two-zone lure) could move briskly.
The mid-towner’s alternative to walking downtown is the PATH route. We are interested in two of the four PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) lines, the 33 St/Journal Square line. which tunnels to New Jersey, and at Pavonia/Newport crosses with the Hoboken/World Trade Center line. We can enter it also at 23rd, 14th, 9th and Christopher Streets, cross the river, change trains (same side) and continue to WTC, a 20-minute ride. The walk to 14th and 6th Avenue was long, and finding the entrance was tricky. You buy two PATH tickets at a time, an easy machine transaction, compared to clicking through the MTA menus.
The trip takes you into the belly of the Ground Zero cavity, about five intimidating stories deep. On the trip back from the WTC, a direct (no transfer) line was available, on Track 1, with mobs of passengers packing in, like sardines. This was a longer, 26-minute ride. Counting the walk to 6th Avenue and the one at WTC, to my Hanover Square place of work, the travel was longer although less exhausting. You choose.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:58 AM 
