My New Commute

So I'm doing freelance work at a local hospital and have a wonderful new 9.2 mile commute to work. After work, I usually take the West Side Greenway back down, making the entire commute a 21 mile loop.

Although 1st Avenue can be dangerously congested in the mornings, I feel pretty at ease with the traffic. In NYC, the cars are usually only going as fast as you are and I tend not to hot foot it to work (I'd rather not show up drenched, you know). The only thing that bugs me are the exhaust fumes and I'm dealing with that by wearing a kerchief--not really my style, but it's a situation where function trumps form. If I were really concerned about form, I'd go find a vendor that sells a wider variety of bandanna than the paisley kind.

Highlights of my commute include biking past the UN building at 44th and 45th Streets. I've noticed this gargantuan bronze equestrian statue that I'm going to take some snapshots of for my friend Bill. He's planning on having an equestrian statue erected over his memorial grave site and I figure he needs to start collecting images of equestrian statuary as soon as possible for ideas.

At 59th Street, I'm often cycling beneath the Roosevelt Island Sky Tram. I love the sky tram and wish there were more of them all over the city. I think they make me nostalgic for that one James Bond film set partly in Rio de Janeiro.

Across the East River at 94th is Randalls Island, home of the Manhattan State Mental Hospital. There's a very cool pedestrian bridge (very minty green, very made-out-of-toothpicks looking) that crosses the narrow channel from Manhattan to Randalls. If you can stand the desolate bike path on the Tri-Boro, this little bridge is the way to get to it.

For the ride home, it's West to Central Park and then south through the park to 72nd Street. At 72nd Street, I head west to the Hudson River Greenway

The Greenway (except for its tendency to be overcroweded with other commuters) is just about the best bike path in the city. I take it all the way to Canal Street and then head east back to the Manhattan Bridge. From there it is "Home again home again jiggity jig."

I'm spending a little more than 90 minutes on my bike each day. Fantastic! Tomorrow, I'll share some photos from the commute.