Walk Back Into History (Second Day, Second Leg)

It's pretty tough to write about a lovely walk on a bright, sunny day when you've just lived through a dreary, rainy, windy, pretty much all-around lousy Friday. But, looking at these photos taken along the second day of our Hudson River stroll gives me enough of a lift to carry on with this fascinating tale of urban trekking with a growing band of hearty walkers eager to see if you can walk from the top to the bottom of Manhattan along the mighty Hudson...without falling in and without loosing sight of the river.

Nature Girl, Nature Girl the Younger, Upstate Annie and I are making pretty good time as the trail has really opened up into a wide, bushy straightaway. Though the sign commands it, we do not stop at 138th Street, just north of my favorite food emporium, Fairway (I still mourn the demise of what was my all-time favorite food bazaar, the original Balducci's on Sixth Avenue in the Village -- many a paycheck evaporated in a cloud of heavenly cheeses, chocolates, smoked salmons, etc.). But, we resist temptation...and even a bathroom break...to walk past the super secure operations hub for Riverside Park's West Harlem Piers, and out onto the piers themselves.

What a cornucopia of strange and glorious ways to arrange a pier! There were these strange silver objects, reminding me of a shiny version of the insulation tubing crawling across the ceiling of my basement and attic.

Leave it to Upstate Annie to discover their real purpose as low-tech scenery viewers. Or jungle gyms...take your pick.Actually, we found out that they were "objects de art."

Even the piers themselves were strangely designed in a series of broad walkways over the water forming triangles. So, from many points, you could sit and view the river in front of you...and the city behind you.

But, the coolest part of this stretch was the discovery that we were walking on what was once, back in the late 1800s, the city's main amusement pier...Coney Island before the discovery of electric lights and neon...when amusement meant dancing and strolling on broad promenades.

I do not generally read the above "historical" tracts that pop up along the nation's highways and byways, but in the spirit of the 400th Anniversary of the discovery of the the river by it's namesake, I gave this one a fairly long eye-balling. And, I'm very glad I did, as it traced the Hudson's storied history in helping to form our "city of commerce," back from Henry H's "wild ride" to the Dutch East India Company (about which I learned even more thanks to my New York historical hero Barry Lewis and PBS for a terribly entertaining and informative look at our Dutch heritage that was on TV last night -- and a thank you "shout out" here to ASC for reminding me that it was on). I still haven't gotten the hang of TIVO to tape whatever you want to watch so that you DON'T miss anything important when it's on and your still toiling away at the computer! Kinda like what I'm doing right now, when I should be catching some much-needed beauty rest.

Anyway, as the historical presentation went on...and on...and on, it also mentioned that across the river, up on the bluffs of New Jersey's "Green Cliffs of Fort Lee," used to sit a place very "near and dear" to my pre-teenage heart...Palisades Amusement Park! What child of the early- to mid-1960's from anywhere in the Greater Metropolitan Area can forget the "uber Top-40 DJ" Cousin Brucie on WABC-AM begging us to "come on down." Everyone remembers the jingle...well, everyone except me, until the increasingly indispensable Upstate Annie started singing it (I hope she reads this and sends me the lyrics, so I can pop them in here). Or the song "Palisades Park." I can vaguely recall the tune -- there was a bit of music that sounded like a calliope and a rolling sound mimicking the Dragon Coaster. Coney Island may have had more famous rides, and both Rockaway and Rye Playlands had a more intimate feel (and two of the great "two-seater, one-rail" rides, called "The Wild Mouse")...but Palisades really was the "total package" as they say today.

I was awash in sentimental memories of relatives now gone. How I used to badger my now-deceased dad all summer long to make the then long, long drive from Long Island over to what I considered a "neon paradise" -- a temple of fun and excitement -- an amazing adventure among whirling rides, hurtling me into the stratosphere at speeds that quickened my heart and tingled my tummy.

Funny, but it was one of the only places where thoughts of "foods to be consumed" wasn't the overriding urge driving me to get there. I wasn't a fan of cotton candy (or candy of any kind, for that matter) and never was a "hot dog" addict (until a fairly recent near-obsession with "gourmet hot dogs").

No...it was the sheer "need for speed," the "lure of the carnival lights" and the "excitement of hurtling into the unknown." Memories of my mom and aunt, hurling hilarious invectives and warnings at each other at the top of their lungs on one of the rides where centrifugal force pushed everyone to the outer perimeter of the car. My mother, certainly not a "small" woman herself in those days, was being squeezed and squashed by her much, much larger girlfriend. Mom was threatening to relieve herself right then and there...and my aunt's largely unprintable comments still ring joyfully in my ears. Those of us watching the spectacle were also about to relieve ourselves due to all the laughter.

All those years ago...I wouldn't be surprised if they were both around my age right now. This is turning a bit too maudlin...so before I started tearing up, I forced myself back to the present, signaled to our small troupe that "playtime at the pier" was over, and we were back on the trail, in formation, to the stretch of road that really started it this whole journey...but, before I sign off, the below photo shows everyone exactly why we call her Sacajawea. Just look at that form -- and pointing right towards "true north."