Walking Up Along The East River - First Leg (from Manhattan Bridge to Houston Street)

Wanna take a walk?   I'm paraphrasing slightly, but those pretty much were my words to my pal Nature Girl as the weather started turning warmer late last May.   Yes, you read it right...LATE LAST MAY.   So, you're probably wondering why nothing appeared on the blog all summer long (or maybe not).   We did take our first stroll up along the East River the first Sunday in June, but I've been too preoccupied with other issues and endeavors to sit down and blog about it.  So, as we move into mid-September on this sad day, I'll try to lighten the tone with my remembrances (enhanced by notes and photos taken) of a lovely Sunday, June 6, walk on the wild East Side (thank you, Lou). 

Under the Manhattan Bridge

We pretty much started where we left off from "the Bridges Tour" -- underneath the Manhattan Bridge.  It was hot...pretty much a pre-cursor of the kind of summer we were going to have...but at the time, I wasn't too bothered by it.   Nature Girl (NG) was walking with a toe impairment, so we knew it wasn't going to be a long hike.  Per tradition, we stopped what we believed were this mother/daughter team to take our photo at the start of the days "walk."   They took the photo, but didn't really want one taken of them.  I did catch a "sideways" shot of them, as they were playing "tourist" themselves...

Right away, we knew this was going to be a whole different adventure from our trek down along the Hudson River.   For one thing, it was a lot more industrial-looking and definitely much more run-down than most of what we'd seen on the West Side.

Without getting all Jacob Riis on you (more about him later), it also seemed like many of the people walking, sitting or laying on this stretch were from a lower economic strata than those on the other side of town.  

We were walking fairly parallel to the ever-growing Chinatown (encompassing people from many Asian nations).   It was early in the morning, about 9:30 a.m., so we mostly ran into elderly folks taking their morning constitutionals, and even a few practicing their exercises along the route.

                                                                                        

We hadn't walked more than five or so minutes when we were "cut off" from the water by a construction-type fence announcing that the waterfront was "off-limits" while they restored it.   However, it looked to me like the waterfront here was being used to house buses and other municipal vehicles.   Sure enough, as we were being forced to walk under the southernmost part of the East River Drive (known to most as the FDR), we saw a sign that proclaimed the area for the city transportation and sanitation departments.   There was also a huge board describing what was going to be done by December 2010 (I think not!) to allow pedestrians access to the shoreline there. 

   Both NG and I had the sneaking suspicion that the economic downturn had probably with the Parks Department's Utopian plans.   We were still operating according to our criteria (walking within one block, and sight, of the water) but the view between all the garages and ugly warehouse-like buildings was sparse, to say the least.   There were glimpses of Brooklyn (I believe Fort Greene going into Williamsburg)...so we decided to turn our attentions to the other side of the road.  Hmmm...No offense, but where are we...Queens?  (Said expressly to get a rise out of NG, who hails from that proud "borough of churches.")   Neither side of this walk was looking all that promising, until......and...These were buildings about which I was always curious when cruising down the FDR.  They were so "out of place" in a neighborhood of "soulless" high-rises...and yet, such a welcome sight (the one with the rounded balconies has a faint New Orleans or Savannah-like quality to it).   We never found out if the buildings had names -- I imagined aloud that they may have been built as some kind of school, or orphanage, or other such civic buildings of a much earlier era.  I believe they are now pretty cool-looking co-ops or condos on what is now the easternmost portion of the "chic" Lower East Side (LES). 

While the waterside was not showing much promise,

the street side actually got "arty" on us.  

Check out the religions mosaic on this Catholic school building.  And someone in the Parks Department was really paying attention when they created the fence that separates the walkway from the FDR...

I believe we counted five or six different wildlife images in the ironwork along the highway...and for all the times I've driven up and down that road, I never noticed them until we were meandering past them.   While still not right on the shoreline, the path itself started to look a little less desolate!  

And, the folks using the path had morphed into the young, tattooed hoards that have invaded what once was the tenements of the "teeming millions" of Jewish and Italian immigrants who were stuffed into this part of the city during the late 1800s into the early part of the 20th Century.  Between the urban housing projects of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the great experiment in "self-contained" urban living that is Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, and during the past five years, the building of geometrically-interesting, mostly glass apartment towers that is characterizing New York City architecture in the early part of the 21st Century, less and less is left of those tenements that used to be the symbol of poverty and over-crowding, made famous by the "social reformers" of the early 20th Century -- photo/journalists like the aforementioned Jacob Riis (so, that's who he is).  I may have mentioned the LES Tenement Museum before -- I've recommended it to people visiting the city many times, but have never been there myself.   It's on the "bucket list."

The path suddenly lurched back into the 1890s and then fast-forwarded into the 1960s, almost at the same time.   While still a short distance from the shoreline, the path suddenly sprang a number of those elegant light poles that I recall best from the iconic Edward Steichen photo of the Flatiron Building in the early 1900s (with my office only a few blocks away now, I see that gorgeous throwback to elegant urban architecture at the turn of the 20th Century almost every day).

 

In less than 100 paces, we were thrown headlong into our childhoods...a completely unexpected treat to be continued in the next installment.

Bonus Walk - Still Walking (Sixth Leg)

One would think the above columns are on some monument to a great leader, great thinker or, at least, a great pizza maker in Rome (even with the graffiti).  Low and behold, these columns line part of the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge.  And so is this...

and this...

Why do I feel like we're bumping up against an architect's nightmare?  Part Roman, part Belle Epoch, part Deco, part Utilitarian...all on one bridge?  Scores of books have been written about the contruction of the "other" bridge easily viewed from this one.

But, how much do we really know about the Manhattan Bridge.  I am hoping that a quick trip to wikipedia will provide some answers.  Seems the bridge was built after the Brooklyn and Williamsburg...opened in December, 1905 (which would account for the Belle Epoch design, but not for the Roman, Deco or anything else).  Apparently, the walkway we're crossing now was closed for a bit (60 years) and only reopened in June of 2001.  It is a suspension bridge...and was built by the architect that designed an infamous suspension bridge in Tacoma, Washington that collapsed on opening day in 1940 (I heard about that bridge on a PBS special).  What does that bode for the poor Manhattan Bridge?   It's interesting, but it doesn't really get into the hodgepodge of styles...though it does say that the north walkway is a bike path and it does go into a number of movies that have used it as a prop or backdrop, including the remake of "Taking of the Pelham One, Two, Three" where Denzel Washington and John Travolta fight it out on the very walkway on which we're now standing.  I don't see them anywhere, but I have seen quite a few "unsavory characters" passing by, not the least of which are Nature Girl and The Old Guy who, per usual, are quite a ways ahead of me as I stop every few steps to take another photo.  I haven't been able to catch any of the pithy conversation they must be having...but I will bet it has little to do with the walk, or the bridge, or what they are seeing around them.

As we walk over the half-way point of the bridge and start a barely perceptible decent back into Manhattan, it really feels like the humble Manhattan Bridge is more "of the neighborhood" rather than the majestic Brooklyn Bridge, which seems to be a bit "above it all."   I was amazed how much of what I believe is Southern Chinatown we're already seeing, and at some pretty interesting angles.Why is the phrase "seedy underbelly" popping up in my too-fertile brain.  Ahhh...this is much better.

At last, we're off the actual bridge...and at the Manhattan entrance to the bridge, which does spill out squarely into Chinatown proper...I'm amazed to find that NG and The OG have actually waied for me before stepping foot back on "the island to end all islands."

Now, for the ceremonial end-of-walk group photo. 

It was taken by these lovely ladies...whose names are lost in the "four+ months later" mist of time.

I vaguely remember that one lived here in the city and the other was visiting from the Midwest or somewhere "out there."  I think they were college roomates, or at least friends from school, just like NG and me (though a tad younger and way, way thinner than we ever thought of being, even "back in the day"). 

I'm going to come back with one more leg about this adventure...more ruminations on the two bridges we just crossed, what was inbetween and how I felt about it all.   So, get ready...

Bonus Walk - Up and Over The Manhattan Bridge (Fifth Leg)

OMG!   It's been over five months since Nature Girl, The Old Guy and I took a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into that storied borough, returning over the Manhattan Bridge...but, I left you all stranded on the "nether side" of the bridges.  Well...at least you all had full stomachs as we were just continuing our journey after lunch at Bubby's!  I've lived through a hideous winter in the 'burbs and am now in "renovation hell" so, with "raindrops falling on my head" outside, I thought I should continue our stroll through the "borough of Kings" and back to little old Manhattan.

As I said previously, we're walking through what is largely unchartered Brooklyn landscape for me...the DUMBO section of the city which is, approximatley, between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.  From Bubby's, we walked the few blocks east towards the Manhattan Bridge, but quickly realized that we'd have to navigate away from the waterfront to find the pedestrian entrance to walk over the bridge.  This route took us next to the stone and cement pilings that support the roadway going over the bridge,

an area that revealed peaks of "old Brooklyn" pre-gentrification.  Actually, it seemed like we'd suddenly traveled back to Brookly in the largely "unlovely" 1960s and '70s, in the era of utilitarian "prefab" apartment buildings and low-rise warehousing.

We scooted through this area fairly quickly, finding ourselves at the graceful curving stone staircase that brings one to the start of the pedestrian walkway of the Manhattan Bridge.  We dodged a bit of traffic to get through the rather large street intersection and ascended the stairs to start our walk over a bridge that literally and figuratively stands in the shadows of it's famous neighbor.  

Before we bid a fond farewell to the borough of my birth, I have to digress to tell you of the coincidence of the mood music I'm listening to as I type this.  While I like to think that I'm an illustrious product of Brooklyn, certain the lady I'm listening to right this minute is a bit better-known-- Barbra Streisand, at her very best, singing "People" in the original cast album from "Funny Girl."  Why I'm listening to show tunes (a great love of my youth that, frankly, I'd largely eschewed over the past ten years or so in favor of the classic rock of my late teens and early adult-hood) is the tale of last week seeing a revival of my absolutely favorite Broadway musical of all time -- Burt Bachrach, Hal David and Neil Simon's "Promises, Promises."  The revival is very good...and certainly worth seeing (though noone can beat the late Jerry Orbach, who originated the role of Chuck "CC" Baxter back in 1969 -- and yes, if you go to my friend Len's blog "Len Speaks" and read is review of the show, I am the unnamed "pain in the butt" who kept too-loudly comparing the current show with my golden memories of being a "stage struck" 14 year-old in the first row of the mezzanine on the edge of her seat thrilling to Jerry's exuberance and joy when he sang the title song near the end of the show.)  Anway, hearing that terrific score and succumbing to a tidal wave of nostalgia for my long-gone youth and "dreams of stardom" (based, admittedly, on little real theatrical talent), I went on an "I-Tunes purchasing binge," adding to my already considerable collection of treasured rock, folk-rock, soul, blues, Motown and funk music, with a smattering of classical.  By around 2 am Saturday morning, I had bought over 60 songs from original cast albums and soundracks (including the entire original cast album of "Promises, Promises" -- and I almost wept when I heard Jerry's soaring, joyous voice).  I've now got a Nano packed with everything from Ben Vereen, jazzing through "Magic To Do" from Pippin (and does that show bring back some great memories of my college theater dabbling), to Audrey Hepburn plucking the guitar and sweetly warbling through "Moon River."  Every song reminds me just how much I loved all those moments that came at me via theater or movies...and how much I enjoyed sharing that love and appreciation over the four years I hosted "Show Stoppers" on Fordham University's WFUV-FM when it truly was a "student-run" radio station (which is definitely not the case now).  Okay, now that Janice Joplin is wailing "Piece of My Heart," you can imagine that the "spell of the theater" is broken.  Then again, as theatrical as she was in her belting, maybe it's not such a stretch from Barbra to Janice.  It would be a neat segway back into "the walk" if Janice was born in Brooklyn but, that's not the case.  Barbra or Janice, Ben or Jerry...I find myself saying this more and more..."they just don't make 'em like that, anymore."

Geez, you poor people!  First, I leave you stranded in Brooklyn for five months...now you have to read through my trip in the "way-back machine" (thank you, Mr. Peabody -- I'll save my love of cartoons for another time). 

I have never walked over the Manhattan Bridge...and really only realized that you could about two summers ago when I was killing time waiting for the OG (Old Guy) to leave work one day (he's been working for quite some time in one of the Fiancial District buildings that overlooks the harbor, Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty).  I wandered down to the riverside to check out an art installation called "The Falls" where man-made waterfalls were placed in various locations between the bridges and out into the Harbor at this south end.  One of those falls was right under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, and another was next to the Manhattan piling for the Manhattan Bridge.  It was as I was gazing at that falls that I noticed two very "art nouveau" style "look outs" up on the bridge.  "Ah-ha," I said to myself (yes, I actually do think pithy phases like "ah-ha"), "that must be some kind of walkway.   I'll have to walk it, someday."

So, someday has finally come!

I'd liken the difference between the two bridge walkways this way -- you feel like you're walking on a "well-cared for" boulevard when you're walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.   The feeling is more of a somewhat seedy lane that has been squeezed between the aforementioned '60s warehouses, high-rises and the D and F trains speeding over the water closer than I'd have expected.

Once we cleared the Brooklyn shoreline, the walkway opens up a little more to reveal some terrific views of DUMBO, the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan. 

I was surprised by the high, highly unattractive chain link fencing along the walkway, making it difficult to really enjoy the views, especially as compared to the walkway over her majesty, the Brookly Bridge (it's interesting that I think of the Brooklyn Bridge in "Royal" tones while the Manhattan Bridge seems to wallow in a "scruffy grandure").  I guess they are trying to discourage planned or unplanned leaps, which would seem to be easier from this bridge as the walkway is right next to the water.  Still, I'll bet statics will show that many more people jump from the Brooklyn Bridge than this one (I guess, if you're going to jump, you want to go from the more famous of the two...it will play better in the obit). 

   I'll leave you with that thought to ponder and finish up what has turned out to be a very, very long walk in the next installment.