A New York Marathon

Empire State of Mind.

Life is now! So turn off the noise and live. Recently, I was back in New York, catching up with work and family and friends, and taking in parts of the City that I love on bike, on foot and by train.

Take the A Train, or the B, C or D.

It is always good to be back in the City that I adore and being there on election night and the public’s resounding FU to the convicted felon only made the trip sweeter. From New York and New Jersey to Virginia and California, voters told the unqualified “president” that they can’t stand him and the raft of fellow grifters and haters he’s brought to Washington.

With any luck, SCOTUS will now read the country and take a turn away from the rubber stamp it has become for the man who demolished La Casa Blanca, Congress will grow a pair and it will be the beginning of the end of the country’s slide toward authoritarianism.

Speaking of the Epstein Files

No, I’m not related to Jeffrey!

Beyond the incontrovertible proof that the “president” was besties with Epstein, the other big news for New Yorkers is the election of a new mayor. To those who are packing their bags, breathe! Gotham survived Bill DeBlasio, a similarly progressive, if ineffectual mayor, best known for eating a slice of New York pizza with a knife and fork, and Eric Adams, the most corrupt mayor to hold the office in decades.

It never ceases to amaze me how lacking the pundits are in accurately assessing candidates who seems to understand New York as it is today rather than as imagined by former New Yorkers who long-ago fled the City for lower tax states. Too many one-time New Yorkers have no idea what New York’s demographics are today, who lives and works there and their daily concerns. This mayor’s race was about housing affordability, public safety, child care, reliable, fast, safe public transit, and schools that will prepare New Yorkers’ children and grandchildren for jobs in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing business environment. Channeling Biggie, If you don’t know, now you know…

As with past exaggerations that the sky above New York is falling, Gotham will continue to evolve as it always has while maintaining the energy and creativity that make it one of the world’s most exciting places. Now the new mayor’s real work begins, governing in the rough and tumble reality of City Hall, Albany and Washington.

I looked but I couldn’t find MAGA’s apocalyptic hellscape.

The Flower District, West 28th Street.

If you have moved from the City to one of those low-tax states, or Mexico, or haven’t been beyond the Upper East and West Sides and the gilded tech bro hoods of brownstone Brooklyn for a while, get thee to Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Astoria, Steinway Street, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Corona, Woodside, Fordham Road, Richmond Hill or South Ozone Park. New York and millions of its residents, are not the European-born ethnics you remember.

Remembering 9/11 in Bay Ridge.

Just before Election Day and the New York City Marathon, I had one of those perfect, for me at least, New York days. Following a tropical deluge that dropped an ocean of rain on the region, it was good to be out and about in the City without an umbrella. After early voting at my polling place on 168th Street, I jumped on the A train to Jay Street in Brooklyn. From there I connected to the R, a train many New Yorkers know as the lettered train that stands for Rarely. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case that morning.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge from Shore Road, Bay Ridge.

Within a half an hour I was out in the far reaches of Brooklyn leaving the R train in Bay Ridge. The site of Citi Bike’s most recent expansion, within a few more minutes I was walking from the train to a new dock filled with bikes I had probably never ridden before.

Bike share bragging rights.

A quick aside, I love the new docks which only require a touchless swipe of your key fob, speeding the time it takes to unlock a bike and get pedaling.

In Bay Ridge and other large swaths of the city, hard-working residents hold the jobs that keep the City running. From the signs I saw in store and apartment windows, many of them appear to believe that affordable housing, safe, fast, transit, and yes, bike lanes and walkability will enhance the quality of life for New Yorkers.

In all likelihood the mayor-elect will work to save congestion pricing, expand dedicated bus lanes and build more protected bike lanes. These are goals that I share and New Yorkers should be optimistic about what the mayor-elect will do to support research-based ideas about transportation, mobility and livability.

I expect there will be no white Ford Broncos in the young NYC mayor’s future.

But I digress. Focus Joel! This post is about New York, the apocalyptic hellscape.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and New York Harbor from Owl’s Head Park in Bay Ridge.

As it had been a year or more since I was last out in Bay Ridge, it was good to reorient myself with the easy-going hood and take in beautiful New York Harbor from Shore Road and the necklace of parks along the water. Here and there from the park and neighborhood, there are striking views of the Verrazzano Bridge and ships moving north towards lower Manhattan.

Kings Highway Gypsy

Every time I find myself in Brooklyn I think of my mother’s frequent quip that one of the happiest days of her life was when she left Brooklyn seven decades earlier. From her apartment on Kings Highway in Flatbush, Brooklyn was an inconvenient backwater, a long train ride from all that she cherishes to this day in the museums and concert halls of Manhattan. Like my mother, my father also hailed from Brooklyn, even further from the City in Brownsville and later Sheepshead Bay. To my paternal grandparents, my mother would be forever known less than charitably as the Kings Highway Gypsy (today’s woke term for the same just doesn’t have the same ring to it), the free spirit who whisked my father off to California and later El Bronx, Westchester and Manhattan, so far away from his mother and father in Brooklyn, despues Miami.

Being in Brooklyn I also had time to scope out the marathon route that my nephew S and a friend, B, would be running that Sunday.

Full-sized candy. Ditmas Park.

And since it was Halloween, as I biked north at dusk before heading home to Harlem, it was fun lingering in the Borough of Kings to catch the trick or treaters plying the streets of Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Ditmas Park.

Halloween, Ditmas Park.

What a time to be in New York!

We are family. Celebrating my nephew S who ran the NYC Marathon faster than the A Train.

On Sunday after Halloween, I honored my nephew and B after they both killed it at the Marathon.

A perfect trip to the City! After a few more days in New York it was time to get back to life in Mexico, with a detour to Austin.

East Austin, Tejas.

Just as New York is no longer your parents’ or grandparents’ city, neither is Austin. Now if only the rest of the country would accept reality and oust the grifters who have demolished the East Wing as well as democracy.

Yours in transit,

Joel

#nyc #freebuses #congestionpricing #austin #transit #citibike #scotus #casablanca #maga #biggie #apocalyptichellscape #newyork #newjersey #virginia #california #mexico, #uppereastside #upperwestside #brooklyn #bayridge #sunsetpark #astoria #steinwaystreet #jacksonheights #elmhurst #corona #woodside #fordham #richmondhill #southozonepark #flatbush #miami #epsteinfiles #billdeblasio #ericadams #whitefordbronco #mexico #cdmx