Summer Streets 2016

What’s green, has wheels and grows?*
 
Summer Streets! It’s three Saturdays in August where those of us on wheels (and on foot) can dream of what New York would be like if there were no cars to hit us.** It’s environmentally friendly, and it gets bigger every year.
 
If you get there early (7am), you can beat the crowds. It’s almost like a Twilight Zone episode. 

And this is Canal Street:

Which usually looks like this. Hint: it’s not just cars we’re avoiding.

This year, I’m newly back on the bike and I know the course.

It looks long, but on a bike it goes fast. I don’t want to go fast, I want to savor. So I take Lucille and take my time riding up, towards Astor Place...

Union Square where the Farmers Market is just setting up.

And finally onto Park Avenue which is Bike Nirvana at this time of the morning

But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you this is my favorite part (it's everybody's favorite part):

The Park Avenue Viaduct which winds around Grand Central...

And  which until Summer Streets, I’d only ever seen in a taxi. The feeling of freedom - that for three days we actually own the City we live in – can’t be beat. And before you know it, it’s over:

And we turn around.

Getting to view Manhattan during Summer Streets is a rare and wonderful experience especially for those of us who were here when no one cared about us:

And leads to a natural comparison between then and now. It’s different, but it’s the same. Nobody cares about us now either; they care about the banks, and the banks care about real estate. So we have buildings like this:

And monstrosities like this, which no one we know can afford to live in, and which are permanently ruining our skyline.

(I call this the Finger Building because of its shape and because of its gesture to the rest of NYC’s residents).
 
But New York is safer. Much safer. And though fewer and fewer artists can afford to live here, we do have art:

And of course, we have Summer Streets – an unimaginable event in the era of Mayor Abe Beame.
 
I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it. I’ll take more of it. I wish Summer Streets could last all summer.
 
And maybe one day, they will.
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*Confession: I stole this riddle from a joke I grew up with in the 60s. The answer then was “Grass. I lied about the wheels.”
**According to Transportation Alternatives, a pedestrian is hit by a car every 6 minutes in New York.