One Wet Friday

Last Friday began dry enough with a great visit to Socrates Sculpture Park. Several new sculptures have been installed and as you can see here, they've got one more on the way!

And, after noticing Bike the Big Apple's repeated Friday visits, a local artist introduced herself and offered to show people around this wonderful sculpture park on future rides.

As we made our way from Queens into Brooklyn, I got a call from Levi, the other guide doing Tour A that day. While listening through my plastic cell phone baggy (the rain had begun!) I could hear him saying something about seeing Beyonce on Bedford Avenue. Could this be a repeat of last summer's 'Beyonce wet in VIBE' contraversy? But, alas, we arrived too late (Levi and his group did get to watch her shoot a music video on North 7th Street just before we got there) . Below is what remained of the lingering crazed (and I mean Beatlemania-style crazed) teenagers.

This crowd waited tirelessly in the rain our entire lunch stop but she never made an appearance again while we were there. Fittingly, we parked our bikes near one of David Byrne's new bike racks nearby. He did several of these to promote a public contest to create new bike racks throughout the city. Here's a link to one of the finalists-- I hope to be seeing more of this around the city soon!

We all got back to shop completely soaked and despite concluding the day (hours after the tour was over) by sitting in the rain in Shea Stadium (a game that was ultimately cancelled), this wet day ended for me with another great Bike the Big Apple moment...

An Italian couple who spoke very little English had been trying to reach me all day to sign up for the tour the following day. We communicated a few times by phone but due to the rain and language barrier we were never able to hash out the details for their tour. They called again as we sat through the rain delay at Shea. The noise on their end made communication difficult. I couldn't make out much of their broken English, but all of a sudden I heard something I could understand, 'Sorry about the noise, we are at the Mets game.' I responded that I was at the Mets game too! And, it just so happened, I had a friend with me that spoke Italian!

I went and found the Italians at their seats and brought them back down to introduce them to their 'Italian translator' (who would be joining them on the ride the following day) and to Levi, their guide for the Tour B. They ended up having a great ride the following day and we all went to the rescheduled Mets game on Saturday night!

I've since considered opening a second Bike the Big Apple office in Shea stadium. Unfortunately, I will only be going to one, maybe two, more games and the stadium will be gone next year. Go Mets!

A beautiful weekend in August

Saturday morning began with a great trip down the entire length of New York's 'Summer Streets' program, where an 100-block stretch of New York's streets are closed to vehicle traffic on three Saturdays in August.
From Park Avenue down Lafayette Street and further south to the Brooklyn Bridge, the streets were filled with public art, aerobics & yoga classes, a bike decorating party, street painting, cyclists, runners, rollerbladers, and those just taking a leisurely stroll--- everything but cars!

We had access to areas now seldom seen (outside of a windshield) in New York City, like this bridge in front of the Grand Central Terminal. With no pedestrian access to much of the area that surrounds this now obscured beauty it is rare that anyone gets to stop and gaze at this magnificent structure.

From my experiences of riding on busy bike paths, I'd say rollerbladers can be considered the SUV's of human powered vehicles (because of the sometimes dangerous way they flail their arms and legs on narrow paths--- no offense to rollerbladers!), but this pack of what seemed like over one hundred rollerbladers was a welcome sight to see on Lafayette Street and I'd take these guys over an SUV any day!
After getting downtown, we made a quick stop to check out David Byrne's exhibit, 'Playing the Building,' at the Battery Maritime Building. Each key on this organ creates a different sound made by the building, the building's pipes, and all sorts of other odd noise makers throughout this old terminal. We had the whole place to ourselves and this group from Canada really took the opportunity to 'play the building!'

The last entirely unique moment of the weekend came on Sunday afternoon as our group on Tour C pedaled across Madison Avenue. This plastic casing for electrical and cable wires stretched for over 10 blocks and made the street completely impassible. In all my biking in New York, Ive never seen such a thing. Ive seen them lay similar things a block or two at a time, but never something so big all at once. The plastic casing seemed to come alive as it snaked up Madison Avenue from Midtown to the Upper East Side!