My Sunday Walk, Part 1

KB_in_NYC has been telling me to walk the Williamsburg Bridge for awhile now on Twitter and this Sunday I finally had time to do it.

I integrated the walk with a plan that I'd had to locate Mexican Coca Cola which had been rumored to be sweetened with cane sugar and the closest thing you could get to the original formula without actual cocaine in it. A friend at work had told me about a place in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn that had it.

So, cross the bridge, walk through part of Williamsburg and into Greenpoint, acquire said Coke and head home...a fun urban hike of a Sunday.

So, I put on my shorts and a light shirt, my Teva sandals and took my sumac root walking stick and got onto the F train to Delancey street in Manhattan.

Blogger was doing odd things to my post today and I had to run to work...so I begin briefly:


My home street in Brooklyn before getting on the subway. Seemed a perfect place to shoot the sky to give you a sense of what a beautiful day it was. Ahead is Fulton Street.


The Essex Street Market just off Delancey Street. This is about the only thing left of the old Delancey area. Delancey Street has become what I think of as an urban strip mall of cookie cutter shops. Gone are the picklers and clothiers and wonderful ethnic restaurants and bakeries. New York, the city of reinvention has lost its imagination.

Having said that, this building does display some imagination and engineering innovation, though it is atrocious looking and completely out of place in this neighborhood. I look at it and expect Harrison Ford to fly down in his cop car and knock me over while chasing Joanna Gleason.

The Williamsburg Bridge, looking toward Brooklyn from Delancey Street. The red walkway seems so odd and out of place, but inclines well and adds dimension to this historically troubled but to my mind beautiful bridge. Up until a few years ago, there was not a day in the existence of this bridge in which it wasn't under some kind of repair work. Seriously, from its opening there were so many things wrong with the construction of the bridge, it was in a constant state of reconstruction and repair.

A brief view looking north from the walkway while still over Manhattan. You can see the Chrysler building among others. The view is great though I found the "chicken wire", presumably meant to prevent "jumping" to be an annoying distraction from this amazing view.

To be continued.....