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Friday, 2 May 2014 - Off the rails, again

 
Late this morning a Manhattan-bound F train with an estimated 1,000 commuters on board derailed underground in Queens. Evacuation of the train via an emergency ladder leading up to the street (shot on the right, courtesy of the news) took about an hour, and for the most part there were only minor injuries. Six of the eight train cars left the rails, which was described by one passenger as like being on a rollercoaster (sounds fun). Apparently a section of rail, that was only recently manufactured and installed, somehow snapped which caused the derailment.

 
 
I moseyed out there for a bit of a nosey (I'm working off-site at the moment). The F train shares a line with three other subway lines in Queens. With all of them out of action, there were a lot of disgruntled-looking people on foot hehe. They were all walking along the cycle path too, which never fails to make me a little disgruntled.
 
I got there shortly after they'd finished evacuating everyone, so apart from a huge number emergency crews standing around there was little to see. Except for this chick walking down the road dressed as a clown hahaha! Welcome to Queens.

This is the 13th subway derailment in the last 20 years. The last one happened in Harlem last year, also in May. They are generally a non-event, but in 1991 a huge derailment beneath Union Square killed five people and injured another couple hundred. The driver of that train was intoxicated, and took a track switch with a 10mph speed limit at 40mph instead. I forget where I read this now but the driver apparently left the scene of the wreck, walked along the rails to Union Square station, left the station, bought himself a drink or a sandwich or something from a nearby store, plonked himself on a bench in Union Square, and waited to be arrested hehe. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years in the slammer.

Sunday, 4 May 2014 - Five Boro Bike Tour, again

 
 
I did it myself last year, but since then Kristina has bought a bike of her own so we figured we should do it together this year.
 
The Five Boro Bike Tour is an annual cycling event in New York City. Some 32,000 cyclists take to the streets, following a car-free 42-mile (68km) route touching all five boroughs of the city. I was in the mood for it last year and smashed through it all in record time, whereas Kristina had only done up to 30 miles in a day before now it would be a good challenge!

 
 
New York is struggling to shake off the winter, and today was a good example of that. Although it was cold, there was at least no rain forecast.
 
So then, as per last year, we started in Manhattan heading north along Sixth Avenue.
 
Badonkadonk!

 
 
We then headed into Central Park - slowly getting back to its stunning, summery self, and my new training ground (for the New York Marathon in November).
 
And here was the first of several casualties we came across. He didn't make far.

 
 
Still heading north, we left the park and ventured through Harlem.
 
From Harlem, we crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge and entered the Bronx. The route barely dedicates a mile to the Bronx, and frankly it's little wonder why. This dude was smoking something on the side of the road and it didn't exactly look legit, and he didn't exactly look to be on this planet.

 
Shortly after leaving the Bronx, Kristina's bike (which we've named Big Bertha) got a flatty. Fortunately we had just passed a rest stop which all have bicycle repairs on site, so we were back on the road before too long.
 
My beast (which I have named simply "The Bike") rarely has any such issues :)

 
 
After hauling our asses up and over the Queensboro Bridge, we left Manhattan again and crossed the East River into Queens.

 
 
Last year my starting number was near the front of the pack, whereas we were closer to the back of the rabble this time. As such, we seemed to hit a lot of congestion that I didn't encounter last year. Spot the tall dude on the left.
 
He was battling the congestion on a Penny-farthing. Here he's skillfully avoiding the idiot in front of him who suddenly decided to dismount without warning.
 
From Queens we crossed another bridge and into Brooklyn.

 
 
Hahaha!
 
After passing under the Brooklyn Bridge we called into the final rest stop (overlooked by where we started in Lower Manhattan) before tackling what would be a real bastard of a headwind. Until now, we'd either had the wind behind us or at least been sheltered by the surrounding buildings.

 
 
Now along the Gowanus Expressway however, we were completely exposed to it.
 
This guy had a full-on sound system strapped to his bike, and it was absolutely pumping out the beats!
 
After slogging it out along the Gowanus, we eventually made it to the entrance of the Verrazano Bridge - the longest bridge span in the Americas and connecting Brooklyn to our final destination of Staten Island.

 
Speaking of slogging it out, the (very long) Verrazano does a good job of getting your pulse racing.
 
The view over Brooklyn towards Lower Manhattan from the Verrazano. Spot the new One World Trade Center on the left.
 
 
After racing down the other side of the bridge at a squillion miles an hour, you're finally done. Good job wife! Good job Bertha!

 
 
From the finishing festival it's just a few more miles of ass-chafing punishment through Staten Island to the ferry back to Manhattan.
 
Badonkadonk!
 
All totalled we clocked up 53 miles (85kms) for the day. Next year we might do the tour on a tandem bike, with a pumping sound system. Yeah.

Monday, 5 May 2014 - Cinco de Mayo

 
Today is Cinco de Mayo, Spanish for "Fifth of May", which is an annual celebration of Mexican heritage and pride in the US and Mexico. We celebrated the Mexi's by polishing off some Patrón tequila we had sitting around. Thanks Mexico (and see you in three weeks)!
 

Tuesday, 6 May 2014 - The fire crew is here again

 
A couple of Saturday nights ago four or five fire engines came screaming along, and about a dozen or more firefighters piled into the apartment building across the street and evacuated everyone. It was all very exciting until ten minutes later when they all came back out, and left. False alarm I guess. Then last week they all turned up again, piled into the same building across the street, kicked everyone out, and left ten minutes later again. Fast forward to today and this guy pulls up, but on his own this time and he only stuck around for five minutes. So I'm not sure what's going on over there. I was talking to a neighbour recently who told me a fifth-floor apartment in the building right next to us caught fire in spectacular fashion a couple years ago. Some old duck left her heater on when she went out, and came back later to find all of her shit was burned to a crisp.
 

Friday, 9 May 2014 - Fun with Photoshop

 
The weather has turned to crap again, so in between some work stuff I'm doing (given I am supposed to be working from home at the moment) I started poking around with Photoshop. All of the photos on this site get a quick touch up in Photoshop before I put them online, but I rarely do anything more with them than that. I started playing with this shot from the Five Boro Bike Tour last weekend, and ended up with what looks like a pencil sketch of Kristina and I hehe. I kinda liked it :)
 

Saturday, 10 May 2014 - Quick brunch, quick storm

 
 
Tulips in the middle of Park Avenue. We woke this morning to both blazing sunshine, and major thunderstorm warnings hehe.
 
Be that as it may, we made the most of it with some brunch from one of the thousands of Upper East Side eateries. You're never short of choice in this city. That thing on my plate with what looks like a tongue sticking out of it was a lobster benedict :)

 
 
After stuffing our faces we wandered down to Central Park to lap up the spring weather, which has so far been in short supply. This is looking north along Fifth Avenue adjacent to the park. Everyone was out and about making the most of it.
 
Especially Mr Cool here.
 
You know it's a nice day when the Asians are hiding under their umbrellas.

 
 
Even I was sporting flip-flops today (or as us Kiwis call them, jandals) for the first time in months (and it shows).
 
There's always plenty of random stuff going on in Central Park, such as this chick trying to stand completely still. The note on her box and bucket there asked for a donation out of respect for taking her photo. I can't read (but mostly we just had no cash on us).
 
Some people like to photograph the park; some people like to paint it.

 
Remote-controlled sailboats. Because, why not. Every so often one of them tips over, in which case you're pretty much buggered until someone kindly pushes you to shore.

 
 
Suddenly, blossoms!
 
Time for some portraits. Ten minutes later those thunderstorm warnings came good, and the heavens opened up with what Forrest Gump would describe as "big ol' fat rain". Those sailboats were rushed to shore and everybody ran for cover hehe. We took shelter in one of the park's many underpasses with buskers playing musical instruments in them, which sound amazing! Rather than blatantly record him without leaving a donation, I put the lens cap on and discretely recorded the audio instead. You can hear the rain and wind in the background as the storm hit.

Sunday, 11 May 2014 - Bless thy bike

 
A month ago I took the bike across to New Jersey, and had a good look around the state's largest city of Newark. In a word, it's a disgrace. But it's a convenient starting point since all the trains from New York pass through here. So, I was here again today. And it's still a disgrace.
 
While heading out of the city I was blocked by this - some sort of motorcycle street party. A cop told me this is an annual event that takes place every Mother's Day called the "bike blessing", hosted by one of the local motorcycle clubs since 1976.
 
 
There were hundreds of bikes of all shapes and sizes, and thousands of people of all shapes and sizes. Video of some of the action here.

 
 
I parked my bike up for a bit too ;) Vroom vroom!
 
This bike had a fat rear.
 
And so did this lady.

 
 
Just like I discovered last time, once you get out of Newark it's a completely different picture.

 
After leaving Newark with both wheels still on my bike, I passed through the little town of Maplewood. This place is a just a couple miles outside of Newark but it is worlds apart. It's also typical of what I found last month. All of these little towns have almost a village-like atmosphere, and are a breath of fresh air compared to New York City.
 

 
 
From Maplewood I passed through an area called Short Hills. The hills were anything but short though, and the properties around here were anything but small. According to the Wall Street Journal, the median listing price of homes in this area was $1.75 million in 2012.

 
After conquering the hills and passing through several more awesome little towns (Madison and Morristown in these shots), I eventually ended up...
 
 
...here. This was the filming location of a scene from Garden State, a 2004 comedy-drama film directed by and starring Zach Braff, which I also mentioned last time (they clearly used a wider-angle lens than I was). Braff grew up in this neck of the woods and so his movie was shot at several locations in the area. This one just happened to be round the corner from the train station where I hitched a ride back to the big smoke. Incidentally, many of the Wikipedia articles about these towns mention the Native Indian tribe(s) that inhabited this land quite happily for several thousand years, before the damn white man turned up from Europe in the 1600s and took over joint, and then fought amongst themselves over it. Hence we have New York today, named after the then-Duke of York (later King James II of England), after the English seized control of it from the Dutch who had named it New Amsterdam. Back then, New York covered only what would eventually become Lower Manhattan and was a walled fortress, and hence today we have Wall Street :) History lesson over.

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