A Strange Panorama

It's a strange place, the East River Bike Path that runs along South Street beneath the FDR. On a spring morning it's a glorious space filled with light from a rising sun that climbs the towers of downtown Brooklyn, across the water, until, reaching a pinnacle, like a bird testing its wings for the first time, it seems to hesitate for just a moment before leaping into the precipice and continuing its ascent with newfound confidence.

Framed by the great stone towers and swooping steel cables of the Brooklyn Bridge to the south and by the gargantuan industrial towers and massive girders of the Manhattan Bridge to the north, two spans a half-mile apart but as vastly different as the worlds which created them, this panorama presents an unparalleled vista for the play of fishermen, yogis, runners, walkers. Even commuters from the ferries who hurry ashore to take their places as cogs in the post-modern assembly lines of the Financial District. And there's also ... but no, they're not present. That's why it's strange on the East River Bike Path that runs along South Street beneath the FDR. Perhaps they've been driven away by the crowds; or maybe they have more fear of a miscast lure than others; perhaps a qualitatively different scene is required for their special aesthetic. Perhaps. But in any case, it remains strange to have a bike path, even beneath the FDR along South Street, with all of this life and not one bicycle.



Today's run was like swimming through the air and with a headwind, that made the out leg like swimming through the air upstream. One would think that the tailwind on the way back would be nice, but since you never notice a tailwind it just seemed hotter.

5 mile Billy Bridge O&B in 38:30 (7:42/mile; splits of 19:50 and 18:40).