Summer streets–where the city closes Park Avenue to cars, from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, on select Saturdays–have really grown in popularity since we took advantage on the first happening, three years ago. This year brought with it free helmets and free bike rentals, picnic and exercise stations, all set-up along the route.
In the past, we walked the nearly 5-mile path, but this year we grabbed our bikes and headed toward the southernmost point. It quickly became clear that it would be unsafe for us to continue without some morning coffee.
My favorite part of the stretch is the area around Grand Central Station: the approach up the hill as Park Avenue prepares to split, and then seeing the wide open stretch of the avenue as you come down off the auto-ramp from inside the Helmsley Building is awesome.
But perhaps the most interesting addition to this year’s route were the dumpster pools. The city has tried to assign new meaning to “dumpster diving.” And while Bill Murray parodied the idea perfectly–the actual pool was built up to the point that its trashy origin was hardly detectable.
23 Comments