the start of week two
RU and I are staying at a friends place, on the 5th floor of a 5 story walk up in the East Village. There’s 67 steep steps between the street and our front door. And we trek up them at least once a day. Every time I get to the 4th floor I think I should be there by now and then I huff my way up the last 15.
There are bike lanes every where now. 1st and 2nd Avenues in the Village are experiments in separating bike from car traffic via a parking lane for cars. There also appear to be some bike boulevard like streets, ala Portland style. In general, New York bike riders suck, though. Helmets and lights aren’t super common, nor is stopping for oncoming foot or car traffic. But riding in wrong direction on way bike lanes seems like all the rage. The bike riders I’ve seen are like cab drivers on two wheels. Watch out.
It rained on and off almost all of today, so RU and I headed to PS1 to check out the Greater New York show – a survey of the last 5 years of contemporary art in New York. There were more hits and misses and some of the hits were down right incredible, including Rasheed Newsome’s Shade Compostions, Sharon Hayes’ Revolutionary Love: I am Your Worst Fear, I am Your Best Fantasy and Kalup Linzy’s Melody Set Me Free.
A couple quick notes about food. It’s never as amazing here as I want it to be. So far nothing has knocked my socks off and I’ve had a few cases of sticker shock. I’ve only got a couple special shot outs worth passing along: an incredible donut that was vegan and gluten free (both of those facts being almost incidental), a very good cupcake, and some kick ass dim sum at Royal Seafood.
I’m surprised to hear that bikers are less, well, whatever you’d call it, in New York. I would think riding in a big city would make me more careful and likely to obey the rules, but maybe it’s just the opposite in the dog-eat-dog jungle. Do you have your bike with you? Next time you’re in Bloomington we need to get on the trail together.
That trail ride in Bloomington sounds perfect. I think it would be a while before I rode out here. We were riding the bus yesterday down 5th avenue and watching the bike riders weave in and out of bus and car traffic made me feel queasy. It’s crazy.