final stretch - broadway
16.60 miles
today is the day. broadway, stretching from the top of manhattan (and far farther into the bronx, actually) all the way down to the battery. the only unbroken street to span this island, and the only and oldest avenue that runs true north-south (at least part of the way), originally as the wecquaesgeek trail.
the number of avenues broadway intersects in addition to most of the streets is still rather astounding to me. essentially, broadway does meander through almost all of the manhattan neighborhoods, with the upper east side as the one major omission. and i want to tell you how the streets become alive with the music of the heights at 180th, of the progression from harlem to columbia to upperwestside, the assault of the senses as soon as one enters the 50s, the lowering of buildings, smaller shops, to monuments, to the statue of liberty.
i could tell you how special each street in this city is,
but it’s funny, after all of this walking and note taking and documenting and photographing and seeing,
there are so many things i have missed. i miss precious interactions around me, i miss a piece of history here, i miss a yummy thing there. i have walked each street,
but i have walked each street but once.
(this entire entry is riddled with cliche).
instead, as always, i shall give you a list of the sights and other senses of my walk, for here more than usual they do transport me to each moment along broadway, and perhaps, too, illustrate the serpentine passage of broadway from north to south better than eloquent paragraphs.
these are the sights and sounds, the very last ones: a woman on the subway platform wearing grey scrubs and holding sunflowers; an elegant but faded hummingbird tattoo on deep brown skin; a man singing of his corazón; a fumbling bicyclist not unlike myself; broadway bridge; cuny; isham park; dyckman farmhouse; a dad commentating, ‘the original community was called new amsterdam’; a korean ajumma at a sewing machine; ‘ehhh, nice’; coco gelato; ‘come on, let’s go,’ she motion toward a sweet, curious dog; ‘que buen provecho’; a disturbingly young delivery biker; a line outside of city md that made me shiver; ‘damn mami you’re beautiful’; perfectly curled jewish curls; the gwb; a muslim woman on the phone, stressed eyebrows, stoic; a casual picnic in mitchel square park; sneakers for sale on the median; a block party barbecue; the american geographical society; trinity cemetery; ‘i wanna love’; an angry looking dude in a robe with a cross; a police man giving a red car a ticket; a whistle or two; fruit stands galore; riverside church; barnard frosh moving in; an athlete icing her foot, relatable; two lds missionaries never seen in nyc; joyful nanny and child; nail salon ladies busy at work; very low energy efficiency ratings pasted on windows; a five year old hailing a taxi; zabar’s; a woman yelling about a psycho; two lil boys chomping on donuts; a cheerful man walking with a mic and a portable speaker; who but mason trucks (?); short captain america and ant man in times square; eevee and the statue of liberty taking photos; ping pong in the median; a string quartet under the times square billboard; a kid and his happy meal; a teal vape pen; some kiddos jamming on 18th; the chess men in union square park; ‘excuse me miss with the flowing dress, miss, you’re floatinggg’.
my bathroom stop today was at my own home, on 114th and riverside drive, almost halfway between tip and tail. there was a special nostalgia here in walking the pieces of broadway i’ve walked the most, seeing my favorite library, the best bagel spot, thinking of memories with friends on almost every block.
i had downloaded podcasts and new albums to keep me company during this week of walking, yet for most of this week and today more than ever, i found myself not wanting to distract myself from the city around me.
i broke a fifty into fives to give to those who asked as i walked; it was not nearly enough. i tried to be friendly to all of the humans who i interacted with on this day, because i feel so indebted to this city where i have been so challenged and changed.
i try to be kind because i want strangers to believe i am nice, because strangers assume because of how i look that i will be nice, that i will give you directions, that i will spare some cash, that i will not fight back if you call out at me.
i try to be kind because my parents were kind to me, and because life was kind to me, and life is pretty unkind most of the time. i try to be kind because i am unkind, most often to those human beings i love the most. i try because what else is there, in this one shattering life?
the words are dramatic because the news feel dramatic today, afghanistan and haiti and fires, and oh, covid.
i settle myself into the walking. today is more leisurely than the past week; this is my shortest walk of the last seven days. the walking feels really good for the first half, but it becomes more painstaking as the sun radiates through the dishonest clouds, and as my body begins to tell itself that this is over.
two friends meet me at canal street and walk the final blocks with me, and another friend arrives at the battery arms full of cupcakes and sunflowers. we eat pizza on the pier, pop cava, watch the sun fall behind foggy skies, lights glimmer on. tis my last night in new york and tis romantic as i had hoped.
on a majority of my walks, i have a photo of either the empire state building or one world trade center, peeking out to remind you that you are indeed in new york city.
it would be amiss of me to walk every block of manhattan and neglect the legacy of 9/11. yet i was a babe, and i do not have a story of where i was when the towers came crashing down. i am not a new yorker, and my life is farther touched than each being born here. in this city, the legacy is everywhere— on a plaque riding the boat to lady liberty, on a walking tour of the sights, in my history books, memorialized in the center of downtown, commemorated by every wailing firetruck that passes by you. i read this moving piece on one family, two decades after 9/11, in the morning. i was moved by these words written by a young boy on august 20, 2001.
There are people that need me. And that, in itself, is life. There are people I do not know yet that need me. That is life.
dear reader, thank you for reading this far, for following along in pieces or in whole this year, and for being in this life with me.