Across the Bridge

Sunday morning I was in my pajamas. Actually, since it was about 1:30 it was more like Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting at the table in my apartment eating pancakes and wondering where to go to get quarters for the laundry. One of my transplant friends called up and said, "We're getting ready to head down towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Want to walk across it?" I immediately thought about it, said no, and went back to munching on pancakes. Then I looked out the window. 61 degrees and sunny, a nearly perfect Sunday afternoon and I was still sitting in my pajamas? So I called her back and said, "You know what? I am going to come!". It sent me on a frenzy, running around trying to get dressed and spray myself with perfume so they maybe wouldn't notice that I hadn't showered and then putting a band-aid on the heel that randomly became blistered earlier this week.

Then I remembered that not only did I not have a metrocard, but I didn't have any money with which to get one. So I was again in a frenzy, rushing to the atm and stopping at a newstand for a bottle of water. By the time I waited for the train (after I had run down the wrong tunnel and ended up at the uptown train stop, then having to turn around and run back by the same police officers with a nosebleed ( did I mention I had gotten a nosebleed?). When I got to Chambers St. the first thing I did was to ask the cops there where City Hall Park was (where we were supposed to meet). When I got to City Hall Park I looked around for my friends and saw no one familiar, though I have to say there is a beautiful fountain located in this teeny-tiny park. I called C. and she said I should be able to see the Brooklyn Bridge. Looking around again, I saw no sign of the bridge or even the waterfront. I walked and asked three different people where Center Street was, stupid because those tourists had no idea what I was talking about but certainly would have known where the Brooklyn Bridge was.

Finally I walked half a block and boom, there it was. This rising metal structure in front of me with people crowding on it and below cars driving across it. It was a good moment. Sun's shining, light breeze blowing, the smell of the salt air from the river, and there were my buddies. or half of them. C said that the guys had gone somewhere to "chill" but she couldn't imagine where people "chilled" on Wall Street. Finally we gathered and set off. We had a slightly philosophical discussion on what it must have been like when the bridge was commisioned or even when someone decided to connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. We discussed the people that died making sure the bridge went up, high above the river on tiny metal scaffoldings when most people still couldn't swim. It was bone-chilling to look back and see Manhattan from that vantage, from the buildings to the empty space occupying the horizon where the Twin Towers used to be. When we got half-way across we stopped fora photo op and looked down, halfway between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Then we joked about moving there, in part to save on the outrageous rents that seem to follow our generation. I looked down the waterfront and saw people getting their wedding photos taken,, brides and grooms lined up on the dock waiting their turn. On the other side, in the Brooklyn Bridge park, small children were dots dancing around their parents who were nothing more than larger dots.

"I think the Verizon building has to be the ugliest building in New York." said my friend B as we were looking at Manhattan and getting all nostalgic, etc.

"Seriously?" one of the guys threw in.

"Yes. I think someone must have said, let's take this space and build the ugliest building we can think of." She was being dead serious and she was right. It was lines of cement broken up by lines of windows.

"If we painted it blue it would be seersucker." I pointed out.

That moment over and done with we ended up in Brooklyn. It was the first time I had ever been there and it was fun and whimsical, climbing on the rocks on the shore and watching somme little girl being entertained with a cat toy, seriously.

I had such a wonderful time I have decided to join the guys. They've begun spending their weekends exploring the city, riding different subway lines to get to places we probably wouldn't otherwise bother with. And while B is right in that we can spend the rest of our lives living here and thus don't feel a need to rush around with cameras and theater tickets, it is important that we leave our neighborhoods to discover other options. So I'm starting a type of log, where essentially I list places I go in New York, along with the general blog that I have here. Just so there is a record of where I'm going and if I'm really taking advantage of living in this amazing city.