A Bike Ride Through Riverside Park

Roses at sunset (click on photos to enlarge)
The other night I went uptown to meet my friend Elliott who was laid up at home after a little surgery. Elliott lives on the Upper West Side which is not a neighborhood I get to often and we had decided to have something to eat in Riverside Park so I rode the blue Schwinn up the bike path which runs along the edge of the Hudson River. Usually on the weekends, the bike path is terribly crowded and I actually avoid it because it can be dangerous but at 6:00 on a weeknight it was pleasantly free of traffic. The path is flat and I love whizzing up it right next to the river and past the boat marina at 79th Street. Further on I crossed the West Side Highway and got into the wooded, hilly part of Riverside Park, which stretches from 72nd Street to 158th Street. Elliott lives on West 90th Street and I couldn't tell where I was exactly so I rode for a bit. I love parks that offer trees and grass and flowers in New York. Although I am a city boy, I also am a country boy. Parks offer the simplicity and pleasure of nature in the middle of a very sophisticated city.
Elevated over the river is a wide promenade which is perfect for strolling.

At the top of the promenade is a wonderful flower garden bursting with plants. A sign says that it is maintained by volunteers called the Garden People. Looking it up, I see that this garden provided the setting for a scene in the 1998 movie You've Got Mail.

Roses and flowers run the length of the promenade.

As the sun grew lower over the Hudson River, the shadows grew longer.

I found my way up to 90th Street. The elegant buildings that line Riverside Drive curve gracefully to follow the street.

I picked up Elliott and we headed back down to Riverside Park to catch up and eat some sandwiches and salads. Bikers and runners and walkers passed by. This building rose above us. Elliott said it was the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument built during the Civil War to commemorate those who served.

The sun slipped down behind the crest of New Jersey.

When it was dark we said good bye and I rode my bike home. There were even fewer people on the path and it was a delight to zip along the river towards 15th Street. Lights sparkled on the black river and there was a moon overhear. Something about being on a bike at night, like our ride in Amsterdam, takes me back to my childhood in the most joyous way.

Here is a little video I made while riding along the promenade. Enjoy the sounds of the birds and the musicians. The only thing you don't get here is the rich fragrant smell of the trees and the grass.

A Ride Through Riverside Park from Bart Boehlert on Vimeo.

A Fall Bike Ride

(click images to enlarge)
I dreamt on Saturday night that my blue Schwinn had been stolen.
But it had not.
So on Sunday I jumped on it and rode up Sixth Avenue toward Central Park. When I stopped at the red light at 23rd Street, a bicycler pulled up next to me and eyed the blue Schwinn – people are always eyeing the blue Schwinn – and he said to me, "Vintage bicycles make me happy." It was a spectacular day – clear sky with not one cloud, and 65 degrees on November the 8th. At 42nd Street I stopped next to an older woman on a bike dressed in black. She eyed the blue Schwinn, and my shorts, and said, "You are more appropriately dressed for this weather than I am."

As you go up Sixth Avenue, Central Park looms ahead like the Emerald City.


As soon as you cross 59th Street and enter the park, you smell the strangely reassuring cool fall scent of rotting leaves and horse manure.

The park was understandably crowded with runners and bicyclers enjoying the glorious day.

The turning leaves offered a vivid palette of autumn colors.

I bicycled northward on the Park Drive, past the Metropolitan Museum of Art

and the Guggenheim.

Onward I breezed

to the northern end of the reservoir – the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. There, it's like being in the middle of the woods.

The reservoir was completely still like blue glass. The sun was bright and clear but lower in the sky creating a magical glow. The buildings of midtown rose up at the southern end.

I locked up the trusty Schwinn and jogged around the reservoir. Except it was hard to run because I kept stopping to take pictures.

I couldn't help myself.

Around every curve, there was another vista.

The city at it's finest...

...nature plus art.

I was having a moment, I'll tell you. New York can be so beautiful.
At the end of the run I did some push-ups in the grass covered with dry golden leaves. I didn't want to leave, and I didn't for a while.
Then it was back on the Schwinn, and southward on the Park Drive

past the boating pond

and out into the city at Columbus Circle.

It was heaven on earth.

A Spring Bike Ride

An artist's palette now blooming on West 12th Street in Greenwich Village

I did something fun today; I rode my bicycle downtown along the Hudson River to my new job at an ad agency. I am a bicycle boy and love to ride around town. The weather was nice so I thought I would give it a try. (Click on the pictures to enlarge.)


It was a beautiful morning along the river. I passed daffodils and felt free and heard Joni Mitchell's "Chelsea Morning" in my head. It was all very Dutch.


When I got downtown, I had to find a place to lock my bike. This is the World Trade Center, ground zero, across from where I work.


There is a Jeff Koons sculpture in front of my building, and a lot of construction going on all over the place downtown. It's like working in Dubai. Construction workers in hard hats everywhere; it's one big building site.


After work, I rode my bike up to the gym at the Chelsea Piers. This is a playing field at Battery Park and the river beyond.


I love being near the river. I love water, beaches, islands, sea.


Yes, that is the Statue of Liberty in the distance.


Spring was bursting out all over.


A tree blossomed over the bike path, with the river beyond. What a nice way to travel to work. Aren't I lucky.