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Sunday, March 2nd, 2003
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5:11p - Circumambulation (test walk)
 Last night I decided to take a long walk which I conceived as a test walk for my circumambulation of Manhattan later this spring. I had taken long walks around the island's edge before – usually from E 10th to W 11th or vice versa – but I had never timed them before. The people and experiences I think about while walking distract me from any attempt to measure the moment, and may they ever do so.
However, for my long walk around the perimeter of the island I will need to plan better than I have before. I always have started walks too spontaneously to successfully conclude them, often not bringing food and water, often starting when I had already been awake far too long. From this walk, I have figured out that I walk approximately fifty blocks an hour, and that it will take less than twelve hours to complete my circumambulation.
When I finally do it, I will start early one morning so that I will not have to be worried about the Parks Police questioning my presence in closed parks or about muggers lurking in the darkness under the Joe DiMaggio Expressway. I've encountered the first before, and they've even let me go when I explained what I was doing or when I explained that I was on my way out of the park. In small parks, after all, every direction is out. I've never been mugged before, although I almost was by some men who just decided not to. It may even be safer at night than in day – there is safety in smaller numbers – but when I walk around the entire island I will do it during daylight because I can, and because I will be able to get better pictures if I bring a camera.
I walked down W 8th to Greenwich Avenue to get to the Hudson, so my river walk started at W 14th. In Chelsea and Midtown the riverfront area west of the highway is full of piers, including the one for the USS Intrepid, and also full of transportation hubs like a heliport and parking lots for New York Waterway busses and ferries. It is gradually being converted into Hudson River Park, so where the walkway is not in a parking lot entrance it is adjacent to benches. Every once in a while the walkway comes right up against the river, separated from the rocks by a metallic fence. Just past the Department of Sanitation pier at 59th street the pathway turns into a fairly dark, very noisy area under the highway and adjacent to the Metro North railyards, and emerges into Riverside Park about 10 blocks later.
In Riverside Park one can walk mostly right up against the river until Harlem and Hamilton Heights, in many spots without a fence, except for between 84th and 91st streets where the riverside path is for some reason blocked with rocks and a sign that says the promenade is closed, instructing bicyclers (and implicitly walkers) to take the tunnel under the highway and walk through the city side of the park. The walk from 91st street to 137th street was quite monotonous. To the left the Jersey skyline grew slightly larger and the George Washington Bridge grew closer, while to the right the only things I could see at the top of the heights were the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and a tall building near the Columbia campus which I do not recognize.
If I would have continued past 137th street, I would have had to go through this narrow pathway between the Amtrak lines and some warehouses, which I would rather do during the day, and after that it would have been a nice but hilly walk past the Cloisters, around the northern tip of the island and back to Harlem. From there it would have been like the Hudson River walk, well lit and full of Midtown and downtown scenery. I started at 9:00 from W 14th, made it to W 137th at around 11:15, and then hurried to the City College 1/9 stop, right by a shoe store whose name amused me in its significance, if I were to choose to make it significant. I probably would have made it back to W 14th by 7:00 or 8:00 AM, but I would have collapsed first, I only had $1.74 and that was barely enough for the subway ride home. So much for the chances of those muggers.
current mood: determined
current music: Isengard Unleashed, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, The Two Towers (3 comments |comment on this)
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