NYC streets

Change is Good!

/ wrinklesmeanwisdom / Leave a comment

newroutescartoonbrighter

Like most of us, I fall into routines. I get up at roughly the same time every day.  My breakfasts of fruit, cereal and coffee don’t differ that dramatically from one day to the next.  But I’m trying a new strategy to try different routes to get to places I might routinely need to get to in Manhattan–especially on foot.

What this new approach does is to provide opportunities for constantly changing sights, sounds and experiences.  It’s especially nice when these new routes have older buildings that evidence the city’s history.  They’re certainly shorter.  Most of them are going to be brick or stone, to have survived fires.  Some of them might even have an old sign embedded in the masonry.

My new walking plan not only makes it much more fascinating to walk around but gives me a chance to reflect on New York City’s incredibly interesting history.  Plus I’ve found some great new places to stop to have a coffee and a muffin on the way.

My next goal: Changing breakfasts!

 

Trying to Get Across NYC Streets!

/ wrinklesmeanwisdom / 3 Comments

streetcrossingdrawing

Sometimes I feel like Katniss in Hunger Games when I’m trying to get around NYC.  One particular challenge is negotiating the city’s streets–especially at night and when they are the city’s major avenues.

Let’s take Broadway, for instance.  It’s idiosyncratically off-the-grid and slices through many of the city’s streets, and even an avenue or two, in ways that certainly perplexes tourists and often the occasional New Yorker.  It’s quite wide in some sections of the Upper West Side, in particular, but the countdown pedestrian signals were obviously calibrated by an Olympic sprinter working in the Department of Transportation.  And I’m not even slowed down by a cane or a walker.

Apart from my concern about whether I’ll reach the safety of the opposite sidewalk before getting mowed down by an 18-wheeler truck careening down the avenue at speeds well above the mandated 25 mph, is my fear whether I’m visible as a pedestrian if I get stuck somewhere in the middle.

So I’m trying to wear as much white as possible, which makes me look as though I’ve joined a cult.  Maybe I should start carrying a bow and arrow like Katniss to look more formidable.  If nothing else they’d slow down for a good laugh.