Bluejake

I'd like to describe the skate I took today, but I'm just too damn exhausted. It was definitely one of the hardest routes I've tackled in New York City: over the Williamsburg to Brooklyn, over the Pulaski to Queens, over the Triboro to Randalls Island, and over the Ward Island Bridge back to Manhattan. I'll get into the details tomorrow, but right now I've got to sleep.

Updated 5/21: this was an amazing skate. Leaving the house I felt it was going to be good, but it surpassed my expectations. I left SoHo by way of Spring Street, and sped up and over the Williamsburg Bridge. I was carrying my camera, because I knew I was headed into new territory, so it was slowing me down a little. The bridge was empty- just a couple of joggers out for a late Sunday jog. I took some pictures of the one-point perspective on the path, and then sped down and through Williamsburg. I'm amazed at how crowded Bedford was- wall to wall hipsters. Greenpoint was more empty, so I made good time up to and over the Pulaski.

Normally I'd just head up 11th Street and cut up to the Queensboro Bridge path by way of 47th Avenue, but this time I just skated right up 11th Street until I was under the Bridge. Long Island City became more and more abandoned, and eventually it was eerily quiet. After I passed under the bridge I skated through the Queensbridge South projects for a few blocks until I ended up on 21st Avenue. From there it was a pretty uneventful skate up and into Astoria. I felt like I was on the set of Archie Bunker- lots of beautiful little houses and guys washing their cars. It was a couple of miles until I got to the entrance to the Triboro bike path at 27th Street and Hoyt Avenue, a block past Astoria Boulevard.

The Triboro path was fucked up- and I've skated some bad paths. Broken glass, garbage, and only about two feet of space between the concrete barrier and the low outer rail of the roadway. Almost impossible to skate- I took it basically sideways until the roadway turned into the bridge. Once I was up there the path opened up a little bit, and the concrete was much cleaner and easier to skate. Clearly a low traffic path- I didn't pass a single person for the entire two mile skate to the stairs at Randall's Island. At the midpoint of the bridge there was an amazing view of the Hell's Gate Bridge and the Bronx- I took it all in for ten minutes- traffic was at a dead stop on the bridge the whole time and I waved to a couple of cars. There was no way to exit the bridge until the path terminated at the northern end of the Island, so I skated that way and then down on to the service road.

Once on Randall's Island I started looking for a way to get back to Manhattan. It turns out that there is no direct way to skate on the north end of the island- although there was a bridge to the Bronx that looked promising. Instead, I ended up circling the northern end of the island, passing back under the Triboro Road and past the Randall's Island golf center and past the Cirque de Soleil tents. Eventually I found a sign directing me toward Ward's Island. I skated past all the baseball diamonds and these big family cookouts, and stopped at the very southern end of the island to take a few pictures looking south toward the city. Wonderful- serene and beautiful and totally unspoiled. After that, I found the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge to Manhattan.

By the time I was skating south on the East Side drive I was beyond beat- I had been skating for three hours and I had reached a state of total collapse. I followed a path of least resistance up to Second and then Third Avenue, but didn't stop or pause until I was back on Thompson Street, safe and sound at the apartment.

Skating