We Begin to Walk

Pretty much since we moved to New York, I'd had the idea of walking the length of Manhattan, but I always thought of doing it in one day and never seemed to block out enough time to get it done. And then Dana Dee said, "Let's do it in segments." Of course, so obvious. And thus it started on a wonderful early spring Mother's Day Sunday. We went from the Harlem River Bridge, linking Manhattan to the Bronx, down to our apartment, just under four miles if you were a crow, near six as we meandered. Food consumed on the way, a doughnut by me, an apple apiece, and toward the end we each had a Mr. Softee -- the truck parked and obeying the law by not playing the inane Softee jingle, second only to "It's a Small World" at Disney World on the Annoyance Factor scale. While we mostly walked Broadway or Amsterdam Aves, we also wandered alone through Highbridge Park, named for the bridge spanning the Harlem River that carried fresh water from the Croton Aqueduct into New York, but we somehow missed seeing the bridge itself. Interrupting the almost entirely Hispanic neighborhoods, we passed by Yeshiva University and, among other students, saw a young man wearing a yarmulke and an Alice in Chains tee shirt, not, I suspect, a common pairing. It took until nearly 135th Street before we heard English spoken around us with any frequency and that only after we saw a quintessential American thing -- a Hispanic man in his forties, dressed in a Chicago Blackhawks hockey jersey and calling out to passersby in English, "Happy Mother's Day." The melting pot, you gotta love it! The beautiful day had everyone out on the street, a prelude of summer days, and more walks down to Battery Park, to come.

Some pictures from the route, including classic Mothers Day gifts.