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5th Avenue Brooklyn: hectic afternoon traffic
Friday, August 30 2002
I realized today that the secret recipes for Kelloggs' Corn FlakesTM and unsweetened CheeriosTM are at best open ones, since both Trader Joes and the Key "Please Shoplift Here" Foods stock essentially perfect generic knock-offs.
Today the weather was cool and overcast and I had a housecall way over in Sunset Park, a Brooklyn neighborhood to the south, beyond the massive Greenwood Cemetary. I've been regarding distant housecalls as good things, since they require long bike rides, and I feel the need for increased physical activity.
After I arrived at my destination, I soon determined that the sick computer had a blown power supply, but I had no idea where to obtain a replacement. Since the matter was considered urgent by my client, I decided to set out in search of a computer store and not stop until I found one. I biked northward up 5th Avenue, paying as much attention as I could to the types of stores I passed. This wasn't easy, since the chaotic traffic around me required close monitoring as well. I was all the way up at 7th Street in Park Slope before I found what I was looking for.
After biking all the way down to 40th Street again and installing the new power supply, I got back on my bike and pedalled all the way back home, stopping in Windsor Terrace for cheap Chinese take away. According to maps.yahoo.com, my travels came to 10.6 miles total, or about what I used to bike every day (for less money) back when I worked for Collegeclub.com.
Especially when biking all that distance back and forth down 5th Avenue to get the power supply, I noticed how hectic afternoon traffic can be in this city, what with all the deliveries, double parking, and everybody running red lights and trying to make all sorts of improbable turns. Despite all the apparent chaos, and all the pedestrians wading bravely through it, no one was hitting anybody and no one was particularly riled up, even when they were cut off or forced to hit their brakes. They'd shrug and make faces as if to say, "What are you, stupid? Oh, whatever, just go ahead and fucking go already." It brought to mind one of the first observations I heard about New York when I visited Gretchen back in March, 2001, "It's a lawless city."
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