The Bridges of New York County Part 11 - Nooks and Crannies

There's a lot of ways to cross the Manhattan Bridge. You can walk it, bike it, drive it - even ride over it on the back of a subway if you want, although that's certainly not recommend as a regular means of transverse.



At about the 24 second mark you can see one of the nooks and crannies of the bridge - a short abandoned tunnel that used to connect the north tracks to the uptown Broadway Express line before the completion of the Chrystie Street Connection in 1967. Out of all the bridges, the Manhattan is the one that seems to have the most of these nooks and crannies to explore. A constructed, but never used Second Avenue Subway station below its Manhattan approach. A narrow passage that lets you squeeze inside the globes that crown its Brooklyn-side tower. Perhaps the most interesting is a small nook inside the entrance colonade that houses a time capsule to be opened in 2009. And there's a few others that have either been closed off, or like the formally unused North Walkway, since opened up to the public.



Unused Second Avenue Subway tunnel - photo by Danielle Plamondon

Getting cozy inside one of the globes

Time Capsule Nook - South part of the Manhattan entrance colonade

North walkway - 2003

And out of all the bridges I've climbed, it's the most ephemeral to be on top of. There's none of the stone solidity of the Brooklyn, or the web-like heavy iron of the Hell Gate. Even being on top of the hollow sheet metal of the Williamsburg or see-through platform of the Queensboro feels stable by comparison. The top of the bridge is perhaps five and a half feet wide - narrow enough that you can lie down on the top lengthwise and touch either end with each hand. There isn't even a guardrail, unless you count the tension wires running between the ornamental towers that crown the top of each cable.

The first time I climbed the Manhattan was with an Aussie friend of mine, who captured the essence of the escapade (as well as some great photos) in one of one of my favorite essays. To anyone who truly wants to understand why we do this stuff: this is required reading.

The Bridges of New York County Part 10 - What's Better than the Mile High Club?

Disclaimer: If you're my Grandmother you might want to skip this one.

I don't remember when I first got it in my head I wanted to have sex on a bridge. I think it was around my 2nd or 3rd bridge climbed. It seemed so logical - climbing bridges is fun, sex is fun, so sex on a bridge must be really fun. I even had the perfect candidate - the Williamsburg Bridge.

I don't think I'm giving that much away anymore when I say the Williamsburg's the easiest bridge to climb in New York (although it's unfortunately been a bit more secure up top since this summer). Stories have been on the internet, artists have put their work up there, it's even had an article in (of all papers) the Financial Times. But, of course, don't get caught doing it. I'd personally been up there at least half a dozen times already.

Double Guns! - photo by Steve Duncan

Now, having sex is a two person operation. And finding someone to have sex on top of a bridge is tougher than you might think. The sex part wasn't tough, the heights part wasn't tough, but as soon as I mentioned "listen, there's a small but realistic chance we might get arrested..." the conversation usually ended there. Most people I know who've had date nights up on the bridge usually just stay away from the topic altogether, but I wanted everything to be totally up front.

So where do you turn when nobody in real life will suffice? Craig's List of course. Unfortunately, I cannot find my original ad (entitled - "Need a 'best place you've ever done it' story?"), but I can tell you it was sufficiently brilliant that it got two responses. The first was this:


Hey. 41 yo female 6'2" rock climber, liberal radical, ready for some Civil Disobedience. Would love to assist in your endeavor, as well as hang a sign that says Make Love Not War sometime on our entanglement on the bridge. Currently fighting a rap upstate, so maybe have to wait til it is resolved, have biners, and slings, harness, but no rope. Willing to purchase to belay you and you set up a TR at the top. Enclosing pic. Peace my brother,

This one I didn't write back. The second response was pretty normal (considering the circumstances), and while we met up and resolved to do it, she always ended up backing out last minute.

Eventually though, I was in luck. A lovely lady who I was actually quite fond of ended up not only being as excited, but also as risk-averse about the prospect as I. And as it turns out, I'm very glad I went with her instead of a random Craig's Lister. Because even on a beautiful spring night, it's still cold as hell on top of the Williamsburg Bridge. I won't say it wasn't fun, but it certainly would have made for an awkward moment or two on a first date. Here's her take (from old Facebook chats with a friend):

...I have no clue how moe got himself over it without any help. After that it was just a bunch of stairs. The view was soooo crazy pretty. I felt like I had vertigo climbing up the stairs though cause they are those scary stairs with holes and gaps in between each stair.

Once we got to the top we looked out for a bit then Moe took me to this other part that is like a large utility room with windows. We put down all our stuff and said hooray! I was a little nervous and felt awkward about starting anything physical. But moses just started kissing me and everything felt normal after that.

I had found out that there was more to the plan than the room. Moe's plan was start things up in this room and then we would have to climb AGAIN up these beams and out the window to the actual top of the bridge. That part felt crazy, but fun. To be climbing around this thing all serious and scared about falling, while in my underwear. It felt so ridiculous but I also felt like the coolest gal at the same time.

So we got up to the top and there were some cold winds-a-blowin' we both got undressed. But we couldn't really continue fooling around. We took a minute to soak in the view and headed back for the room. It was so nice to see the city and the water and feel the wind (in my face not like being naked in the wind-that felt awful and cold), and see it all totally uninterrupted. No glass windows or wire gates and you could turn around full circle and see everything it was sooo beautiful.

We went in to the room and were totally happy with ourselves. We warmed up started fooling around again and so we tried the top again and it was a success! There was even another top top and moe wanted to go so we did.

So that was it...surprisingly the sex itself wasn't awkward, which is a testament to us since we were in a VERY awkward situation. It was actually a really great time and at first I thought I was doing it for him and that the part for me would be that I got an amazing view and kind of conquered a fear...but it turns out that everything was really awesome climbing and sex included.

Sex or not, climbing the Williamsburg - or any bridge - is one of the best dates in New York City. And if you go full Monty, and want to join the club, the bragging rights are way, way better than the Mile High Club. Heck, you might even get written up in Time Out New York.

Manhattan Progress - February 2008 through January 2010

I really, really, wanted to have 100% of Manhattan knocked off by the time I updated the maps again. But I've still got 14 nagging tracts - a stretch of Central Harlem, a Mitchell-Lama by the Hudson River, a few patches of Washington Heights, and the area just above Stuy-Town. I could knock them all off in a day if I wanted to, but I just haven't yet.

Manhattan Completed - February 2008

Manhattan Completed - January 2010

Staten Island Progress - February 2008 through January 2010

I haven't really even started on Staten Island, and I'm kind of dreading it. Not so much the walking part, but the getting there part.

I got in all of three tracts over the past two years, and only for stuff I found interesting. At some point I'm just going to have to take a few weekends, wake up early, and knock out the 105 tracts I've got left.

Staten Island Completed - February 2008


Staten Island Completed - January 2010

Queens Progress - February 2008 through January 2010

I didn't do too bad in Queens, almost tripling my tracts walked from 12% to 33% and filling in most of far western Queens, plus some good chunks of Hollis, Middle Village, Ozone Park, and Flushing. Still, I've got a lot left to do, especially out East. 2010 is going to be my Queens walking year.


Queens Completed - February 2008



Queens Completed - January 2010

The Most Desolate Place in New York

Out of the 2217 Census Tracts that make up the five boroughs of New York City, 24 have a population of zero. Ten are parks (8 part of the NYC Parks department, one part of National Parks System, and one affiliated with the Smithsonian) that have access to the public and regular visitation. Five are active cemeteries that can also be counted on to have regular visitors. Four are working environments – the Oak Point rail yards in the Bronx, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and two tracts that make up the Kings County Hospital Complex. One is LaGuardia Airport.

That leaves four Census Tracts one could reasonably call “desolate” – no permanent residents, no regular workers, and next to no visitors. One is really a ghost tract – Queens Tract 1622, which consists entirely of the Atlantic Ocean south of the Rockaways. It doesn’t even show up on the NYC Planning Department’s Census Fact Finder, but the Federal Census Bureau still lists it. Perhaps it was created to enumerate the population of Hog Island way back before it was destroyed about a hundred years ago, but I don’t even know if Census Tracts existed then. Regardless, since I can’t walk it I’m not counting it.

Two others consist of the series of marsh islands in Jamaica Bay. One of these tracts - Queens Tract 1072.02 - is easily accessed by the road between Broad Channel and the Joe Addabbo Bridge to Howard Beach, and houses the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge offices. The other - Brooklyn Tract 702.03 - is tougher, but there’s a small slice of the tract that’s on the same island. It takes a bit of trampsing through marshland, but you can get there on foot.

That leaves one Census Tract with no population, no workers, no land connection, and which is officially off-limits to visitors to boot. This is Bronx Census Tract 5: North and South Brother Islands, located at the western edge of Long Island Sound between Riker’s Island and the coast of the Bronx. I think it's fair to call this the most desolate tract in New York City.

A couple of summers ago I took a boat with Marie Lorenz out to North Brother. It was a very enjoyable few hours of exploration and relaxation, but the main purpose for me was simply to knock off what is probably the toughest Census Tract to get to in New York City.

Still, it's not exactly the South Pole - between scientists, students, reporters, and your occasional curious urbanist, the islands probably see at least a few dozen visitors a year.

Neighborhoods: South Bronx, North Brother Island. Tracts Walked: BX5

Bronx Progress - February 2008 through January 2010

I am, quite honestly, embarrassed at my lack of progress in the Bronx. 7 tracts in 2 years is pretty pathetic. Staten Island I can justify (no subway, large tracts), but I really should have gotten around the Bronx more.

2006 was really my Bronx year - I'd wanted to walk 100 tracts for a school project, evenly spread throughout the borough, which is why my Bronx map is so much more scattered than the other boroughs. I probably walked through at least a few dozen tracts more as just a side of effect of getting to the ones I was counting, but this was before I was really keeping serious track of where I'd walked, and if they weren't part of the project then I didn't note them.

Still, my Bronx progress had quality if not quantity. I managed a few interesting walks - and also to get to one of the most elusive census tracts in New York - North Brother Island.

Bronx Completed - February 2008


Bronx Completed - January 2010