Hudson River Bicycle Memories

The object of my desire in 1961: Dad's 26 inch Raleigh bike with the little tool bag behind the seat. It didn't get better than that at 7. I had a dinky 24 inch bike that was given to me on Christmas Day 1960. One year later, I plotted ways to get Dad’s bike. These plots took place in my head on our long rides up the Hudson; pass Grant’s Tomb on our way to the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge. We’d sit there looking across the river and I swore I could hear the kids screaming on the Palisades Amusement Park roller coaster.

Here are pictures from yesterday's trip.

Smith Brothers ~ Lauded Thespians

I forgot to tell you, I went to high school with the Smith Brothers. Yes, the world famous Smith Brothers attended LaSalle Academy on East 2nd Street. Struggling to stay ahead of the Luden family in the cough drop business, the Smith parents shaved costs by taking the boys out of an exclusive Geneva private school and placing them in the East Village institution in 1969. Unable to socialize smoothly with their family trademark beards, the Smith boys found comfort in the small LaSalle theatre company. They left their mark in noted productions of Uncle Vanya and Duddie Come Home.

.

Biked the Westside last week ~ the blossoms were out in Riverside Park. I looped Central Park but cheated, using the 102th Street transverse to get to the westside. I rarely do the hill from hell at the north end of the park. I have no problem going up the hill, but I don't like the long coast down. I lost my recklessness a few summers ago, when I took a piece of meat out of my forehead when I fell off the bike going down that monster and waited three hours in Lenox Hill for twenty stitches.
.
I met Ronny Hanerfeld and his family in the emergency room waiting area; then, Nicky Bowen from 87th Street came in with his family. Each had a kid that needed medical assistance. We had a Yorkville reunion. It was 96 degrees out. I had a bandage covering the wound, no shirt on, too bloody, the nurse threw it away. My running shorts crept up my butt. With me just shy of nude, we reminisced.

Hudson River Summer ~ Central Park Cycling

Bike riding yesterday, I saw a Chinese~American couple marry at the Battery; I passed the Circle Line, where in 1963 Rory, me, Dad and Mom took a day trip on a boat to Bear Mountain. More on that in later post. On the land side at 42nd Street, I spied a pair of cool new buildings.

Further north, I passed the Soldiers and Sailors Monument overlooking Riverside Park which I always confused with Grant's Tomb when I was a kid; I found a soccer ball last week in the Hudson and fell in up to my chest, the water was clean and warm; but yesterday I finished my ride dry with a spin of Central Park and rode along with a Victorian gentleman exercising on a giant bicycle, he said he was taking his constitutional.

.

.