Sunday, August 1, 2010

Running to Red Hook

My run to Red Hook started inauspiciously on Warren at Henry with the schmuck-driver of this car yelling at me, first from where he was stopped at a light, then cruising just behind me, where a poetic train of thought on his appreciation of the female form continued mellifluously from his open window. I don't often feel threatened by unter-civilized cretins like this, but idling just behind me was unusually creepy. So here's his number plate. Know him?

Funny how they speed up when the camera comes out.

Getting to Red Hook means getting over the BQE.

And then you're in the New York version of the heartland.

Old cars and trucks are the longing, perhaps, for an idealized, rural, all-knowing America. Jimmie Dean with a cigarette on his lip.

Liberty Sunset again.

And the figs and citrus trees from Monrovia. I am still thinking about that Meyer lemon...

I didn't know that there was a Lynden Miller garden here. The nursery steered me there.

There are some perfectly hidden benches with uninterrupted views of the water, the harbour and the Statue of Homeland Security Liberty. The garden does not look great at the moment, but that is probably due to lack of rain. That said, the plantings outside Fairway, farther down, look very healthy.

I liked the blue barrels showing the way from street to garden.


Last glimpses at not-for-long abandonment...


Leaving Red Hook via the route I chose involved this pedestrian overpass, where I half expected to meet shady characters around the turn, but the only people crossing it were young mothers pushing expensive strollers. Underneath zoomed the traffic entering and exiting the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to and from Manhattan.

4 comments:

  1. I love reading your posts because it makes me nostalgic about Brooklyn. We used to live in Greenpoint and would bike ride everywhere. It's nice to go out of our neighborhood. I can't wait to go to the plant nursery! Hopefully next week.

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  2. meems, before you go, call ahead to check that he still has figs. I think he will, but just in case.

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  3. as i was walking on our dirt road, i gave a friendly wave to a passing car. the driver gave me the finger. what's that about?

    crankiness is ugly.

    i tried to let it go...

    (glad you're o.k.)

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  4. I had to show you this, it made me laugh at the time:
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-economically-disadvantaged-men-more-skilled,173/

    Oh Red Hook. I love the Miller garden, I would relax there when I couldn't be in the dark studio any longer.

    Its a bit more noisy down there now, but the garden still is quiet most times.

    Old cars are Kamp kool.

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