Greetings from Woodside, Queens and Points Beyond

 

There are some things in New York City that are so old and falling down, you just have to stand there in awe.

Walked from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Greenpoint, Brooklyn today with pal, Margot. It's a two hour walk. It goes through some well known sections of Queens: Woodside, with its old and still highly functional Irish pubs, Sunnyside, with its cute brick buildings surrounding gardened courtyards, the hip-art area of Long Island City near Vernon-Jackson Boulevards (and PS1-MOMA and the tallest building in Queens-the Citibank blue rocket), then...you get to Newtown Creek. Now, really, this creek is an industrial canal. Much like the Gowanus in Brooklyn. To get to Brooklyn from Queens, at this spot, you walk across a well traveled bridge. Cars, walkers and bikers all use it, the walkers and bikers together, protected by a concrete divider. And then it happened.

And it's the reason why so many of us don't ride bicycles.

This young man put on his brakes because he was flying too fast down the lump-toward-Brooklyn part of the bridge and another biker cut him off (who might have been trying to avoid hitting us walkers) and well, the guy who got cut off put on his brakes too hard and went flying to the ground. It was a bloody scene.

So we helped him. Now get this---there we were helping this guy, and he's a Black guy, and I can't really recognize his scrapes, for a long time.

I remember when I saw a dog's erection for the first time as a kid, I knew it was some sort of inner-blood thing---and it took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on.

But there it was, today, and I am full grown--and this guy has scrapes all over his arms and leg and a very bloody hand...and my mind is taking the longest time registering what the hell these marks are on his body. With the exception of some guy named Lance from day camp a million years ago, I don't remember having seen bloodied black skin. And there I was...agog...slowly registering reality. I even wanted to stare longer than would be polite in order to fully register this new visual experience.

So, let's give eggs a break. We are all different and sometimes, even when it's blood, it takes a while to take in the new information. Or at least, give me a break. I felt so stupid taking that long to recognize simple road burns. (But I DID vote for Obama even though it did register, immediately, that he was a Black man running for president.)

We walked our poor guy to a store and got him bandaids and such. Afterward, he limped off to the subway to finish out his ride to Fort Greene with the aid of the MTA.

Margot and I then went and had Polish at Christina's. When in Greenpoint, go to Christina's. On Manhattan Avenue, right across from the huge red brick church. I love Greenpoint.

And always wear your helmet. Anne. Jeff. All of you.