1. A TRIP TO BROOKLYN, PIONEER OF THE LITTLE QUEEN
Will Homeric traffic jams soon be history? The Big Apple has recently converted to cycling, to the point of becoming the second metropolis in the world in number of daily bicycle journeys (450,000), just after Paris. In ten years, the municipality has extended the network of bike paths by 500 kilometers to reach today 1,700 kilometers, and, since 2013, New Yorkers have also had a self-service bicycle system, called Citi. Bike. More than 700 rental terminals are available, and prices range from $12 a day to $163 a year. Well established in Manhattan, Citi Bike has recently expanded to Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn Heights. It is in this borough that the very first cycle path in the United States, Ocean Parkway, was inaugurated in 1894, over eight kilometers between Prospect Park and Coney Island. Pedaling in Brooklyn is therefore putting your wheel in that of the American pioneers of the little queen.
From Manhattan, you can cross the East River by bike using the Brooklyn Bridge – several Citi Bike terminals nearby – and then head off to explore the West Bank. Along the way, the views of the Lower East Side, the Statue of Liberty and even New Jersey are impressive. We follow the shore to Red Hook, where Ikea and Tesla have settled. A popular neighborhood full of charm, with its small buildings, its green spaces and an always crowded seafood restaurant, the Brooklyn Crab. The ride continues south to Sunset Park. There, a stop. is essential to appreciate the panorama on the bay and the skyline of Manhattan, but also to discover Industry City, an original project dedicated to design, with artists’ studios and shops. After a detour via the Bush Terminal Piers Park, an oasis of greenery near an ocean of industrial warehouses, we take 2nd Avenue, then Ridge Boulevard to join the beautiful track of Bay Ridge Avenue. At the end of the adventure: the Strait of Verrazano and the bridge that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island. And if, after about two hours of cycling, fatigue overwhelms the brave cyclist, fortunately, the 95th Street metro station is very close! The Citi Bike terminal is located at the corner of 39th Street and 2nd Avenue.
2. AROUND MANHATTAN ON A GREEN ROAD
In his thirties, athletic silhouette, professional equipment, Jean-Claude Tounkara, a smiling software engineer of Malian origin, is crazy about cycling. Today, he is making a final adjustment on Strava, a smartphone app. With its directory of rides and races completed, the tool accompanies the cyclist permanently: “It’s the Facebook of cyclists and runners, essential, he says. Early in the morning or late in the evening, I do my route from Inwood, on the West Side, to Battery Park, which is about twenty-four kilometers. On the weekends, I do the whole loop in 1 hour 40 minutes.”
Like Jean-Claude, cycling enthusiasts pedal in droves on the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. Completed in 2011, this fifty-one kilometer track, which circles the entire island, has three sections. One of them, the Hudson River Greenway (see video below), starts at the George Washington Bridge, before heading south into Manhattan. After the superb panorama offered on New Jersey and its stops or strolls on the quays and in the green spaces, this wide way leads to the World Trade Center, the memorial and the museum of September 11th. Facing these places of memory, a vegetable garden has been planted, which diffuses the benevolent scents of basil, mint or chives. Lower still, the leafy atmosphere of Battery Park, with views of Ellis Island and Liberty Island, rewards travelers on two wheels.
3. IN CENTRAL PARK, THE BUCOLIC MOMENT
Finally, the choice of a robust mountain bike with the Central Park Sightseeing logo was not so stupid… The calves will thank you later, because this vast rectangle of vegetation of four kilometers by 800 meters is not so flat as it looks like it and offers some tasty ribs. A Citi Bike can also do the trick, but the comfort will not be the same. Manhattan’s green lung, set in its forest of skyscrapers, is the perfect place for a bike getaway far from the urban hustle and bustle. Two-hour guided tours are offered with four departures per day and in groups of a maximum of eighteen people. But it is better to take your time to explore this mythical park at your own pace, in order to stop here and there, to contemplate the expanses of water, the Harlem Meer, to the north, or the Etang, to the south, to take a break on the terrace of the Loeb Boathouse or on a lawn in the shade of one of the 2,854 oak trees in the park.
From the main track, Center Drive, a loop of about ten kilometers takes East Drive and runs along the imposing building of the Metropolitan Museum. You have to park your bike for a detour (because, be careful, some paths are exclusively pedestrian) on the banks of the huge mirror of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, where Thomas Levy (played by Dustin Hoffman) wet his jersey in the film Marathon Man (1976). Rock lovers, on the other hand, will head south on West Drive – this is where the false flats really turn into ribs – where, after skirting the Museum of Natural History, they can meditate at the Strawberry Fields memorial ( at West 72nd Street), an inconspicuous mosaic, low to the ground and only a few steps from the Dakota Building where John Lennon was shot on December 8, 1980.
Congratulations to our journalist Pascal Alquier who was awarded a “Visit USA Media award” at the American Embassy in Paris for the originality of his view of the Big Apple.
THEY HELPED US WITH THIS FILE
• OpenSkiesthe French company that connects Paris (Orly) to New York three times a day (from €410 round trip).
• Intercontinental Barclay, the mythical 1920s palace located near Central Park, which reopened in 2016 after a year of work (from $280 a night).
• Moxy, the design and cozy hotel opened last September in Times Square (from $139 per night). Great view from the roof terrace.
• New York City Tourism Office
• CityPASS et Explorer Pass allow you to obtain reduced rates for major New York sites.
🚴♂️ Article published in our New York special file (GEO n°466, December 2017) 🚴♀️
READ ALSO
⋙ New Angoulême: what if New York had been French?
⋙ What to do in New York when you love nature?
⋙ From New Amsterdam to New York: the founding of an emblematic city
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