Results of the Weekend
First, I got a new bike! Bye-bye old bike! I've had it at least since I was 12, but it just wasn't cutting it for the city anymore.
The air was so clear Friday and Saturday. You could see Staten Island from the Battery completely clearly and New Jersey from Coney Island (below), which you can almost never do.
"Attended" the Mermaid Parade, which involved me getting there right when it ended.
Leave it to me to go to Coney Island on the most crowded day of the year and take a picture of the boardwalk.
Dog vs. Cockatoo action in Brighton Beach. I think the dog just wanted to play. The bird was having none of it.
This kind of speaks for itself if you notice what the woman is walking on a leash.
mike sold out at - 23:18
6.10.2007
Ow
I biked something like 40 miles today (across three counties!) as part of a tour of the historic (now defunct) Brooklyn water system. It stretches all the way out to Massapequa on Long Island (almost in Suffolk County), which was where the bike tour started. Needless to say, I am sore.
Among the cool facts learned:
-Conduit Ave out near JFK is the path of the water conduit, as is Sunrise Highway.
-Aqueduct racetrack is named after the nearby water conduit.
-Brooklyn's merger with NYC in 1898 was driven partly by a water shortage.
-Many of the land holdings from the water system were turned into state and local parks by Robert Moses in the 1920s and 1930s after the water system was largely out of business.
The easternmost part of the water system:
One of four pumping stations, this one near Merrick.
Baisley Pond Park in Southeast Queens.
Ridgewood reservoir on the Brooklyn-Queens border:
