neighborhoods

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Art in Downtown Denver Near Laramie & Broadway

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I didn’t think I would get to ride a bike this week, but guess what? Denver has bike share! For the relatively low price of $8, I could ride all day long, as long as I checked a bike in every 30 minutes. No problem, I thought, especially since there was a station right outside my hotel. Turns out the software running the kiosks was broken, so the bike was free for 30 minutes, and I used all of then tracing downtown’s bike lanes. I have to admit the place felt kind of empty, that ghost town feel of downtown Hartf ord or Oakland or Boise, but immediately that just felt like free roads to pedal. The place is flat and easy to ride, and the skyline is that mix of modern block skyscrapers and red brick boxes–a lovely combination. I had a vague memory of passing a bikeshare station on yesterday’s ride to the airport, so I retraced those steps, vaguely, until I saw this art installation I rememebered that centered me back where I was. I noticed it because the storage container’s been used in new artistical ways lately, in NYC and Brooklyn, especially, and in New Orleans as a possible new housing design. To me these massive crates feel like temporary, like a fix that means to break down and leave folks homeless again, so it isn’t really art, except it is. It depends who’s looking I suppose. Me, I pedaled back downtown, hoping my gut would lead me back to the bikeshare station I knew was still working. It did, and I docked the bike and spent the rest of my day on foot, passing through the classical architecture of the state and city capitals and the ultramodern art musuem and the simply wonderful history museum before walking back to the hotel where work belonged. It was a perfect day to explore a new city by bike and by foot, and it was absolutely my pleasure.

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View From the Manhattan Bridge

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E. is running the Brooklyn Half Marathon this weekend, which is pretty damn cool, so Brompty and I hopped on the train to NYC to cheer her on. I love that I can just pop the bike in the overhead bin and then unfold her on the other side and ride us all down to Brooklyn. Today’s ride through Manhattan was a quick reminder of the different attitude you need to ride here to avoid the pedestrians wandering into the street, the delivery trucks, cabs, and cop cars blocking the bike lane, and the other cyclists whoosing past; let’s just say I used my outside voice a lot. The left onto the Manhattan Bridge bike path was a relief, even though it was a bit tricky to avoid that one woman with all the groceries blocking my way. Oh, but the ride up the bridge! I love the slow pedal with the cars and subways, the city getting smaller and turning into water. I snapped this picture at the halfway point. I have seen this view from many vantage points in the last 20 years, but the view from the bike is the first one that’s felt like seeing all that much. I coasted down the other side and followed my directions to Red Hook for ridiculous tacos and grits and then followed Union Avenue through Park Slope and up Eastern Parkway to Crown Heights. I could ride in Brooklyn forever, but tomorrow it will be all Brooklyn Half Marathoning for me. E. can run it, but I’ll take my bike. Oh, such fun!

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Pink Flowers in Charles Village

Pink Flowers in Charles VillageIt has been a light week on the bicycle–just a quick ride up and down the hill to meet N. for beer and then today’s pedal around the neighborhood–coffee shop in Remington where I saw two other weekend riders–we’re all feeling fine, that Sunday 40 was a good recovery ride, Waverly for a quick visit, and back to Charles Village to meet J. for lunch and plans. After this past weekend’s ride and the ones coming this weekend, this has been just right. I took this picture of pink flowers in someone’s yard, a reminder to slo-o-o-w down, it’s still just spring. Brompty and I take off for NYC on the train in the morning so we can pedal alongside as E. runs the Brooklyn Half Marathon–my kind of travel, and it’ll be good to get some bridge riding in. I see you, summertime, but no rush, seriously.

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Pratt Branch Library at 20th & N. Wolfe

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I woke up early this morning, packed my bags, and hopped on the Surly for the short ride to the Moveable Feast headquarters over on North Milton in East Baltimore to load up for our ride to Ocean City for our ride back home. I followed my googleymap directions for the fastest route, left on 25th, continue onto N. Wolfe, a left on Ashland, another left Milton. My ride took me through neighborhoods that today all looked the same–boarded up rowhouses between others with open doors and filled stoops, few trees, plenty of cars, folks selling snacks and water and car washes, and this Clifton branch of the Pratt Library that looked closed without the side decorations of trees and flowers, and then Johns Hopkins and their East Baltimore developments. I dropped my bike and walked the mile and a half to the bus pick up stop–those who know me will be unsurprised to hear I was over an hour early. It will be a different ride tomorrow, but this is the home I’ll come home to, and I like it.

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Property For Sale on Bank Street Near Caroline

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Today’s ride started at the bike shop for a new helmet, and oh my, what a pleasure it is to have a local bike shop. I tried on some lids and had a completely lovely chat about helmet philosophies and training diets (she prefers the ice cream program over my pizza plan) before setting off for a roll down the hill. I meant to go to the Kinetic Sculpture Race, a most wondrous festival of giant floats on bicycles, racing, but in spite of the obvious pleasure of that sort of event for a person like me, I just wasn’t in the mood for crowds. Instead, I biked down through Little Italy and up Bank Street toward Patterson Park. I snapped this picture of an empty and overgrown lot for sale just before Caroline. The part where this spot can exist mere blocks from the hyperdeveloped areas of Harbor East and Fells Point blows my mind, as a newcomer to the city, anyway. I didn’t live here when they decided to build so much public housing downtown, when all the rich people were taking the new highways to the booming suburbs. I live in Baltimore now, when there’s a reversal, and downtown is being developed as live-work-tourism space. I wonder what the city will do with areas like this, Perkins Homes, as the real estate becomes more valuable. For now, this spot is offered by Fells Point Realty, perhaps a sign that that neighborhood’s creeping north. The way things look now, I will be here to watch those developments. The rest of my ride was all a marvel at wispy clouds, ridiculous blue skies, brilliant greens, and a traffic jam of bikes on the Fallswat heading home. Yep, spring is here. Lucky, lucky us.

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View From a Footbridge Near Ashbourne & June in Arbutus

View From a Footbridge Near Ashbourne & June in ArbutusI had to come into campus for a full day of meetings and things today–a total bummer given that the sun was going to come out after several days of rain and I was feeling a bicycle ride. Solution: multimodal commute with the Brompty, and that’s what I did, flying down the hill to catch the 9:25 train to the Halethorpe station, not even 3 miles from campus. Continue reading →

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Bike Lanes Down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. at 5th

Bike Lanes Down Pennsylvania Avenue in DC at 5thSome days you just need to get out of town, and today was one of those days, so I dragged myself out of bed at an entirely reasonable hour, carried Brompty down the stairs, and zipped to the train station for a ride to Our Nation’s Capitol. Lucky me, I bumped into S. on her way to the archives. We don’t know each other well, but we always have a good conversation, and today was no different. The ride was quick with discussions of summer reading lists, how history is activism, why your community engagement might maybe be best if it engages with your actual community, and how much harder is is to do work when you know you are exploited labor, even if you love what you do. Continue reading →

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Scrap Metal at Cambridge Iron and Metal Recycling Center at O’Donnell & S. Haven

Scrap Metal at Cambridge Iron and Metal Recycling Center at O'Donnell & S. HavenFinally, I had an afternoon free enough to ride a bicycle around, so after work and talk and work, I took the Surly out for a ride. We went down the hill with traffic and then a left and a right and a left again to Fells Point and past all the new construction, gravel pits ringed by facade walls saved for history. A quck snack and I was off again, toward Patterson Park for loops with seemingly all the dogs and babies in Baltimore, plus soccer and softball and kickball leagues, all divided by age and race and income, it seemed. I headed east through Highlandtown and the dead end at Haven Street, which leades to all the really good stuff, like this, piles and piles of discarded metal bits and sheets, from what, I’m not sure, but cameras are watching, so don’t even think about it. I went under an underpass, no idea where I would shoot out, and rode around a development ringed by its own gravel pits, surprised to find the kickball demographic there. We had talked in my class that day about how places are temporary resolutions of struggle, and I wondered what will happen as that demographic hits up against the manufacturing corridor, and who will have to move where. I’m guessing the heavy metal that has been piling up since 1909 will be a hard limit, but you never know. And then I was in Greektown, found again. I pedaled back toward home on signed bike routes and a date for pizza with friends, happy to have been lost, if only for a short bit. Getting lost feels like home, and its good to be here.

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Mural on a Building at Guilford & Lanvale

Mural at Guilford & LanvaleIt was cold and rainy yesterday and dark and cloudy this morning, but by the time I got on the Surly the sun was out, the sky was blue, and it felt like springtime. I zoomed down the hill and around the side of downtown Baltimore for a quick swim in the pool before heading the other way and up to Locust Point for some treats. It had been almost a week since I did this typical ride and it felt like home, the same row houses and red lights and intersections where cars tend to just run right on through the crosswalks so you have to be extra careful, even when you’ve got the green. It’s nice to get to know a place, but it’s also nice to just know one, and Baltimore’s a good one. Continue reading →

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Pile of Rubble at 21st & Barclay

Pile of Rubble at 21st & BarclayI remember the first ride I took on a bicycle up the hill to Charles Village, pedaling away on a rented three-speed from the Mt. Vernon hotel, on my way to see about a family about an apartment. It was a slog in the hot July weather and new-to-me “hills,” and wow, the neighborhoods seemed to change quickly. Continue reading →