Bike Snob - Anonymous [7]
ROAD RUN TO FAR ROCKAWAY.
Best Way for Cyclers to Reach the Seaside Resort
If I was going to retrace an old-timey route from the glory days of cycling, I could think of no better way to do so than by doing an authentic 1895 “run” to Far Rockaway. My planned ride would take me to my childhood home and the place where I learned to ride a bicycle. Not only that, but the ride would take me along Merrick Road and through Valley Stream, our cycling Bethlehem, along the way. So I took off my tweed reading suit, donned my tweed cycling suit, lubed up my safety bicycle, and off I went.
To reach the beach at Far Rockaway, all routes pass through Jamaica. The various ways of reaching Jamaica were fully given in the article describing “A Favorite Century Run to Patchogue.”
Jamaica is in Queens. According to the article, to get to Jamaica, I should start in Central Park, leave it at Ninety-sixth Street, head to the ferry house at the foot of East Ninety-ninth Street, and take a ferry to College Point, which is also in Queens. Also according to the article, “The boats do not run at frequent intervals.” Well, I’ll say. I’d guess the last ferry from East Ninety-ninth Street to College Point was sometime during the McKinley administration, and if I went there and waited I’d probably just find a bunch of skeletons in top hats and monocles, their empty eye sockets trained on their open pocket watches. So I figured I’d start in College Point and pretend I’d just taken a ferry.
From College Point the electric car tracks are followed to Thirteenth Street, where a turn to the right is taken and the road followed to Flushing, a matter of only about three miles from the ferry.
Well, I couldn’t find any electric car tracks in College Point, nor could I find a Thirteenth Street. There is, however, a College Point Boulevard, and it does indeed head towards Flushing, so I figured this was an adequate substitute. Emboldened, I mounted my bicycle and was now awheel! I was doing my best to remain in the mind-set of a nineteenth-century cyclist, but I admit that with the heavy motor vehicle traffic and airplane traffic (I was just west of the Van Wyck Expressway and directly under the LaGuardia Airport flight path) it was quite difficult. Disoriented, I arrived in Flushing, which the New York Times had failed to mention was choking with motor vehicle traffic. It had also omitted the fact that Flushing now has New York City’s second-largest Chinatown. And where there are Chinatowns, there are crowds. And where there are crowds, there are pedestrians who leap in front of you like suicidal lizards on a hot stretch of highway.
My twenty-first-century self had expected this, but my nineteenth-century self certainly had not. In the 114 years since the Times article had been written, the city had had the impertinence to subsume what had then been a small town. As such, I desperately needed some old-timey landmarks in order to find my footing in history. The article had mentioned a fountain in the middle of town, but there was none to be found. There was, however, still a town square of sorts complete with a sign that said “welcome” in at least six languages and pointed out some of the nearby historical buildings. Comforted, I resolved to resume my journey and once again consulted the article. It directed me to Main Street, which fortunately still exists. Main Street, it told me, would take me to Jamaica Avenue, which also still exists, and the article assured me that this particular road is “of splendid macadam, and it is really a pleasure to climb the few hills which are encountered.”
Macadam! I practically salivated on my tweed vest at the mere thought of it. Oh, to finally feel macadam beneath my pneumatic