Bike Snob - Anonymous [8]
Thankfully it wasn’t long before I found myself in the residential neighborhood of Kew Gardens, which has a good-sized Orthodox Jewish community. Here Main Street was as quiet as you please, due mostly to the fact that it was Shabbat and nobody was driving. A historical sign confirmed that until the early twentieth century most of this area was still farmland, so between that and the fact that piety had temporarily rendered the area car-free I was almost able to delude myself into thinking it was the nineteenth century. For the first time since leaving College Point I also saw another cyclist. Exceedingly pleased, I bid him an enthusiastic “Ahoy!” but he clearly thought I was disturbed and did his best to ignore me. Also for the first time on my ride I saw one of those “Share the Road” signs with a picture of a bicycle on it. While over a century ago this was a popular enough cycling route to warrant a Times article, this was the first indication I’d seen all day that I was in any way welcome.
Before Main Street eventually connects with Jamaica Avenue, it is bisected by Queens Boulevard, otherwise known in the local media as the “Boulevard of Death” due to the frequency with which pedestrians are killed by motor vehicle traffic while attempting to cross it. Had there been a more benign street available (an “Avenue of Cheese,” perhaps) I might have opted for that, but if you’re going to ride across Queens it’s pretty much impossible to avoid its eponymous boulevard. Fortunately, I survived the Boulevard of Death and made a left onto Jamaica Avenue. I wouldn’t say it was particularly “splendid” (unless “splendid” means “riddled with potholes”) but it did lead me to Jamaica, Queens, as both its name and the Times article suggested it would.
About eight miles from College Point the road takes a sudden descent, and you are in Jamaica, the road ending abruptly at the main street of town. Here a short stop is usually taken at Pettitt’s Hotel.
Well, there were no descents, sudden or otherwise, nor was there a Pettitt’s Hotel. There was also little to suggest this had ever been a cycling paradise. There was, however, an abundance of 99-cent stores as well as an old house called “King Manor.” Apparently this had been the home of Rufus King, who was a Founding Father and was one of the drafters of the Constitution, and it was the probably the first thing I’d seen since Flushing that would have existed back when the Times article was written. Emboldened by this hot link to history, I continued with renewed vigor.
Continuing, the main street is followed riding toward the east to Canal Street, and then turning to the left through Canal, which merges into the Merrick Road.
Just as there’s no more Pettitt’s Hotel, there’s also no canal, nor is there a Canal Street. However, if you keep going on Jamaica Avenue you run right into Merrick Road. (If you pass the Save-A-Thon you’ve gone too far.) Actually, now it’s called “Merrick Boulevard” in these parts, but it’s the same road. This was it—the cycling thoroughfare of the late nineteenth century! It was our Yellow Brick Road; our Appian Way; our Great Silk Route; maybe even our Via Dolorosa! It seemed to me that there should be some kind of statue somewhere, or at least a plaque. Instead, there were just a whole lot of perplexed pedestrians wondering why I was staring at a street sign outside of a sneaker shop. Sighing, I