\t\t\t\ti was patting myself on the back yesterday when i saw that a call i made
\nto 311 got pretty immediate results. oh yeah.<\/p>\n
a crosswalk signal at 21st Street and 34th Avenue was turned completely
\nthe wrong way. if you crossed from one corner you would see no crosswalk
\nsignal at all. but the more dangerous one is the one i saw, which faced
\nanyone attempting to cross in the east-bound direction. the sign was
\nperfectly aligned, and it fooled a couple of elderly folks who saw the
\nWALK signal and walked right out into oncoming traffic. the cars were
\nwhizzing past and i heard one of the two folks crossing ask why all these
\ncars were coming at them, can’t they see we have the light, and so on. it
\nwas, seriously, pretty scary. i mean, i had my wits about me and at
\nfirst even i thought the WALK signal was accurate. 21st Street is very
\nwide, too, and cars come down fast. they managed to get across the street
\nsafely but i would bet that those old folks spent the rest of the day
\nasking each other “why the heck were all those cars coming at us?”<\/p>\n
so i called 311 to explain the situation, which the operator there seemed
\nto take pretty seriously, and within a couple of days the crosswalk signal
\nwas fixed.<\/p>\n
yay me… though i expect someone else would have reported it soon enough,
\ntoo.<\/p>\n
strangely enough, later that day i saw a gathering of ambulances and
\nemergency vehicles at a nearby intersection. at first i imagined that this
\nwas some response to something related to the errant crosswalk signal, but
\nit was not. a pretty grim sight to see, though.<\/p>\n
…..<\/p>\n
i made it over to Port Morris, in the Bronx yesterday. i don’t really know
\nthe Bronx as well as I’d like to. that section, for as little as I saw of
\nit, seemed low-key. i didn’t have time to explore the streets, but I
\nwandered briefly around Cypress Avenue and 130-something Street before
\nreturning to Randall’s Island via the pedestrian walkway that passes over
\nBronx Kill. it was a bit of an adventure, like the ones i used to make,
\nthe hours-long directionless rambles through parts unknown to me years
\nbefore but increasingly familiar as I repeat myself, and repeat myself.<\/p>\n
i had intended to find the walkway to Manhattan, which I saw signs for a
\ncouple of weeks ago. but i got distracted and sidetracked, and happened to
\nfind that there is a walkway to the Bronx, which I did not know about.<\/p>\n
the ramps were narrow and the atmosphere was gritty. the bridge felt old,
\n1960s-era New York. there are two sides of pedetrain pathways over that
\nbridge. on the way over i saw a giant WELCOME TO THE BRONX sign. on the
\nway back i exchanged smiles with an older gentleman. from his stride and
\nhis demeanor i gathered that he, like i, was simply outside enjoying the
\nbeautiful day.<\/p>\n
i made it back over to Randall’s Island, a place which kind of baffles me
\nfor its inactivity and idyllic tranquility. beautifully manicured parks
\nand fields that seem to never to get much use. maybe i am just not there
\nat the right times, but the place is weirdly uninhabited when i am there.<\/p>\n
having failed to find the way to Manhattan i was tantalized by the Bronx,
\nand will try to get over there again. i didn’t even intend to go all the
\nway to Manhattan, I just wanted to see the walkway.<\/p>\n
a somewhat strange thing happened on my way back to the Triborough Bridge.
\ni walked across a large and mostly empty parking lot when a car pulled up
\nright next to me. Creepy, until I realized it was my friend Don, who works
\non Randall’s Island. He said he saw me a few minutes earlier but couldn’t
\nget his car near to me, as i seemed to be evading him. in fact i was just
\ntrying to get off the roadways and away from vehicular traffic, for there
\nappears to be very little in the way of sidewalk paths in that part of the
\nisland. i was under the Hell Gate Bridge, where the Acela trains race
\npast. i noticed the symmetrical forms of the sequence of arches and
\nremembered Stacy, a girl from high school who was all kinds of nice and
\nwho i think had a thing for me at some point. one day she started rattling
\noff names of architectural elements, like Squinches and Piers and Arches
\nand Voussoirs. I was 16 or 17 and it made my cock hard to hear her say
\nthose words, which were new to me. i think it was the first time mere
\nwords had that effect on me. and she had a beautiful look on her
\nface, too, as she looked around the place, naming the architectural
\nelements and pointing at them as she called them out.<\/p>\n
i should have fallen in love at that moment but she was dating a guy named
\nNick. even as a youth i knew the code. you just don’t mess with girls once
\nthey’re taken.<\/p>\n
anyway, Don cruised around long enough that he was able to intercept my
\npath. i told him i was just out and about, enjoying the beautiful day. he
\nreplied that that sounded like an excellent idea, though i sensed a bit of
\nmelancholy or even disdain in his voice. he had no opportunity to do as i
\ndo, which is wake up at noon, masturbate, make coffee, look at
\ne-mail, and then contemplate where i want to go before heading to the pub
\nat 5pm to swill beers and play video games. the decisions are sometimes
\nsurprisingly laborious. yesterday i couldn’t decide among Randall’s
\nIsland, the cemetery, the 181, or sitting on the couch. Even walking
\ntoward Randall’s Island felt noncommital. Don works long, long, long hours
\nat his job.<\/p>\n
I got into Don’s car and we cruised around Randall’s Island for a few
\nminutes. Reality looks very different from inside the pod-like vessel of
\nan automobile. i learned a few new things about the island. i never knew
\nthere was a homeless shelter there. i thought that structure was just an
\nold abandoned school building.<\/p>\n
i wish Randall’s Island was a little more accessible.<\/p>\n
oops, i gotta go…\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i was patting myself on the back yesterday when i saw that a call i made to 311 got pretty immediate results. oh yeah. a crosswalk signal at 21st Street and 34th Avenue was turned completely the wrong way. if you crossed from one corner you would see no crosswalk signal at all. but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-triumphs","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}