Greenpoint, October, 2015

Saturday, April 30, 2011

What a Difference a Lane Makes

The Kosciuszko Bridge between Queens and Brooklyn affords its riders one of the most spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. This is not that view. It's the view provided by another bridge--named for no one as far as I know--of the Gowanus Canal where it meets the harbor, with Staten Island in the distance. To look out through the passenger window here is to glimpse for a few seconds a tableau of the working waterfront, with its piers, tugs, and huge clanking machinery from the early part of the last century (I'm guessing).

It took me more than a year to realize that if I got into the far right lane just after the Hamilton Avenue exit (headed west), I would both be closer to that world and see more of it. There's no (sane) option of crossing the bridge on foot. What a great thing it would be to have a platform on which you stand, looking out over the world New Yorkers built and have worked for two centuries.

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