Running Manhattan Island

So you think THIS was pointless? On this trip - yes this same trip madames and sirs! - I also braved the glaciers and yeti to climb to the highest point in Berks County, Pennsylvania, as well as finished running the length of the Schuylkill River in Berks. For other stupid running projects go here.


Above: at the trailhead. Below: the High Line at dusk.



This was different than my usual trail runs and goofy running projects: I've long wanted to run the length of Manhattan Island. I don't mind occasionally being somewhere that, if I get bored, I can at any random point pop into a bar for a drink or a deli for a soda. (I'm all about proper hydration.) It also provided a nice change of pace to my usual projects; last weekend I did as much of the next leg of the Tahoe Rim Trail before the snow got too deep. So I started with our hotel near Times Square, headed south, then got on the 1 line at Ferry South and went as far north as I could, ran up to the northern tip, then ran back. Pictures below start on the High Line. You'll have to forgive the tilt as when I took them I was running or being jostled.












Above, through the forest that is...someone's flat, 10 feet away. Below, typical view when crossing over intersections.


The High Line (an old raised railbed turned into a nice linear pseudo-nature park on the West Side) was crowded (why was I surprised that something in New York was crowded? Not sure. On the other hand, I'm always shocked how deserted a street can be when one block away there are throngs of tourists and businesspeople. Normally I don't care about architecture but along the High Line as you can see there's some really interesting modern stuff.

After that, my route took me down to the Financial District, past the new World Trade Center and just about right past the Stock Exchange. I made a point of seeing the the charging bull statue (did it used to be this big of a tourist site? And I completely forgot about the girl). I had my most New York moment when a guard at the construction site blocked me and said (read in NY accent) "Hey big guy, tsclosed, ya can't go in theah." The financial world just really does not seem to be a happy way to make money and I feel sorry for the poor bastards that spend years in that district - seriously.




Two pictures above, approaching the new World Trade Center, and then directly above, in its shadow. Below, ah the pathos of New York.















And finally I had arrived at the farthest point on the south end of the island in Battery Park. And there she is (first, as she actually appears from Battery Park, and then closer up from the Staten Island Ferry):





Then I got on the subway to go to the north end. As a geographical aside: in one of the pictures you'll see that the vertical rock walls across the Hudson on the Jersey side are quite obvious. These are magma (in Jersey! What?) and are actually related to the Wachtung Outliers, the same formation that the Jacksonwald outliers in Pennsylvania are part of, 200 million year-old volcanic rock from the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province that appeared at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary when the Atlantic opened and spread in earnest.

The Palisades and other rock formations along the Hudson were likely scoured by occasional floods occurring when a glacier melted out enough for a natural glacial dam to burst. Hence the glacial erratics you find in places like Central Park. (At the link you'll see it's assumed these were all here and were deposited by glaciers where they are now, and they certainly do have evidence of glacial scouring, but if you could find one where the scour-lines are not oriented north-south, as might happen if it was moved by the flood, you've got yourself a winner, i.e. a rock where deposit by flowing flood water is a much better explanation than a locally sideways-moving glacier.) If that's the history, then Manhattan Island is the result of occasional catastrophic glacial floods roaring down the Hudson. To wit: 1) It's much longer north-south, the same direction as the river. 2) The biggest, steepest slopes are north-facing ones in the northernmost part of the island (Inwood Hill Park and Fort Tryon, including the slope down to the river at the north end of the island, which would have been where the flood hit), that took the impact of the flood and protected the land in the lee of those hills (Manhattan Island was going to end up being anywhere there was a big rock outcrop that could accomplish this); these rock deposits likely protected the rest of the island during the flood and and 3) There are far more rock outcrops in the north island, consistent with this. See my quuck and dirty Evernote sketch. North (upriver) is to the left as if you're looking across the Hudson at Manhattan from Jersey, and the vertical relief dimension is of course exaggerated.



Below, you can see the rock lines from the glacier scouring, and no I never did find one where the lines were close to orthogonal to the direction of Manhattan's long axis, i.e. that could have been dropped there during one of the floods. Below that picture, a rock in the southern preserved meadow area which believe it or not had cactus growing in it.




Near the north end of the island I got off the Subway at Dyckman Street. Yes. Dyckman. HAR HAR HAR! Seriously though, Inwood Hill Park was probably the place I was most looking forward to seeing. If you see land across water that looks close, it's the Bronx, if far, it's Jersey. I scrambled down the bluff and touched the water at the north tip of Manhattan Island, where the East River divides from the Hudson. Inwood Hill doesn't look much like "Manhattan" I know!


















Of note, in Inwood Hill Park I also passed by Fort Cock Hill. Yes, Fort Cock Hill. It's on a hill with extremely hard rock thrusting into the sky. Little known fact about Fort Cock Hill, apparently Dyckman himself used to hang out there all the time. "Dyckman's hanging out at Fort Cock again," the locals would say, I report from 100% true and accurate history that I totally didn't make up for childish puns.

From there it was to the highest point in Manhattan, Linden Terrace at Fort Tryon (neat park, check out the Cloisters.) Some people say Bennett Park is the highest point so I went there too just to be safe. (Again, also in the northern part of the island.)

Then it was a long, long slog from 185th to 39th. Blocks in NYC are relatively short but come on, there were still 146 of them left. Few observations here except: 180s/170s seemed whiter, 170s-120s very Latin. The big civil structure is the oddly Gigeresque ceiling of the George Washington Bridge tunnel. I then checked out Grant's Tomb.

I had actually run out of time because I had agreed to meet a friend for an early dinner so I just took the subway from 116th back to the hotel. Dinner turned out to be worth it.






That's a New York Strip of course (I've also had French fries in France, Belgian waffles in Belgium, and Irish twins in Ireland.) This particular steak was in Wolfgang's Steakhouse on the ground floor underneath the New York Times Building, which by the way doesn't look at all like it's failing. An old fashioned and a gin and tonic were also had. I then went back the next day to run the remaining 77 blocks (4 miles.). Main observation is that the high rises and people density on the sidewalks picked up in the low 70s,that is, it again felt like "Manhattan."

Also from New York, not from the run, just very NYC photos:



Above, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island as seen from Todt Hill. Below, the old Pan Am Building (it dates me that I even know it as something other than the Met Life Building.)








Starting with the photo above, all pictures are from the Met. This figure is the Egyptian god of caffeine toxicity. Below: the Egyptians would not have deified felines if they knew to what undignified depths their descendants would eventually sink.







Also not particularly from this run, but about New York: yes there's a "density of variety" to food that you can't find elsewhere (for example I lost count of the Sichuan places within a few blocks of my hotel) and I did have a great meal at Szechuan Gourmet on 39th between 5th and 6th Avenue, but honestly, California still does Asian food better. The West Side is much more interesting - denser, more lively. People complain about the subway but it seemed fine to me.

Staten Island is interesting and of course has great Italian food, some cool views, and the Todt Hill neighborhood is chock full of big houses, some of which belong to "connected" families. The house from the Godfather is there as well, and although I have photos below I was very careful not to take pictures of houses in this neighborhood (no kidding, I'm pretty sure I was being followed at one point by a heavily tinted black Escalade and didn't want to draw further attention.) I hadn't been to Manhattan I think since summer 2005, and the main thing I noticed was a lot more jumbo-tron screens, and not just in Times Square either. Below, in order: the Brooklyn Skyline from the ferry, the foggy Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the forest on Todt Hill in Staten Island, and a view of the Jersey Coast from Todt Hill. Todt Hill is apparently the highest point on the coastal plain from Florida to New England and some of Todt Hill felt more like Berkeley, CA than New York City.









I hate to end on a negative note, but a) SO MUCH SMOKE (tobacco, marijuana, etc.) - WILL NOT MISS and b) one thing that I used to like about the Northeast and New York especially (as opposed to California) was - people working hard, working smart, planning ahead, being on time, and taking their jobs seriously. I ran into a number of examples in the travel and service industry during our stay where this was clearly no longer the case. This means the famous New York (and general Northeastern) brusqueness is no longer a compromise in exchange for good service, so I was quite glad to return to California. The figure below shows my very rough impression of regional work and service cultures and the trend consistently observed on this trip.