Tuesday, October 17, 2006

To run is to know














Halfway into one of last week's 7-milers, I stumbled upon the above. Ever since it started popping up on Curbed (and everywhere else), I've wanted to pay a visit to this newcomer to South Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood. As you can see (although not my pic), the produce displays are wonderous, and I've reason to believe the interior stacks up as well. Think we'll go back this w/e. On the same run, I found the only regulation-sized track w/in three miles of our new address (as a helpful Slope Sports employee tells it), which may or may not come in handy during my current training. Really enjoyed the scenery (Coffey Park, quite pretty) that Red Hook offers. Charming in a semi-dilapidated kind of way, and peaceable (not in the creepy sense--plenty of workers out in the a.m.), it's a neighborhood I would've considered moving to were it not for such poor subway accessibility. Makes for a good trek. Oh, at one point I rounded a corner to find a HUGE loft complex--all brick and age. Wanting to get a closer look, I ran through an attached parking lot, and although it appeared to be gated, it actually wasn't and I was able to skirt the perimeter of a small part of the building. I found a glass blowing studio and a handful of idyllic little galleries. The setting was so serene, and I felt, I don't know, privileged to spend a brief minute there.













A short run took me past the Greenwood Cemetery, as well as through it. The 'through' part ended up getting me in a wee bit of trouble--"no jogging through the cemetery, miss, ya here?"--something I still fail to understand. Because I'll have you (him) know that I was feeling nothing but reverence, and a sense of privilege at being there in the company of so many--i.e., Henry Bergh, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Blatchford, DeWitt Clinton, Nathaniel Currier, Charles Feltman, Horace Greeley, Thomas Hastings, Elias Howe, Walter Hunt, James M. Ives, Laura Keene, Brockholst Livingston, William Livingston, Pierre Lorillard, Frank Morgan Wuppermann, Samuel F.B. Morse, James Kirke Paulding, Samuel Reid, Alice Roosevelt, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Robert Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Ira Sankey, F.A.O. Schwarz, Henry Steinway, William Steinway, and Louis Comfort Tiffany--who graced the earth before my time. Harumph. So much for that.










It's full of beauty. To quote Curbed-reader/comment-er 'babs' on September 12, 2006, 3:13 PM: The Green-Wood Cemetary is actually quite a lovely destination and more of an advantage in terms of location than the opposite. In addition to the many famous people buried there (going all the way up to J-M Basquiat) and architecturally-significant monuments, it is a beautiful place for a stroll [and/or a run --KE] -- believe it or not (and it has a resident parrot colony). Prior to Prospect Park being designed, people used to regularly go to the Green-Wood to picnic. It has nothing to do with most people's image of a cemetery, as in those acres of horror that you see going through Queens.











Whoa! While on yesterday's 10-miler, having chosen Bay Ridge as my destination, I found this gem of a park en route (actually, in Bay Ridge), which is replete w/ perfect, pastoral little trails. I eventually found myself atop a grassy knoll affording views of BR, my dear Verrazano, Manhattan in the way-off distance, Lady Liberty, and plenty of shimmery blue (well...) water.











Once out of the park, this promenade starts up, and continues all the way to the bridge (faintly visible here) and beyond(?) I can't wait to take it further--maybe that'll be Sunday's 15'er.









Again, that park.









Sweet.









Promenade.









That's Manhattan engulfed in, uh, what do they call that "smoke or other atmospheric pollutants combined with fog in an unhealthy or irritating mixture?" Yeah.









Bay Ridge = totally adorable.

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Posted by princess kanomanom @ 11:45 AM