Summer Streets NYC
Park Avenue was closed yesterday, but really it was open. To cyclists and runners and skaters and scooter riders. To any New Yorker who needed a morning stroll.
I got off the train at Grand Central and walked across the marble floors and out onto 42nd Street. I climbed up the Park Avenue Viaduct and sat straddling a guardrail, trying not to be swept away by the endless flow of humans down the avenue.
A volunteer with the unenviable job of crowd control asked me to move along.
“I’m painting Summer Streets." I told her.
“Okay, where’s your badge?”
“You got me. I don’t have one.”
She conferred with her coworker. They told me I could stay if I stayed out of the way. I'm so glad I stayed. From my seat in the ever-shifting shade I could catch every detail.
Art Deco street lamps. Deep shadows in the window of Grand Central Terminal. Midtown skyscrapers carving out the smallest sliver of blue sky.
People posed for pictures. Cyclists took the turn at every imaginable speed. Kids sped by on scooters, in strollers. Runners and walkers and part-time joggers coasted downhill.
A friend passed by in the middle of a twenty mile run. He gave me a fist bump and continued on without breaking stride.
A jazz band set up on the street corner below. Melodies lifted on the air. Every so often the voice of the volunteers rang out.
“KEEP MOVING!”
Good advice for anyone. I finished painting, ate three tacos, then headed home for a long nap.