Brooklyn Bound

BROOKLYN BOUND

Last week we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We first took the subway from Christopher Street to Chambers St. and changed lines exiting at Clark Street in Brooklyn.   We walked down the hill to the Brooklyn Bridge Park for a pit stop, but also checked out the Manhattan Bridge from underneath and stood on the riverbank and gazed across the water.

The Brooklyn Bridge is an icon, solid and robust with its gray stone arches. It’s easier to walk than the Golden Gate in San Francisco because pedestrians and cyclists are on a separate level above the cars. It was a sunny, coolish day, and we spent about 40 minutes in all walking it, given that we had to stop to take photos along the way.

                                                      Back in Manhattan we walked past City Hall, stopped in that park, and then walked past the new Lower Manhattan transit center, past Ground Zero, and then went left toward the Hudson River. Ultimately, we walked the entire way back from Chambers Street to our apartment near Pier 45. Very good exercise!

The next day we took the Metro again, this time to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, another place we hadn’t visited.  The lilacs were done, the cherry blossoms long past, but the roses were in full bloom! The Stanford Rose Garden includes many different species and colors of roses from historic ones to more contemporary tea roses.  It was a riot of color.

To be different, the C.P. suggested we take the shuttle train from the garden stop to get the C train. We waited a bit for the shuttle and then waited some more for the C to Manhattan. Two stops later, the train halted—signal problem ahead. Five minutes later it was announced the signal problem was also a switch problem with a switch stuck in the middle. No A or C trains were going north to Manhattan with no indication of how long the delay would be.

Realizing this was a problem, we exited to the street and were able to get Uber within about 10 minutes. We saw more of Brooklyn than we had intended and it cost a lot more, but we were back in the hood in about 30 minutes. Thus we had our own experience with deteriorating service on the subway!

Note:  All photos  ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).  Header image taken in Stanford Rose Garden.