Crossing over . . . and over

Just got back from a three-bridge walk - across the Brooklyn Bridge, under the Manhattan Bridge, and back to Manhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge. The mnemomic device for the order of the bridges, south to north, is BMW. Easy, right?

Our leader, a guy in his late sixties named Cy, showed up in pinstriped baseball pants and an ancient cap with "Shorewalkers" imprinted on it. He had a way of stopping at certain points along the walk as if he had some amazing bit of history or lore to impart, only to tell us that we had five minutes to use the bathroom in a park or a cafe.

We started out at the Manhattan Municipal Building, built around the turn of the last century and designed by McKim, Mead & White in classical and Italian Renaissance style. It sits just next to the Brooklyn Bridge and across from City Hall, and still functions as the main office of city government. This area of Lower Manhattan is really lovely - though I'm guessing that as many people visit it to go to J&R Electronics and Century 21 (a discount department store) as are there to see the historic sites.

Up and over the bridge we went, fighting the tourist and stroller tide on this lovely wasn't-it-supposed-to-rain sort of Sunday. Then back under the bridge through Dumbo, right past my office, under the Manhattan Bridge and on to Vinegar Hill.

Vinegar Hill is a nabe that overlooks that old Brooklyn Navy Yard and was settled by Irish immigrants and named after a place in Ireland that was the site of a battle with the British during the Irish Rebellion of the late 18th century. Several charming streets remain - little slices of brownstone and frame, store-fronted houses surrounded by Dumbo, city electrical substations, warehouses, a large soundstage, and a huge public housing project (many people here still call them projects - not the polite Seattle nomenclature - public housing).

On we marched to Fort Greene, the centerpiece of which is Fort Greene Park, a large space that was in fact the location of a fort and is therefore on high ground with grand views (this is where yesterday's Michael Jackson birthday party was supposed to have been held before it was moved to the much larger Prospect Park). Surrounding the park are leafy streets lined with brownstones and large Victorian and Edwardian mansions with wide staircases and genteel porches (though many of the mansions have been broken up into apartments.

From there we made our way to an area of Williamsburg that is home to a sect of Hassidic Jews called Satmar. One of my walk-mates told me that this group is particularly insular and traditional, which seemed evident on the street. Men in black coats and hat and women with their heads covered and little boys with the traditional curls. All of the children wore contemporary clothing but in a more conservative style - dresses and tights - very covered up. Except for the trendy strollers and one (Satmar) woman in Chanel and gold leather flats, it really felt like you were walking back in time. What's incredible about this neighborhood is that it's not walled off or anything - it's insular in the middle of the diversity and worldliness of the huge borough of Brooklyn. How you accomplish that through belief and tradition alone is hard to imagine. It's faith and devotion personified.

We stopped at a little cafe on Lee Street where the food was all kosher, of course, and very good. Middle Eastern in character and all freshly made - grilled vegetables, shawarma, pita, and Israeli salad (cukes and tomatoes). Like a lot of inexpensive New York eateries, it was a plain place in decor terms, but with excellent food.

By now our group had dwindled in size as some people headed off to explore the trendier confines of Bedford Avenue in Billyburg, where hipsters parade their angst and their pricey sneakers. There's art, yes, and chic boutiques and espresso - in fact, one of my Pine Street Cottage neighbors, J.D., owns two coffee shops in Williamsburg, both called Oslo (he and his family live in Brooklyn most of the time and in Seattle in the summer).

The remaining 15 or so us of the group headed towards the Williamsburg Bridge, which has walkways/bikeways on both sides. To my surprise, the Williamsburg span had lovely art nouveau detailing at both ends. Between, it's rather utilitarian as a structure, but there was tons of interesting graffitti, which you don't see on the Brooklyn Bridge, and way fewer tourists. Also, on the car level below us, we witnessed a car fire -

The Williamsburg Bridge empties out on to Delancey Street on the Lower East Side, where the walking group parted company. I went north to Tompkins Square Park to take in a little of the Charlie Parker Jazz Fest before heading home - a nice little respite after an 8-mile walk.

Next time you come to New York, I'll take you on this walk myself, and I promise to have more historic info in hand than Cy.

Bye for now.

Dual-purpose weekend

Last Saturday: I would never have expected to go to a national park and see laundry hanging from a line strung between trees. But there it was, on Governor's Island, where there were two events competing for visitors' attention: a camp of Civil War reenactors and an African-American culture festival. A perfect combo on one level, but an unusual one on another. Nonetheless, the feet-on-the-ground African dance lessons, with drum accompaniment, didn't seem in conflict with the occasional cannon blast from the (faux) Grand Army of the Republic. (The laundry belonged to the GAR folks.)

That's the kind of thing that happens on Governor's Island, a former military installation (for two centuries) that was nearly doubled in size ages ago when it was filled out with dirt from subway excavations. Now, you can bike or walk around it (about the same distance as walking around Green Lake) or rent a six-person pedal carriage sort of vehicle (it has pedals in the two front and middle seats, so four people can pedal at once). There are old officers quarters, a former military prison, lots of contemporary art work, and much open space on the old parade grounds and here and there around the island. They're still tearing down some of the more contemporary buildings on the island and that will add to the open space.

The only way to get to Governor's Island is by free ferry - it's only a 10-minute ride from Lower Manhattan, but, as this is New York, you have to wait in line for 45 minutes or longer on weekends to take this brief excursion. The ferry slip had a sign stenciled on it that said "At the Same Moment." Not sure what that means, but it was certainly a big topic of discussion among the passengers. Interestingly, the return ferry had signs indicating that one side was for Sheep and the other for Goats. (I was directed to the Sheep side, which is good because, as you know, Sheep go to Heaven and Goats go to Hell.)

Last Sunday, I landed in an entirely different New York landscape - the West Village - where I took a literary/dessert tour nominally in honor of the 81st birthday of Andy Warhol. Our guide was part of a great little company called NYC Discovery Tours, which does history and literary walks through various city nabes. I've done a few of these tour walks, and these folks are definitely the best.

Among the highlights: I learned that lovely Washington Square was a burial ground at one point, and the bodies are still there. Basically, the park was constructed over them. Many were paupers or, sadly, criminals who had been hanged from a large tree that still thrives in the park. Looking down on this cemetery at various points were Eleanor Roosevelt and Edith Wharton, among others.

Another highlight was the desserts - cannoli freshly made for us in a little bakery on Bleecker called Rocco's, and rugelach fresh from the oven at a place on Hudson (I forgot to write down the name).

The tour ended at one of the later locations of Andy Warhol's Factory and the place where he was shot. It's actually the Decker Building on Union Square, an area that now seems so upscale that it's hard to imagine it as a radical art enclave (the Williamsburg BK of its day). The Factory is now a hangout for fashion models, according to our guide.

This weekend's plans: a walk around BK, from Bay Ridge to Manhattan Beach, and maybe a look at a John Currin exhibit in Chelsea. What are you up to?