Manhattan Summer Streets + Harlem Week 5K = Best Saturday Ever!

Hundreds of thousands of people of all sizes, descriptions, and modes of legal transport enjoyed Manhattan Open Streets on Saturday Aug. 9. The event, organized by the Department of Transportation, was the second of three such celebrations this year in Manhattan, the first being on Aug. 2 and the last slated for next weekend, on Aug. 16.

The route is extraordinary: from Centre Street at Foley Square in the lower Manhattan Civic Center to Dyckman Street up in the far, if not the farthest, reaches of Inwood, at Broadway and Dyckman.

At more than 13 miles with some ample hills along the way, few people would think the route, which includes 13 different rest stops—12 en route plus an extra Harlem dogleg—too short.

But was it too long? Complaints about Summer Streets road closures won’t find much sympathy among event participants although inevitably there were critics on the social media site NextDoor.

While the DOT deserves criticism on many issues—from timely project management to their excess obeisance to e-vehicles over pedestrians and pedal bicycles—most residents we encountered felt they did a terrific job with Manhattan Summer Streets.

This fact not only deserves commendation, but the achievement vaults the event into the very front rank of the borough’s best public happenings.

This reporter rode the entire route, south to north, by bicycle, a Specialized Allez with mostly 11-speed Shimano 105 equipment, starting shortly after 7:30am.

Foley Plaza showed little evidence of various commotions, be they the ICE protests outside 26 Federal Plaza or the recent “Diddy” trial inside the US courthouse up the street.

Instead, various people were setting up for the next eight hours of delight, including a DJ and other tents and tables, that would host recreational activities until the streets reopened to vehicular traffic at 3pm.

Last year at the start, there were kids’ basketball hoops set up.

After a kindly orange-shirted man from the DOT took my photo, I clipped in and dropped onto Centre Street, joining what was already a steady, excited flow of pedal bicyclists and runners. The weather for our collective journey was nearly ideal, sunny with temperatures nearing 70 and little humidity.

Even at this early hour, it’s not a race. Repeat: It’s not a race and couldn’t be a race even if one were so inclined. There are too many stops at the dozens of open cross streets between Chambers Street and East 106th Street.

Depending on one’s pace, sometimes you’ll make the light, other times you won’t. It doesn’t matter, and everyone I saw waited patiently for the “go” sign from a course marshal or cop.

Choosing Your Line, Carefully

I said it’s not a race, but that doesn’t mean the course isn’t competitive. Though there wasn’t any rancor at this early hour, the uptown route was a bit congested as groups of runners made their way north spread across the roadway.

This wasn’t a huge deal but was an interesting microcosm of the conflict between cyclists and runners.

For those unfamiliar with the dispute, cyclists—mostly commuter types emboldened by online bicycle activism—take their bike lanes very seriously, and will SCREAM! at nearly anyone they believe is encroaching on “their” turf.

While e-bikes and delivery drivers are often excepted from these verbal attacks, for political reasons, long-time pedal bicyclists and runners are generally simpatico, and understand that motorized vehicles of all kinds, not legs and lungs, are the common foe when it comes to sharing space.

In any event, even the largest running groups would be left behind as the bicyclists rolled up Centre Street to Lafayette to Fourth Avenue to Park Avenue—though not with any rancor. To the contrary, one envied the camaraderie of the runners, which Straus News later learned, included NYPD’s First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella.

As for the other sights, abundant as they are, you don’t actually see much; bicyclists have tunnel vision, and the main thing is to stay alert and pedal. For solo bicylists, the stop lights were a good opportunity to converse, as this reporter did with a younger male triathlete who was making his way from the East Village up the Summer Streets route to the George Washington Bridge, whence he’d ride up to Nyack..

Indeed, save the zigzag around Grand Central Terminal and through its dark underpass, Park Avenue was a blur until the left-hand turn at 110th Street, which after quick salutation to the Duke Ellington statue at Fifth Avenue, would take us to the ride’s first climb, from Central Park West to Broadway.

While not a major hill, it’s a bump enough to raise one’s heart rate in preparation for the climb up Broadway between 125th and 135th streets—now that’s a hill! A plateau follows, then a gradual descent through the Upper Manhattan Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleum, whose notable residents include Mayor Koch, writer Ralph Ellison, and actor Jerry Orbach.

Past the boneyard, another gradual climb begins, taking one to the point around 181st Street where Broadway becomes a valley road from which steep hill streets will rise to Hamilton Heights on the west and upper elevations of Washington Heights to the east.

The route ended in celebratory fashion at Dyckman Street, where affible cops from the 73rd Precinct in East New York, Brooklyn, were on course duty.

Remember Harlem Week Too!

Riding back, this reporter bopped off course at West 135th Street to catch the tail end of the Percy Sutton 5K run—one of the highlights of Harlem Week, an event so bounteous it’s actually 17 days long.

Organized by the New York Road Runners Club, the race starts and finishes on St. Nicholas Avenue, adjacent to its eponymous park, and takes on the challenging hill at West 141st Street. Here, the course turns south on Convent Avenue, cutting through the City College campus before swinging left for the blessed downhill of St. Nicholas Terrace.

From the fastest to the slowest runners, the feeling was electric both among the participants and the spectators, with everyone receiving enthusiastic cheers and a propulsive finishing lift from the members of the 1000 Drummers for Peace African Drum Corps.

The Hazel Dukes Health Walk, honoring the late Civil Rights leader who died this past March at age 92, followed.

Harlem Week events continue through Aug. 17.