Summer Streets + Harlem Week = Manhattan Outdoor Utopia!

The moment one exits the Brooklyn Bridge bicycle or pedestrian paths, there it is, just across Chambers Street: the southern start of Summer Streets. Taking over three Saturday mornings and early afternoons from August 1 through August 15, the Department of Transportation organized event makes a strong claim to being the greatest of all Manhattan participatory—as opposed to spectator—events. What’s it like to traverse the Summer Streets route end to end, the latter being way up in Inwood?

This mass engagement reporter woke up at 6:30 a.m., sprayed on sunscreen, put his orange helmet on and clicked into the pedals of a 22-speed rim-brake aluminum racing bicycle to find out. Summer Streets officially begins at 7 a.m. and he didn’t want to be late.

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and while Summer Streets continues until 3 p.m., for people that want to cover some distance, it’s recommended they start early, especially on the downtown side. Uptown is less congested generally, and the hills tend to discourage more casual participants.

The twelve-mile route, south to north, is as follows: Centre Street to Lafayette Street—including passing Petrosino Square, named for the NYPD Detective murdered while investigating the mafia in Palermo, Sicily in 1909—to Fourth Avenue to Park Avenue all the way up to 110th Street. Highlights of Park Avenue include riding through the underpass tunnel to Grand Central and then zig-zagging around it and noticing how Carnegie Hill is still a small incline. Zipping past Central Park, one encounters the first warm up climb towards Broadway, where the real savage delights await. Going down the Manhattan Valley is fun but wait—climbing it from 125th to 140th streets is even “funner”!

The same holds true ascending or descending past Trinity Cemetery—Manhattan’s only active boneyard, and where Mayor Edward Koch is buried—and grinding up to or flying down from the ridge at 181st Street and George Washington Bridge approach. There are formal DOT rest stops with water, staff, programming, vendors and kid stuff at Astor Place; East 27th, 40th, 51st and 109th; and West 125th; 159th and 175th Streets.

There’s also a Harlem Week detour, including a rest stop, from 110th Street up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) to West 113th Street.

Mass Engagement Reporter Rolls On

Weather for this August 8 event was superb, with morning temps around 80 and only moderately humid. Runners felt it—sweat-soaked singlets, running bras, hats were seen in abundance, as were many shirtless men—and wise bicyclists were reaching for their water bottles at various cross street stops but it wasn’t oppressive.

Speaking of those cross streets, they aren’t much fun they don’t last too long and with the huge amount of cops assigned to the route, they are fewer in number than one would expect.

There are some exceptions too, as cross street stops can be opportunities for people watching, especially of the many running groups. Uptown, a cross street might give one a brief respite from the latest leg-burning lung-busting hill. Red light! Red light! Please, I surrender!

Downtown the NYPD Running Club met near police headquarters at Centre Street and Chambers for what would be around a 10 mile out and back up to East 80th Street and back, though runners were welcome to choose their own distance. Anyone who still holds stereotypes about cops ought to see the finest on foot, including on this occasion, one of the NYPD Running Club co-hosts was First Deputy Police Commissioner Tania Kinsella.

Uptown, this reporter had the good fortune to finish at Fort Tyron Park just as the renowned Dyckman Run Club (DRC) was taking a group photo before heading south on run. Even with many dozens present, the Dyckman harriers weren’t close to full strength, as they had a large contingent racing the Percy Sutton 5K in Harlem.

DRC maintains an active Instagram account publicizing their many training runs and race participation. Though, reflecting the uptown demographic, the club includes many Hispanic runners, they are very welcome everyone from all backgrounds and abilities. Indeed, so inviting are their events, that other Manhattanites seeking hillier and more wooded terrain than might consider heading uptown to join them.

As at Centre Street, here at Sherman Street upper Broadway the DOT had a large and affable presence, including staff members in orange shirts offering to take riders’ pictures. The attractive backdrop a large mural-like sculpture of the letters NYC.

We Out in Harlem Week Too—16 Days Worth

As if Summer Streets wasn’t outside and outsized enough, it coincides with Harlem Week, a period so abundant with riches it takes 16 days to finish. The undoubted highlight of Day 8 was the Percy Sutton 5K and its slower paced but still important sibling the Hazel Dukes Memorial Family Walk.

Besides honoring the lives of Sutton—a World War II veteran, lawyer and former Manhattan Borough President—and NAACP icon Dukes, the event is a celebration of both Harlem specifically and Manhattan geography generally. The course is perhaps the best in all the borough, starting at and ending at West 135th Street and Edgecomb Avenue, circling St. Nicholas Park and passing above Jackie Robinson Park in the process. If the uphills hurt some, downhills follow and the Canyon of Harlem Heroes-like return on Edgecomb is incredible.

The event’s one problem is its popularity. The New York Road Runners Club is in such boomtime, events sell out quickly and many would-be participants get shut out. This is doubly unfortunate for a community event like Percy Sutton (and Hazel Dukes) where participation means more than people ticking off boxes to gain an NYC Marathon entry, laudable as that goal is.

Happily, Harlem week—16 days long— is still running as this issue sees press, their calendar is online and open 24/7. Pick Hit: Harlem Day itself, Sunday August 15, on West 135th Street from Fifth to St. Nicholas Avenue.