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Extreme Commuter: A treck down a goat path

By Marlene Naanes | mnaanes@am-ny.com

March 24, 2008

The start of Lisa Ramaci's commute to work in New Jersey is unremarkable - a subway ride to a commuter train.

But the East Villager's trip lasts two hours and ends with a 15-minute treacherous hike along train tracks and through a wooded area along a dirt trail to reach the industrial park where her office is located.

"There are times when the goat path is so muddy and slippery that I literally have to hike down it sideways, at an angle as if I were skiing, because if I went down it the normal way I would slide down and fall flat on my face," said Ramaci, 51, who works as a senior cataloguer for a Morris Plains, N.J., auction house.

"Sometimes I see deer, I see gophers, I've seen raccoons, so it's something different that I don't ordinarily get to see in Manhattan," Ramaci said.

For the past 10 months, Ramaci has left her apartment every day at 7:30 a.m. to catch the L train. She transfers to a 1, 2 or 3 train to Penn Station, where she catches an 8:18 a.m. New Jersey Transit train.

Then comes the goat path. Ramaci could avoid the dirt trail by taking a five-minute cab ride to the office, but at $10 a pop, Ramaci prefers the hike. "The reality is that I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life," she said. "I can't. I mean its four hours out of my day everyday."

For now, she said she loves her job and her boss too much to leave, and she's not moving from her apartment, a 900-square-foot space she rebuilt after buying it for $500 through a city program in the 1980s. She also wants to remain close to the Brooklyn grave of her husband, Steven Vincent, a journalist killed in Iraq.

"This is my sanctuary," she said of her home. "This makes it all worthwhile."

If you know of someone with an extreme commute, e-mail mnaanes@am-ny.com