BY JACKSON CHEN | Nearly seven miles of Park Avenue were car-free as well as carefree as New Yorkers cycled, jogged, and trekked from the Upper East Side nearly as far as the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge — part of the city Department of Transportation’s ninth annual Summer Streets event.
On August 6 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., traffic took a half day off in favor of open streets where New Yorkers were invited to spend their Saturday. The route began from the Fifth Avenue entrance of Central Park at East 72nd Street and turned south onto Park Avenue. Continuing on Park Avenue until it becomes Lafayette Street, the journey for the calorie-burners had its southern terminus at Foley Square.
“It’s my favorite event in New York City,” Walter Ge said, adding it was a great way to see the city. “It engenders a feeling of community and it minimalizes the size of the city.”
Alongside his wife, Ge, a recreational cyclist, began the day at East 61st Street, where the couple live, and headed down toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Before looping back up, the two enjoyed the Foley Square Rest Stop, set up by the DOT, that included a 300-foot-long water slide sponsored by Vita Coco, a supporting partner of the event.
Way out of context amusement rides weren’t relegated to Downtown. At East 53rd Street and Park Avenue, the DOT dropped in a 30-foot tall, 165-foot long zipline that gave thrill-seekers a few seconds of air time suspended over a scene that also included arts and crafts tables and a rotating live music line-up of jazz and female a capella groups just a couple blocks south at East 51st Street.
This rest stop and the one at Foley Square were among five set up — the others in SoHo at Spring Street, at Astor Place in the Village, and in Midtown at East 25th Street — along the lengthy swath of Manhattan that New Yorkers were allowed to explore without the fear of getting hit by a car.
“It’s a cool thing to run up and down the streets,” Carolyn Seras, an Upper East Sider, said. “But I’d rather run uninterrupted on the West Side Highway or Central Park.”
Seras began at the northernmost point at East 72nd Street and jogged down to Foley Square before heading back up toward her home. While the crowd was manageable Uptown, Seras said the Downtown streets were much narrower and less forgiving of those who didn’t follow the street configuration of cyclists to the left and pedestrians to the right.
More importantly, the Upper East Sider said, she prefers a smooth, continuous running path as opposed to the Summer Streets route that involves frequent stops for east-west traffic.
Seras has decided not to return for the remaining Summer Streets Saturdays coming up this month, but others, like Ge, plan to attend again this coming weekend and return next year.
His only complaint was the overcrowding at some chokepoints that included “three-year-olds on tricycles and guys on 10-speeds going a little too fast.”
Still, the massive amount of people in the streets only proved the event’s appeal among Manhattanites. Last year, close to 300,000 took part in Summer Streets’ three Saturdays, and, according to the DOT, approximately 80,000 took part in the East Side fun this past Saturday.
“They do a nice job in organizing it,” Ge said. “In a city like this to have a major north-south street blocked off, it’s pretty incredible.”
The Summer Streets program returns on August 13 and 20 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. For complete details, visit nyc.gov/html/dot/summerstreets/html/home/home.shtml.
