Standing on the bus stop, dawn, 5:30 Sunday morning. Traffic down Victory Boulevard is lively. Bikes on roof racks, tire racks, some whole, some piecemeal. Others pedal from who knows where, ferry bound in 20-mile per hour winds on an uncharacteristically brisk morning in early May.
A number 61 bus finally arrives. The saturated blueness of dawn is lifting. On Bay Street, riders approach from the East, early-birds looking for a less-crowded beginning to Bike New York, a 42-mile tour through the five boroughs. The start is in Battery Park, Manhattan; the riders head north up into the Bronx then over into Queens, down through a long stretch of Brooklyn, and finally over the Verrazano Bridge into Fort Wadsworth Park on Staten island.
The early morning ferry scene, the fringe of what was yet to happen, seemed more palpable; the enormity of the event too visually predictable. Oddly, I didn’t spot any other photographers. At 6am, thousands of cyclists lined into the ferry. It was pretty much a pick-your-spot and stay-there situation. On the bow there was some mobility but the winds were strong, the light clear and direct. A camaraderie perhaps born of congestion was implicit among the riders.
Downtown, I only walked around for a short while then headed back for the next boat. The crowds on the Staten Island side were now at their peak and some decided to turn around and find the road less traveled.
An early-morning rider bikes along Bay Street en route to the Staten Island Ferry.
Riders congregate near the front end of the John F. Kennedy ferry boat shortly after 6 AM.
Latecomers to the bike tour line up along an entrance ramp of the Staten Island Ferry terminal
normally used for vehicular traffic.
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