Dylan Greene dot com

The weekend of September 11th, 2005, my dad and I drove up to New York City for a memorable weekend of sight seeing and biking.

The bike ride was the NYC Century Bike Tour, presented by Transportation Alternatives, an advocate for safety in bike riding.  There were four tours available: 100 miles, 75 miles, 55 miles, and 35 miles.  The tours all started in Central Park. 

We did the 55 mile tour, which took us through New York City, over the Brooklyn Bridge, around Brooklyn, past Cony Island,  up through Queens, over the Triborough Bridge, and back to Central Park.

This was my first time in most of these parts of New York.  Riding over the Brooklyn Bridge was absolutely spectacular, especially with perfect weather and thousands of other bike riders on the bridge around us.  My favorite part of the ride was through and around traffic in the city, passing familiar landmarks like the Lincoln Center, and cautiously zooming through traffic lights in packs of 15 or so riders.

My dad has a rule about going to New York - he can't leave without seeing a show.  We saw two excellent shows - The Pillowman, staring Billy Crudup and Jeff Goldbum,  and The Great American Trailer Park Musical. 

We stayed in Jersey City and took the train in each day, which dropped us off at the makeshift World Trade Center station.  On September 11th, it was powerful and emotional to be at the footsteps of the remains of the rubble as hundreds of people had gathered to lay flowers, cry, and pray for their missing loved ones.