On Both Sides of the Camera

Thursday 11/9, Run #80: Bay Ridge, Sunset Park

Distance: 9.89 miles
Time: 1:15
Pace: 7:35
Temp: 58
Dewpoint: 50
Weather: mostly sunny

click on image for interactive map


Unique Miles Today: 8.11
Total Unique Miles: 629.69
Percent of Brooklyn Run: 36.14

For the complete route, click here

Notes: After a thorough soaking yesterday, the clouds gave way early this morning to bright sun and a northwest wind swept in drier air, making for pleasant (if still unseasonably warm) conditions. Today I concentrated on filling in some streets on the border between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, a region dominated more than anything by the enormous elevated stretches of roadway where the Belt Parkway (which follows the shore around the west side of Bay Ridge) merges with the Gowanus Expressway (which cuts straight north from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge). It's an interesting area, with some absolutely beautiful residential blocks of brownstone and limestone townhouses, but also with a lot of auto dealerships, car repair places, and small businesses along the avenues. Parts also have a pronounced Arab-American flavor, with mosques and middle-eastern restaurants in evidence there between the Hispanic and Asian-American populations to the north in Sunset Park and the traditionally Italian and Scandinavian enclaves to the south in Bay Ridge.

Although quite a bit of my run today consisted of dodging the cars speeding along the access roads on their way to or from the highways, one of today's highlights was the Veterans Memorial Pier (at the foot of Bay Ridge Avenue), where people were fishing or conversing and there were terrific views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, lower Manhattan, and some of the ship traffic moving through the Narrows. And near the end of the run, I met up with a photographer from the Borough President's office (it was arranged ahead of time -- it wasn't like I just ran into her or something) who needed to take pictures to accompany an article running in the next issue of the BP's newsletter. It was a bit embarrassing posing for the camera and running in slow-motion several times along the same block (seriously, I get enough strange looks from passers-by already), but it was also kind of fun, and the photographer was great.

Overall it was a decent run, but I'm still hurting quite a bit (the heels, of course, but my ankles have been a little sore lately, too). I might run tomorrow, but I might take another day off and try running both Saturday and Sunday -- it'll all depend on how I feel when I wake up. Anyway, on to today's photos:


Bay Ridge Avenue


Bay Ridge Methodist Church, 4th Avenue


5th Avenue


Veterans Memorial Pier


Bay Ridge Avenue


The merge of the Belt Parkway and the Gowanus Expressway


3rd Avenue