Wednesday Night Skate Blog

It was the night we had been waiting for — one that gave us an unambiguous, totally for-sure, completely rain-free forecast. We’d been waiting for such a night because we wanted to do our famous Three Bridges Skate for the first time in 2009. Amazingly, this was possible at last on July 8th — deep into our season and a testament to how much the threat of rain had affected our event up until that point.

WNS won’t leave the borough of Manhattan if there’s a threat of rain. It’s one thing to get rained on while in Manhattan — skaters can always bail into a nearby subway or hail a taxi if they aren’t comfortable skating in the rain. But it’s quite another thing to get rained on in certain parts of Queens and Brooklyn, where finding an appropriate subway line or hailing a taxi becomes far more problematic. So on rain-possible nights, we play it safe.

But July 8th was different. Nice day, nice night, no rain at all in any forecast. So the Three Bridges route was on.

Whenever we do this route, we get a lot of questions, ranging from “what bridges are you talking about?” to “where the hell are we?” after crossing each of the various bridges. So, let me try to give as much information as possible here.

First, we skate up to the Queensboro Bridge, usually by way of 1st Avenue. The Queensboro Bridge is our link from Manhattan to…yes, Queens. There is a bike line on the bridge that we use.

My good friend Wikipedia has this tasty snippet about the Queensboro bridge, for those interested:

The Queensboro Bridge, also known as the 59th Street Bridge, is a cantilever bridge over the East River in New York City that was completed in 1909. It connects the neighborhood of Long Island City in the borough of Queens with Manhattan, passing over Roosevelt Island. It carries New York State Route 25 and once carried NY 24 and NY 25A as well.

The Queensboro Bridge is the westernmost of the four East River spans that carry a route number: NY 25 terminates at the west (Manhattan) side of the bridge. It is commonly called the “59th Street Bridge” because its Manhattan end is located between 59th Street and 60th Streets.

After crossing over the Queensboro bridge, we skate briefly in Queens, and end up at the Pulaski Bridge (which IS a bridge, despite the fact that it seems more like an unimpressive overpass to elite skaters such as ourselves). In this instance, there is a narrow pedestrian walkway that we carefully use. Once again I direct you to the comprehensive information available at Wikipedia:

The Pulaski Bridge in New York City connects Long Island City in Queens to Greenpoint in Brooklyn over Newtown Creek. It is named after Polish military commander and American Revolutionary War fighter Kazimierz Pu?aski (Casimir Pulaski), probably because of the large Polish population in Greenpoint. It connects 11th street in Queens to McGuinness Boulevard (formerly Oakland Street) in Brooklyn.

The Pulaski Bridge, designed by Frederick Zurmuhlen and opened to traffic on September 10, 1954, is a bascule bridge, a type of drawbridge. It carries six lanes of traffic and a pedestrian sidewalk over the water, Long Island Rail Road tracks, and the entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

After a break at a gas station, where we load up on water and snacks, we skate through Greenpoint and make our way to our final bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, which will lead us back into Manhattan (and, for the weary skaters, a much-needed beer). The bridge is spacious by comparison to the narrow lanes of the previous two bridges. However, it’s still important to remember to be careful as there are usually many cyclists and pedestrians going in both directions on the bridge, especially on nights featuring nice weather.

The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn on Long Island at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (Interstate 278). It once carried New York State Route 27A and later Interstate 78.

And there you have it. This was our night on July 8th, 2009. Some skaters balk at the idea of skating over three bridges (and thus visiting three boroughs) in one night. But the reality is that each bridge is no more difficult than skating over a moderately-inclined hill, and the distance spent skating in each borough is minimal. We spend more time skating up to the Queensboro bridge from Union Square than we do skating in Queens, for example. Once they’ve completed the route, all skaters usually agree that it was an enjoyable and unique experience.