Tag: New York City

Can We Fix the Bicycle Chaos?

This post is a bit of a departure from what I’ve been writing about lately. It involves a post-pandemic quality-of-life issue that I suspect is not unique to New York City. But those of us who live in the city may be experiencing it more extremely. The issue is the chaos caused by the sudden explosion in the use of bicycles. Anyone who walks around the city these days has most likely been subject to nearly being hit by a bicycle running through a red light and/or speeding through an intersection. Sadly, this is just one small example of a larger problem.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have been bicycling around the city ever since I first moved here in 1975. I frequently go on 10–20-mile rides around Manhattan. I am a huge supporter of urban biking and have always felt that turning big cities into havens from the automobile could be the solution to many ills, not the least of which is the environmental impact of automobile traffic. I’ve also been very supportive of the creation of bicycle lanes, which theoretically keep bicyclists safe from the threat of heavier vehicles.

However, the efforts to turn New York into a bicycle-friendly city, while admirable, never went far enough in thinking through how to safely share the streets among bicycles, motor vehicles and pedestrians. Continue reading “Can We Fix the Bicycle Chaos?”

Movie Theaters I’ve Known and Loved

I grew up in movie theaters. At a very young age, my mother started bringing me to matinees and later we would pile the family into the car and head to the local drive-in for double features. In my adolescent and teenage years, the fact that my family moved around so much meant that I had few friends. I spent all my spare time in movie theaters. By the time I went to college, movies were my life. I used to pride myself on the fact that I could name the theater where I saw every film I’d ever seen.

On a recent trip to Chicago, I walked around the Loop–the site of many of my most formative movie moments–and was astonished to see how little was left of what was one of the most beautiful movie theater districts anywhere. It made me very sad, but motivated me to write this piece about the movie theaters for which I have the fondest memories. They are in chronological order according to where they fit in my life.

The Park Plaza Theater in the Bronx was most likely my first movie theater experience. It was only a few blocks from where we lived, and this is where my mother first exposed me to movies. I remember the matrons in their white suits and flashlights trying to keep the kids–who were required to sit in a separate section unless they were accompanied by parents–quiet. The first movie I actually remember was a film that terrified me at the time. It had images that stuck with me throughout my life, even though I couldn’t remember what film it was. It was only as an adult that I realized that the movie I had seen was “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Continue reading “Movie Theaters I’ve Known and Loved”