The Bronx into Manhattan

Tommy and I walked from Woodlawn, at the northern end of the Bronx, to the boardwalk of Coney Island in Brooklyn, the entire length of New York City. It was a rather long walk, so we did it over three days. We took the 2 train to the end of the line, 241st Street. During the ride we sat across from a woebegone looking lady with a pushcart singing religious hymns to herself. This was the last time we’d be in a moving vehicle for three days. Once we got off, we walked over the commuter train tracks to Woodlawn. It had been raining, but the day was clearing up to be rather beautiful.

Woodlawn, straddling the border of Yonkers and NYC, is one of the last true Irish enclaves in the city. The bodegas up there sell Tayto crisps and other Irish delicacies.

Our walk through New York was planned as a culinary adventure, too, so we stopped by Rory Dolan’s (890 McLean Avenue), the neighborhood’s preeminent pub, for some traditional Irish pub fare. The menu had only traditional American bar shit, so we drank a pint of Guinness instead: the finest in all New York. There were portly gentlemen doing the same at the bar, one of whom ordered several before driving off to continue his job of repairing boilers.

After the pub, we cut between Woodlawn Cemetery—the final resting place of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Celia Cruz, Irving Berlin, Herman Melville, Damon Runyon, Pigmeat Markham, Robert Moses and many others—and Van Cortlandt Park. This route is dotted with camper vans housing migrants, off the grid and on the side of the road. While here, a phone update told us that Charlie Kirk had been shot in Utah. We raised our eyes past the fence toward the thousands of tombstones, wishing him well, for himself, for his family, and for the whole of the nation.

From the cemetery, we could see a large steel overpass straddling Jerome Avenue.

“That’s the beginning of the city,” I told Tommy, who is a little, bespectacled towheaded English rube from rural Kent. It was, in fact, the beginning of the 4 train, but once we walked through, there was no doubt that we had entered a different world. There was that bustling city sidewalk—chaos, commotion, shops—filled with people who had come here from all over: Africa, Asia and, most of all in this part of town, Latin America.

Around this time Tommy’s ankle started hurting.

“I think I’ve fucked my ankle up,” he said. I saw he was walking with a slight limp, the left ankle tumescent.

“Well, that’s a shame,” I replied, “Seeing as we’ve just started walking the entirety of New York City.”

We made our way to Grand Concourse.

Built at the turn of the last century, it serves as something of a spine for the Bronx, running down most of the length of the borough. Up here, reggaeton and salsa blasted from storefronts, older gents on the block played dominoes at plastic tables with folding chairs, muscle cars with loud speakers and louder engines roared by, and uncountable people ran this way and that.

It was lunchtime, and around Fordham University we stopped at 188 Bakery Cuchifritos (158 East 188th Street), a long-established Puerto Rican dive. We split an order of deep-fried pork belly, fried plantains, beans and yellow rice, all covered in hot sauce; immediately afterward we both had to use the bathroom rather desperately.

As we arrived in Harlem—we’d crossed the 145th Street Bridge into Manhattan—we learned that the shooting of Charlie Kirk had been fatal. We looked at each other with alarm.

“Destroyed by his own logic, I suppose,” in reference to the slain’s avid support of gun rights.

“At least he died doing what he loved most: arguing with college students.”

“This country is seriously fucked.”

We made it through Harlem via Columbia University to the Upper West Side, where I live and where we’d stop for the night before continuing on the next day.

Manhattan to Brooklyn

The next day, Tommy bought some Advil and a special sock for his ankle; we set out to cover the center of the city into Brooklyn. He needed the Advil on account of his ankle and his head, for he had gotten extremely drunk at Dublin House (225 West 79th Street) the night before. I remember very late at the bar, him waving his debit card and going “Blaaaaah” at Tony, the surly Irish bartender, who ripped it from his hand, a millennium’s worth of hatred flashing in his eyes.

We made our way through Central Park toward downtown Manhattan. The day was hot, and Tommy had forgotten his hat, so we stopped at the Lids in Times Square to get him one. That way he would not get heatstroke, for he is very pale and ginger and must be careful in the sun.

He bought a Knicks hat and then we made it to Margon (136 West 46th Street), seller of the finest Cuban sandwiches either of us had ever had: not too greasy, perfectly proportioned, surely one of the finest sandwiches in the entire city; it is indeed one of “New York’s Best Kept Secrets.”

Tommy noticed that the further south we went, the more attractive he found the women.

“I quite like 32nd Street,” he said as we passed a woman in short shorts, dark sunglasses and dark sculpted hair plopping on the top of her back. Then we passed a blond with an Hermes bag who was mysteriously holding a cane. “Maybe 29th is better.” Eventually we walked by a booty the likes of which he’d never seen: “20th Street is the best so far. They get better the further we go down. The end must be the gates to heaven.”

We could never test his theory to its limit because, before we hit Chinatown, we headed east over the Williamsburg Bridge and into Brooklyn.

“That bridge was extraordinarily long,” he commented as we finally reached the other side. “In fact, that was the longest bridge I’ve ever walked over in my life.” His ankle was aching, so we sat in a faint patch of shade to drink water, reup on Advil, and smoke our vapes, weed and cigarettes.

I pointed up Bedford Avenue. “That way gets you to hipster Williamsburg with all the bars, shops and restaurants.” Then I pointed down Bedford Avenue. “That way gets you to South Williamsburg, the land of the Hasidim. We will be going that way.”

The way south led to Lee Avenue, the beating heart of Hasidic Williamsburg. Unlike other neighborhoods in New York, which can give the impression of being in another country, this neighborhood gives the impression of being in another century.

“This place is fabulous!”

“Isn’t it?”

“I am surrounded by more Jews right now than I have ever seen in my entire life!”

“That’s because you are a little towheaded boy from rural England. The drivers around here are truly insane; be careful.”

Just as we were crossing the street, a black van pulled sharply in front of us, right where the curb becomes the crosswalk. A block later, a man was about to drive directly into a red light when he saw people—me and Tommy—and allowed us to safely cross.

From South Williamsburg we made our way through Fort Greene—where I took Tommy’s picture in front of the Forty Acres and a Mule office (“He calls them ‘joints’”)—through downtown Brooklyn and on to Carroll Gardens, where we would be staying at my friend Al’s for the night.

Al was forlorn about the news from Utah.

“This is truly horrible. It’s terrible for the country. It’s terrible for everyone. No one should ever get hurt for speaking their mind in any forum.”

We were at the Long Island Bar (110 Atlantic Avenue), an excellent burger and martini joint in a space which had once housed a diner; it still had its old neons from the 1950s.

“The trouble I see is that we all live inside of the president’s massive head.” I ate an olive off a toothpick.

“How do you figure?”

“Well, what Trump is going to do after this assassination is blame some shadowy fifth column of leftists who he claims are seeking to overthrow this country, steal it from the ‘real Americans.’ The problem is: there is no shadowy fifth column of leftists. But now we will live in a world where, for all intents and purposes, there are, because we all live inside his massive fucking head. We’re all covered in that shitty stringy hair of his.”

Tommy poured his martini into the back of his mouth and Al continued sulking.

Brooklyn All The Way Down

I had been clear with Tommy from the outset: “South Brooklyn is going to be the shittest part of the walk by far. The way is featureless and stretches endlessly before reaching the sea. And we’ll be tired; your ankle unhealed.”

Al gave him a natural balm which helped ease the pain, and we set off: through the green lanes of Park Slope down between Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery before reaching McDonald Avenue, which was a straight shot to Gravesend, that last neighborhood before Coney Island and where we would have lunch that day.

But it did stretch: through Little Bangladesh, under the elevated F train through another Hasidic area, past industrial workshops and then another cemetery, this one called Washington. The day was hot and sunny, and we were hungry, saving our appetite for lunch.

“There is a Gravesend in Kent.”

“I wonder if it’s nicer than this one.”

“The one in Kent is absolute shit. Everything in the Medway area is shit.”

Gravesend, Brooklyn was founded by a woman who had come from near the one in England. Lady Deborah Moody established it in 1645 in what was then New Netherlands. She had been pressed to leave both England and the Massachusetts Bay Colony on account of her Anabaptist beliefs. Turns out that Gravesend was the only town in colonial North America to have been founded by a woman.

“Anabaptists! Ha!” he said with unadulterated scorn. “I never thought much of the Anabaptists myself.”

“I doubt you ever think of the Anabaptists.”

Lady Moody, a wealthy widow, also held the title of first female landowner in the New World.

We were getting closer to lunch when Tommy declared, “The Gravesend here is better than the Gravesend in Kent. Everything around the Medway is shit.”

L&B Spumoni Gardens (2725 86th Street) has been serving the neighborhood since 1939. It’s a pizzeria that specializes in Sicilian slices. There is a tangible viscosity to the dough as your teeth get closer to the hard base. The sauce is bright, just like the sun that shines on the tomatoes in Italy. We also split a chicken parmigiana sandwich. It’s important that foreigners know what Italian American cuisine is all about.

“Do you think mafia gangsters have ever come here?”

“I do.”

It was time for the home stretch to Coney Island, another mile or so beneath the hot sun and elevated train lines with their tired silver cars rumbling overhead.

“Can you smell the sea breeze from here?”

An enormous train depot stood between us and the ocean.

“No, I don’t think I can smell the sea. Rather, I believe I smell rotting shit.”

The stench wafted over from Coney Island Creek.

Eventually, we made it to Surf Avenue, directly to the Cyclone Rollercoaster. Five minutes and $20 later we were both bolted in our seats. Slowly, we climbed the rickety track toward the high peak. As Coney Island and Luna Park stretched beneath us, the sea expanded ahead of us into the horizon; a magnificent vista.

“Oh, look,” I said. “It’s the sea.”

“Aaaaah!” when suddenly the rollercoaster went forth on its downward trajectory.

The Final Push

I walked him over to Brighton Beach to see the Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians and Uzbeks. Tommy enjoyed the movie Anora, and he wanted to see where it was shot: that boardwalk filled with bronzed, fit, tanned Slavic men in their fifties. After this we called an Uber to Brennan & Carr (3432 Nostrand Avenue) in Sheepshead Bay. It was startling to be in a moving vehicle again after three days on foot.

“Ha! Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time! It would have been much easier!”

“Shut up, Tommy. That is not the point at all.”

Brennan & Carr was wood paneled. It looked classically American—“it’s like a lodge”—had Fox News coverage of the Kirk murder blaring, dumb seeming 17-year-olds serving, and two fat white guys counting cash by the register at the door. The joint specialized in roast beef sandwiches served on a roll dipped in a vat of jus. They were absolutely majestic. Finally at rest, we took stock of our walk.

“Isn’t this city marvelous? It’s one great continuous sidewalk that goes on and on, taking you through neighborhood after neighborhood until you’ve walked all the neighborhoods of all the people in the world.”

“Yes, people like to come to America from everywhere on the planet,” I said, strapping into the back of an Uber.

“They do. And once they stop coming to New York, you’ll know this country is well and truly fucked.”