I’d LAST WORD
RATHER
WALK
BY MIRIAM SILVERBERG
Living in Manhattan, I walk everywhere. Very few Manhattanites can make that claim. I used to live in Queens and the primary reason I moved to Manhattan was not to have to use the subway. It’s the most wonderful feeling to pass a subway station and just pass it---not have to walk down those steps to doom. I’ve always thought that every subway station should have a sign overhead, “all who enter here abandon hope.” I feel this way because I can’t forget the bad, old days when the subways were really dangerous and I can’t wrap my head around the idea that subways have changed. Anyway, most people don’t walk. They say they do but they really don’t. You ask the average New Yorker if they do much walking
Resident May 2013
and the answer you’ll get will be something like this. “Oh, I walk everywhere. Unless, of course, it’s raining, it’s snowing, it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too late, I’m too tired or else I’m not in the mood. But except for that I walk everywhere.” Which, of course, means they walk nowhere. When I say I walk everywhere, I mean I walk everywhere. I allow for very few exceptions. I live in the East 50s and had a restaurant client opposite City Hall. According to Google, that’s four miles each way. I walked back and forth (eight miles) almost every time I lunched there. Once I did make an exception. It was raining and very windy. I walked out of my building and a gust of wind blew my umbrella inside out. I decided
umbrella steady so I went back inside, did some work and left an hour later and took the subway. I seldom take the bus, either. The only time I do is to go to the Cloisters. During the spring and summer I love takng the Madison Avenue bus to the Cloisters at 190th and the Hudson. By bus it’s well over an hour and even I wouldn’t think of walking there. But I’m always so surprised when I see young, able-bodied peope get on the bus and then get off two stops later. That’s four blocks and they can’t walk it? Walking is the best exercise and the best way to really see and enjoy the City. No one has ever been injured