Trip 46 — Long Island Walk

Day 18: Coney Island to Queensbridge Park
Monday, 24 November 2025

Yesterday: 36258 steps/28.60 km/17.77 mi/5h 5m
Grand total: 811221 steps/620.53 km/385.58 mi/109h 35m
Grand total, all 26 walks: 7127373 steps/5501.55 km/3418.50 mi/1036h 52m

The last day of the Abecedarian Walks. There's no rush to get out, and yet there's every rush: It's time to get back to Liz and time to move on with life. What started as a pandemic walking project, when there was no live music to be made, has been cutting into my career. It's a luxury to be able to travel, but I'm out of touch. It's a good thing my native language isn't Slovak, because it has 46 letters and I'd surely run afoul of pedestrian speed limits.

Many walkers have completed the Great Saunter, a 32-mile perambulation around Manhattan. I've had the idea of an Extreme Saunter — either a walk around each of the five boroughs on consecutive days or a multiday walk around the whole perimeter of New York City, however long it takes.

The first option would be quite a feat, as the perimeter of Queens alone is three marathons by Abecedarian Walks rules (you'd have to go across Broad Channel twice rather than cutting through Nassau County), and Staten Island and the Bronx are over 50 miles each. The statistics surprised me — if you asked me to look at a map and guess which borough outside of Manhattan had the longest perimeter, I'd have said Brooklyn, but it's only about 46 miles.

The second option would, alas, be illegal, as crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge or the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge between Queens and the Bronx on foot isn't allowed. Neither is walking across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, which I approach via a pleasant shore path from Bensonhurst. The bridge connects Brooklyn with Staten Island, and the Staten Island approach is the start of the New York City Marathon, which hits every borough. The bridge used to be missing a "Z" in its name, in part due to Nelson Rockefeller's insistence that the American spelling of the explorer's name had only one. It wasn't until 2018 that the other "Z" was restored, and even then only on new road signs.

The shore path continues long past the bridge. People are fishing, biking, running, walking, or sitting and reading — it's a reasonably warm, sunny day for November. Families of seabirds bask on the rocks.

The path ends at the Owls Head water-treatment plant, where a pier provides access to views of southern Manhattan and ferries to the same. I turn inland and up Second Avenue into Industry City, which I know mainly as a location of a popular Halloween party but I now learn is the site of a spectacular string of parking lots. When those end, I continue under the just-as-picturesque Gowanus Expressway until it enters Red Hook.

What's more Brooklyn than a brewery for lunch? I scamper under the expressway to the Other Half Brewing Company and enjoy the aroma of freshly flowing ales only to discover that they don't serve food.

At least the view is prettier. Court Street takes me through Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, two of Brooklyn's loveliest neighborhoods. For the first time in almost three weeks, I'm among people who are walking to get somewhere. They're leisurely about it and I have to go around them, but it's nice to be among pedestrians in numbers.

The side streets have Brooklyn's iconic brownstones, and Court Street alone could feed me for years, but I wait until Atlantic Avenue. There's a cluster of Yemeni restaurants here, and I head upstairs at the Yemen Cafe for chicken saltah: a spiced half-chicken with a bubbling root-vegetable stew served in a clay pot. It's a bizarre coincidence of bookends: The last meal of the Abecedarian Walks is Yemeni, and so was the first meal of my trek from New York to Boston, when I expected my walking career to end after a modest 11 days.

I pick up halvah across the street at Sahadi's, continue north, and turn east at Cadman Plaza Park. The map shows streets hugging Wallabout Bay on the way to Williamsburg, but they belong to Steiner Studios, and I'm sent back from the gate with a friendly laugh when I attempt to cut through the movie lots.

Kent Avenue's southern end is yeshivas and their school buses; its northern end is artsy eats, bars, and parks. I barely realize I'm going under the Williamsburg Bridge, because I'm distracted by painted letters on the sidewalk: lifeaftercars.com.

It's the new book by the hosts of the podcast "The War on Cars," which I listen to from time to time. "Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile" was published just a month ago, and while the site's description — "a searing indictment of how cars ruin everything" — sounds extreme even to someone who was recently cursing them with nonserious threats of taking to them with a sledgehammer, I'll put it on my list.

Largely, I think, it's an attitude adjustment, admittedly requiring physical ability. Decide that walking distance is at least a few miles. Decide that getting wet — from rain or sweat — isn't so bad. Realize the absurdity of bringing a two-ton shopping bag for a simple grocery run. Walk in the roadway until they build a sidewalk.

Kent continues as Franklin Street, passing Oak, Noble, Milton...all the way up the alphabet (except for oddball Greenpoint Avenue, formerly Lincoln Street until Democrats objected to a Republican moniker) to Ash, an abecedarian neighborhood as I approach the final steps of the Abecedarian Walks.

Up the long staircase to the Pulaski Bridge, over the Newtown Creek, and down the other side. I'm now in Queens, A sign points to the Long Island Expressway and Riverhead. Should I do it all again?

Up Vernon Boulevard. Remember Vernon, from the first day? Two trees hang on to their orange leaves, in stubborn defiance of Thanksgiving week. The eastern rise of the Queensboro Bridge comes into view, but I don't get a full look at the span until I can peer through the gate of a power facility.

I'm under the bridge, and then into the park. I go left, past the restroom where the naked guy was showering. It's just a few steps to the river from here.

It's sunset on a beautiful day. A woman is next to the river, taking photos of the sun falling into Manhattan. She is in precisely the spot I need to be to close this loop, where the pavement ends immediately north of the bridge at the river.

I don't want to scare her, but I don't want to wait, either. I walk to the line where the pavement begins and pause the clock. She turns around and I realize I probably have gotten too close. She turns back toward the river.

"Sorry. I really need to be in exactly that spot," I almost say. She finishes her photos and walks away, into the park.

I start the clock, take the last step, and then stop it again. The walk is finished. So is the day, as far as the sun is concerned. Manhattan glows ahead of me.

I don't linger. I could take the subway, but it would seem silly. I hurry back across the bridge — on the correct side, this time — and across town. I'm ready to be home.

I enter my building and text Liz as I might on the way back from a rehearsal on a normal workday, carrying a takeout dinner.

"Coming up!"

She greets me with roses.

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