The above article was my inspiration for traveling to Philly by bicycle. To test
out how this random article holds up to the same ride on these "mostly good
roads" 114 years later. What folows are my discoveries using this article,
google maps and a hand held GPS device when I got lost.
It is impossible to get from Staten Island to New Jersey by bicycle now. The
Goethals bridge forbids non-motored traffic, the ferry to Hoboken requires
navigating through the marshes of Jersey city and Newark. I chose to take the
Seastreak, which departs from Wall street Pier 11 and ends up at the Atlantic
Highlands in Monmouth county, NJ.
Exiting the ferry at the Atlantic Highlands on a calm morning I set out for the
hills. Nice riding up onto windy country roads. Revolutionary words on
every road, monuments, parks, red hills, deep cuts. I turn up Red Hill road and
at the top of it I find a monument of the American revolutionary army's victory
over the british, causing the enemy's army to retreat. Red hill indeed.
Following the red hill is the deep cut garden. Perhaps the British army felt
that too. A deep cut. Violent words to remember a land by. A land where people continue to
call home and travel back to after a hard day's work.
The next discovery would define the whole trip. Only a handful of miles from the
Highlands, it was monumental and something
that should have been taken as an omen that my old-timey wheelman styles had
very little remaining references. The
Bell Labs Holmdel Complex was a scientific
research facility with a 44 year history. Notable inventions sponsored by the
facility include the digital transistor (without that you would not be reading
these words on a personal computer), the big bang theory, fiber-optic
networking, and the frickn' laser. The facility is pure modernist science
fiction. Imagine Phillip K. Dick and the design of Logan's Run. The era when The
Future was the future. This archetecture left no doubt that humans rule the
world. In this case it's science that brought humans to that power. A monument
to our invention.
Now it's abandoned. The 2,000,000 square foot complex has no occupants, no
employees, no researchers and weeds
are growing through cracks in the parking lot. The giant water tower in the
shape of a transistor watches over flocks of geese. Brush gathers in the
stairwells on the building's 4 sides. Baseball diamonds rust in an overgrown
field. A sign reads "Ocean Simulation Facility ->" but points to a colapsing
building. This place could have been victim to the Andromeda Strain. A perfect
example of human aesthetics surviving the humans themselves.
But it turns out that is not the case. The
complex is now a historical landmark
because the company Lucent sold it to understood its cultural importance. They
didn't cancel their plans to redevelop the land, they plan to keep the footprint intact and to construct
four independent buildings in the place of one giant.
And then I got back on the bike and pedaled to Trenton. Nice day and quick
going. Over the Deleware river and into PA. Now it's just a straight line
down Bristol Pike to Philly, just like in the article, right? Wrong. This is
where my plan falls apart the the modern world looks far more disgusting than the
overwhelming aesthetic of progress within the Holmdel complex.
The Bristol Pike has been destroyed. It has shards of it's former self but
between the pieces are huge gaps that won't heal. A paper mill, a steel mill,
polluted waters, chruning engines carrying tonnage, sand, silt, dirt. This place
died with the cold war. In it's place is US highway 13. A massive truck route to
carry the product from the mill to other, more efficient roadways like the
Jersey or Penn turnpike. This place is not for humans unless they are wearing a
steel exoskelton, which didn't exist for the wheelmen of the 1890s. They could
not have imagined it.
So it was a long hard adventure from Trenton to Philly, dodging cars, GPS
routing, backtracking and riding on the most obvious but least pleasant route
for 25 miles into a headwind. In three days I'll hang up my old-timey pretentions
and do it for reals on the way back, with a real route through rustic territory.
Written on
2009-03-29 16:49:21 UTC
