On the sunny but biting-cold morning of a transit strike, Kelly Brogan, 20, a sales rep walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, said the experience was novel, a bit exciting, even fun.
But after clutching her scarf and picking up her pace, she admitted that the sight of thousands of people walking across the East River under a blue sky with magnificent views of the Manhattan skyline could quickly grow old.
“I don’t work that far from here, and I never walk across the bridge to work,” she said. “Then again, I’m not sure how many days I’ll be able to handle this.”
For many New Yorkers, waking up to a strike gave way to the harsh reality of getting to work–somehow, some way.
For some that meant going by car. Others took out their bikes or skateboards or roller blades, or simply walked, all the while keenly aware that temperatures held stubbornly in the lower 20s.
The Brooklyn side of the bridge Tuesday morning was a jumble of police cars checking vehicles, and pedestrians looking for rides.
Vehicles with fewer than four passengers were not allowed to cross the 122-year-old span, an effort to minimize congestion.
That restriction, strictly enforced, prompted Emmanuel Paula to let out a yell.
“I’ll take anyone for free,” he called out, eager to find three riders to help him get to his job as a dental technician in midtown Manhattan. “I just gotta get to work.”
Moments later, his van was full, and he headed over the bridge.
Throughout the day, a stream of pedestrians trod the wooden planks of the landmark bridge’s crosswalk, suspended above its roadway.
Joining the early-morning crowd was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but he spent Monday night at a city emergency office in Brooklyn. Surrounded by bodyguards and reporters, he walked across the bridge to City Hall, at the base of the Manhattan side of the span.
“I’ll walk to work tomorrow,” he said at a City Hall news conference. “It’s not often I get to walk to work. It was a beautiful view, spectacular today.”
But even in the cold, the strike provoked strong feelings. Walking from Brooklyn Heights to lower Manhattan, Ann Marshall, 48, employed in financial services, blamed both sides for not having come to an agreement.
“It wasn’t the best negotiating tactic by the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] to hide the fact that they have a $1 billion surplus,” said Marshall, shielding her face from the wind. “Then again, the union is being unrealistic not to understand that they can’t make some concessions on salary, pension and health care.”
Stopping to talk about the strike, though, was the exception–the cold air and the urgency of getting to work kept people moving quickly.
In Manhattan, there were fewer cars. Compared with a normal rush hour, traffic moved smoothly, though a taxi driver complained that going crosstown had been made difficult by the city’s decision to close some east-west streets to all but emergency vehicles. Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue also were kept clear for emergency vehicles.
There were also fewer pedestrians. A Starbucks coffee shop near the state courthouse, normally filled in the midmorning, was closed.
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llazaroff@tribune.com
