Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights
Peter from Long Island suggested I should go to Crown Heights to look for more Hasidic Jews.
This photo is taken from the pedestrian walkway on Eastern Parkway, looking east. Eastern Parkway is the eastern twin of Ocean Parkway. They are these very wide tree-lined boulevards with pedestrian walkways on either side of the main traffic area, and then a service road with parking on the outside of the walkways.
There’s a white line painted down the middle of the pedestrian walkway because you are supposed to walk on the right side of the line and the left side of the line is for bicycles. That’s probably a recent addition. It sounds like a Mayor Bloomberg thing. Bloomberg is the bobo mayor, and he loves stuff like bicycles and telling the poor people what they should eat.
The woman jogging is obviously a bobo. I suspect that if I had visited this same spot thirty years ago, I would be taking my life into my hands. But now I see signs of bobos moving into this neighborhood (unlike Sunnyside Queens, which doesn’t seem to be very attractive to bobos, even though there were never any race riots in Sunnyside).
Eastern Parkway is a beautiful thoroughfare, and it’s a real shame that somewhere along the way it became the ghetto. How did that happen?
Lion of the Blogosphere 
The woman might not actually live in Crown Heights. If her run is long enough she might have started from her home in another neighborhood.
Peter
ironrailsironweights
April 7, 2013 at 7:57 PM
I really liked the picture. It is nicely framed and only slightly asymetrical.
Larry, San Francisco
April 7, 2013 at 9:55 PM
They should paint a bicycle icon on whichever side of the path they want bicycles to go on; my first instinct would be to ride on the right, which would put me in the path of the runner.
Kyo
April 8, 2013 at 6:37 AM
Notice the line isn’t down the middle, the pedestrian is supposed to get the hint that the bicyclists need a bit more space. Contra Lion, the bike lane marks are not new additions. Looking at Ocean Parkway further south where the first US bike lanes were installed, it seems the generic Brooklyn parkway is something wide, green, and accomodating of many uses.
Exurban Curmudgeon
April 8, 2013 at 9:22 AM
Also, there is signage indicating which side bicyclists and pedestrians go on, but those are posted or painted next to the intersections. These parkways seem to situated on very long blocks grids.
Exurban Curmudgeon
April 8, 2013 at 9:28 AM
That looks like the exact spot where the rear window of my 1986 Dodge Omni was smashed and its car stereo stolen while parked during a visit to the Brooklyn Museum with out of town friends in 1989.
Imbroglio Bergoglio
April 8, 2013 at 6:12 PM
Which was only 2 years before the race riots. The neighborhood has improved since then.
Lion of the Blogosphere
April 8, 2013 at 7:34 PM
You really should go outside Manhattan and Brooklyn to see authentic Jews. Try Rockland County, Monsey, New Square, etc. It’s the closest thing to Kiryas Joel in the USA. They also have the classic Jewish signage telling women to dress modest, and to walk on the other side of the street away from the men. It’s like a little slice of shtetl life right here in America.
Big Bill
April 8, 2013 at 10:47 PM