Riding The N/Q Over The Manhattan Bridge: You Can't Beat That View

Via Erica's Instagram Page - She has so many great bridge shots! (click image for more)

I only recently discovered the beauty of traveling to Manhattan via the N or the Q -- or any other line besides the dingy, rickety, glacial paced R train, which is conveniently located a stone's throw from my apartment. Hey, I just moved here a few months ago and my trusty Hop Stop app never mentioned any other route. A whole new world opened up to me when I learned the error of my lazy ass ways. The splendor of the N/Q isn't just in the speed and slickness. In the words of Park Slope resident, Randy Kennedy (via the NYT):

"For the price of a ride you’re suspended 135 feet above the city, looking out the windows to the southwest across the mouth of the East River toward the choiring strings of the Brooklyn Bridge and, far beyond, the brilliant oxidized green of the Statue of Liberty. In an illusion created by the perspective of the moving subway car, she appears to be gliding along the deck of the bridge — the world’s most famous hunk of French neo-Classicism, disco skating backward into Manhattan."

Yup, that about sums it up. The first time I emerged from the dank darkness of underground I was in awe of the magnificent cityscape before me. Now I totally understand the "informed tourists who make this trip solely for the sake of the view, riding back and forth between downtown Brooklyn and Chinatown, getting a slice of Junior’s cheesecake on one end and a bowl of hot dumpling soup on the other." Having just tried Junior's Devil's Food Cheesecake, I can appreciate their voyage even more.

We're surrounded by unintentional urban art here in the Slope. Just today I overheard  a young woman telling a friend how she thinks the Gowanus Canal is "beautiful." Venice it's not, but in its own way I had to silently agree with her. Yes, the tree-lined brownstones cast in an amber glow of gas lit lamps are so damn charming you could just about puke. But I prefer the grittier stuff that yanks us out of our cobblestone comas to rejoin the living.

The cast of characters are like performance artists. Kennedy writes about his Park Slope neighbor "who for years has decorated a front window of his house with small, brightly colored offset-print signs beaming odd, suggestive, sometimes Dada-esque messages out to the passersby on Union Street. A few of these, like “Satan Is Happy With Your Progress,” have moved the overly literal to shove angry notes under his door. Others, like “I Have Nothing On but the Radio,” often cause people to laugh out loud on the sidewalk."

Don't be alarmed if you see a chick staring at these signs with the ardor reserved for the Mona Lisa.