They're back! After a much-too-long absence, back to the bridges of New York City. A reminder for those who are new, I'm covering all the bridges of New York City that can be run (or walked) across, and have traveled to every corner of every borough to visit the bridges personally and cross them and take pictures, to help runners enhance their running experience in this city. I've done 81 up to now, which is most of them, certainly most of the major bridges, but I've got a few left, so here we go.
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| 147th Ave. Bridge |
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| Bridge #1 |
The main reason for the delay in this series is that I haven't had a chance to get out to Rosedale, Queens to visit Brookville Park until very recently. This is a very nice park that runs between 147th Ave. and S. Conduit Blvd., and between 232nd St. and Brookville Blvd., following Hook Creek. It's not far to the north-northeast from JFK Airport. There are five footbridges in the park that cross Hook Creek, as well as a vehicular bridge on 147th Ave. that I've included here as well even though it doesn't have a sidewalk, and even though the southermost footbridge in the park is only a few yards to the north, because it can be run or walked across. The footbridges are shown below, from south to north.
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| Conselyeas Pond in Brookville Park |
Hook Creek is a small stream for the most part, but in the park, it does widen into a nice pond, Conselyeas Pond. The footbridges are small and cross the narrow stream. I don't have any specs on them, and don't know when they were built, sorry.
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| Bridge #2 |
Like I said, this is a very nice park, and a nice spot for an easy run. But at only about a half mile long, not much of a place for a long run (although a good potential spot for a short-loop ultra!). It's surrounded by a nice residential neighborhood, and JFK Airport to the south, not a lot of great running spots nearby, unless you want to run the length of Rockaway Blvd. out to (or from) Meadowmere and Five Towns. And there are no subways anywhere near, although the Rosedale station for the Long Island Railroad is just to the north of the park.
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| Bridge #3 |
This is another case that brings up the question, what is a bridge that I cover in this blog? I decided that park footbridges would only be covered if they crossed a legitimate waterway, and small as Hook Creek is here, it qualifies. But just to the north, as the creek flows under S. Conduit Blvd., Sunrise Highway, N. Conduit Blvd., and Francis Lewis Blvd, and on to the north (or from the north rather) alongside the Laurelton Parkway it is routed under through man-made channels rather than crossed by bridges, and becomes a much less significant waterway, and I don't think I'll be covering those farther north crossings. I figure if there's a good amount of earth and plants and trees on it, it's not a bridge for the purposes of this blog. I might change my mind later, I've done that often enough already, but the 147th Ave. Bridge and these five footbridges are the end of the line for Hook Creek I believe.
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| Bridge #4 |
Not too many bridges left! Stay tuned, more to come.
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| Bridge #5 |
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| Hook Creek |
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| Under S. Conduit Blvd. |
Love this series, Phil, I've used your reconnaissance for many of my long runs.
ReplyDeleteThanks Milo, great to hear!
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