Canal Street in Lower Manhattan runs just over a mile from East Broadway to West Street.
It’s big, broad and bustling and many the famous person from Alexander Hamilton to Lou Reed has walked the wild side on its well-worn cobblestones and concrete.
Until recently, it was one of the most dangerous streets in New York though neither the Post nor Fox thought it worthwhile to mention.
Canal Street put the shivers in you because from the Manhattan Bridge to the Holland Tunnel it was jammed to the gills with cars and trucks. You took your life in your hands crossing that street of dreams. With only the occasional cop in attendance, drivers used traffic lights as suggestions rather than hard and fast rules.
Pedestrians were treated as mere extras in the movies of these mostly out-of-city drivers.
Meanwhile, mired in its automobile adoration, New York City authorities still only allow the barest of time for pedestrians to make it across the street.
You get a couple of seconds of a white “walk” light before a countdown of “run for your life” in flashing red. I once saw a hobbling elderly gentleman hoist his crutches over his shoulders and race betwixt and between honking cars to the un-guaranteed safety of the opposite curb.
All changed, utterly changed since we unworthy sprinters were granted congestion pricing.
Traffic is suddenly silent and gently flowing like the Hudson River.
Time to celebrate, you might ask? Hardly for King Donald down in D.C. has decreed that he prefers the choked streets, poisonous fumes, the honking, and the occasional life and limb sacrificed to the great god, Automobile.
Unlike Alexander and Lou, this former denizen of Queens likely never spent much time on wild and wooly Canal Street.
What need hath he for the brittle Manhattan Bridge or the jam-packed Holland Tunnel in whatever gigantic SUV he’s been towed around in? The vast majority of us who live in Manhattan wouldn’t be caught dead owning a car.
Where are you going to park it? Instead, we take the subways – or walk – and now, hallelujah, the aforementioned subways will be financed by those who insist on driving in below 60th Street. You don’t like subways?
I assure you they’re much safer than the congested streets.
I know, they smell occasionally and there’s always a chance you’ll share a car or platform with a disturbed person.
But then, how much crazier is someone who texts while driving? I know you’d never do that, but many do. In fact, in the bad old pre-congestion pricing days, one of the essentials crossing Canal was to gain eye contact with furious drivers trapped by red lights, but already revving up for their next 3 miler per hour dash.
Gaining the attention of these Formula One wannabes was never as easy as it sounds, for many heads were locked downwards in mid-text forcing you to roar your loudest New York “YOH!”
One thing I never would have predicted with congestion pricing is that Canal Street foot traffic would increase, leading to more crowded stores and happier merchants.
Tucked in between expensive Soho and Tribeca, Canal was always a haven for bargain hunters. From Chinese jewelry to Lebanese suitcases, Italian cannoli, to the finest of sub-Saharan counterfeit Chanel, Prada and Gucci, we have it all – and you can bargain in up to 40 languages.
On the south-east corner of Church and Canal, known locally as Senegal Alley, you can experience the finest beat-driven devotional music by Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keita, and you now can hear it all without the ongoing accompaniment of honking horns.
How pleasing to finally stroll in the footsteps of Hamilton and Reed through streets originally designed for horse and carriage. I can only think of one comparable New York City edict that made a real difference to the lives of its citizens – the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.
So be aware Mayor Adams, Mr. Cuomo, and others seeking the mayoralty, there are many of us who won’t even consider voting for you without your guarantee of support for congestion pricing.
Now, if we could only make the same threat to “Yer man from Queens” in the White House.
But he knows New York City would never vote for him anyway.
