Who doesn’t like a good aerial tram ride? I know I do. New Yorkers also seem to like a good aerial tram ride. At least the Roosevelt Island tram was packed full when I rode it on October 12, a clear Sunday afternoon. Since it was Sunday, I knew they were pleasure-seekers, not commuters.

To ride the Roosevelt Island tram, you either have to go to 60th St. and Second Ave. in Manhattan, or the station on Roosevelt Island itself, which is accessible by subway and road. I wanted the experience of riding from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island, so I took the subway to Lexington Ave. & 59th St. and walked the short distance to the tram station, which is at the top of its own tower.

As I mentioned, the car was full. Excited kids were up front for the view, which starts in above a major street, then goes up over the East River, with the Queensboro Bridge to the right (officially named after Ed Koch, but I don’t think anyone calls it that) before dropping down to the tram station on the island.

It’s a short, smooth ride to the island. Unlike some of the skyrides I’ve been on, there was very little bumping as you roll over the wheels on the towers holding the thing up. A little later, I took a picture of one of the cars coming over, appearing to glide under the bridge, but in fact on the other side.

One of the cars as it leaves the station on Roosevelt Island. I’ve read they they aren’t the original cars, but newer ones acquired for the renovation of the system a few years ago.

Tram basics, as provided by Billie Cohen in a NYT series about commuting in the region: “Until Portland, Ore., opened its aerial commuter tram in 2006, the Roosevelt Island tram was the only commuting one in America… Well, our tram was first, and it has swooshed across the East River since 1976. It travels 16 miles per hour, completing its crossing of the river in four and a half minutes and reaching a height of 250 feet, which is higher than the Queensboro Bridge at certain points.

“The tram runs every seven and a half minutes during rush hour and fits a maximum of 125 people… The tram was originally conceived to be a temporary solution to the island’s lack of subway service. Prior to its inception in 1976, anyone traveling to Roosevelt Island rode a trolley across the Queensboro Bridge, which was equipped with an elevator to take people down to the island. A restored trolley kiosk now serves as a visitor center and is located on the site of the elevator building. The F-train station on Roosevelt Island opened October 29, 1989.”

There’s a stone in Brooklyn Bridge Park, near the edge of the water at the place once called the Fulton Ferry Landing, with a plaque on it. Naturally, I had to look at it.

THIS TABLET MARKS THE BROOKLAND FERRY LANDING FROM WHICH POINT THE AMERICAN ARMY EMBARKED DURING THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 29TH 1776 UNDER THE DIRECTION OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON ABLY ASSISTED BY COLONEL JOHN GLOVER OF MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS. Erected by the Brooklyn Bridge Plaza Association 1929.

Washington’s famed escape, helped by the weather as well as Col. Glover and his men, happened right there, back before the 19th- and 20th-century docks occupied the area, back before it was in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, back before the redevelopment of the area into a public amenity for 21st-century New Yorkers. It was good to find a presidential site on my walkabout in Brooklyn on October 11.

By the time I got to Brooklyn Bridge Park, I’d been walking much of the afternoon, and was also glad find the many benches available at the park, among the greenery and other amenities. From that vantage, the Brooklyn Bridge looms large, gracefully taking up the sky, its great stone towers hung with the familiar web of steel cables. Hard to believe something so hard and massive can give the impression of floating, but it does. I was reminded of the time I sat under that other late Victorian metal marvel, the Eiffel Tower, gawking up at it. One horizontal, one vertical, both gargantuan works of sculpture, besides being engineering feats that I can’t pretend to understand (and in the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, critical infrastructure).

A constant stream of pedestrians, silhouettes of walking figures, crossed the bridge as I watched. I didn’t remember the foot traffic on bridge being so heavy, but my hazy memories of walking across the bridge in 1983 involve a hazy summer day. I don’t remember my exact route then, but after crossing from Manhattan to Brooklyn – the first time I’d been to the borough — I made my way to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, famous for its view of Manhattan, and sat around there for a while. I found, or bought, a newspaper, and I read about the assassination of Benigno Aquino on the promenade. I’d never heard of him before.

Behind the Brooklyn Bridge, at least from the vantage of the park, is the Manhattan Bridge, which is overshadowed by its neighbor. But it too has its aesthetic charms. One of these days, I ought to walk across it as well. The Manhattan Bridge is the newer of the two, designed (in part) by Leon Moisseiff and opened in 1909. Moisseiff’s better known for consulting on the Golden Gate Bridge design and, infamously, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Brooklyn Bridge Park is a fine new public space. Brooklynbridgepark.org says it “extends 1.3 miles along the East River on a defunct cargo shipping and storage complex. The ambitious park design sought to transform this environmentally hostile site into a thriving civic landscape while preserving the dramatic experience of the industrial waterfront. This site also presented excellent opportunities including its adjacency to two thriving residential communities and its unparalleled viewsheds to the fabled Lower Manhattan skyline.” Viewshed, there’s an urban planning word you (I) don’t see much.

“Brooklyn Bridge Park’s lush lawns, young trees and beautiful flowers have created a robust landscape and brought nature to this former industrial site. Public access to the long, narrow site was enabled by ‘urban junctions,’ neighborhood parks at key entry points that transition between the park and adjacent residential communities. These entry parks host program such as dog runs, civic lawns and playgrounds, which foster community stewardship and the safety that comes with constant occupation.”

I’d come to Brooklyn Bridge Park after spending the afternoon in Downtown Brooklyn and then the Brooklyn Museum, which is near Prospect Park. Then I took the subway to the High Street station, which actually deposited me at a large street called Camden Plaza West. From there I crossed through a small section of Brooklyn Heights notable for the Fruit Streets: Cranberry, Pineapple, and Orange, which each feature a few blocks of brownstones, former carriage houses, wood frame structures, small restaurants and shops, and a few churches (including Plymouth Church, whose first pastor was Henry Ward Beecher; I didn’t know it was there until later). Enormous trees shelter the neighborhood, and in some spots, roots push up parts of the ancient sidewalk. It was easily the most handsome neighborhood I encountered during my visit, and probably one of the more expensive in Brooklyn these days. Much more about the area around Middagh St. (which parallels the Fruit Streets) is here.

Walk far enough down a Fruit Street and you reach the Fruit Street Sitting Area, a small park – near but apparently not part of the Promenade — with a large view of Lower Manhattan. I arrived just as the sun was setting. Complete serendipity, and I sat down to enjoy it. A number of other people were there to watch the glow off in the west.

As I left the area, I noticed that the playground across the street from the Sitting Area is named for Harry Chapin, who was from Brooklyn Heights. I hadn’t thought about him in a long while. I wondered how long it had been since he died in an accident on the Long Island Expressway – 10? 15 years ago? Later, I looked it up. He died in 1981. This kind of memory disconnect happens sometimes.

Proceeding down a steep hill – and there aren’t many of those in New York – on a street called Columbia Heights, I came to Brooklyn Bridge Park, and a bit of the area lately known as Dumbo — Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, supposedly. I wandered around there as it grew dark, though I didn’t make it as far as the Manhattan Bridge on foot that evening. I’d written about the district before, since it’s the kind of place where former industrial buildings become residential properties. Eventually I cooled my heels on a bench at Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and watched the city and the bridges light up.

So that explains it. New York ComicCon was at the Javits Center in Manhattan from October 9-12. Normally this would concern me not at all, but when riding the subway in Manhattan last week, sometimes I noticed youth in costumes, some elaborate, that seemed to evoke comic book characters, though none I recognized. Being too early for Halloween, despite marketers’ best efforts to pull that event forward, I figured it was something else.

But the oddest thing I saw in the subway was a normally dressed young woman waiting for a train going Uptown. She looked a little bored. Then I noticed the unloaded crossbow that she was holding, pointing down. Where does one practice crossbow on this teeming, crowded island? There must be an indoor range somewhere. Still, it was something you don’t see every day, not even in New York.

I left for New York on October 9 and returned on the 17th. I had business to attend to, but also made an effort to see things I hadn’t before. No matter how many times you visit – and I’ve lost count now – there’s always more, since New York is just that kind of place. I spent time in Manhattan, of course, but the focus this time around was Brooklyn. Over the years, my visits to the borough have been only sporadic, and now they say it’s the place to be in New York. My nephew and his flatmates in Bed-Stuy, who are passing their young manhood there, were good enough to put me up.

So I walked the streets and rode the trains, and a few buses. I ate barbecue, supposedly Texas style, Southern-style chicken (though not quite spiced in any Southern style I know), a Turkish gyro, a Cuban sandwich, slices of pizza standing up, some pretzels, food at diners – surprisingly common in the city – and visited a few tiny grocery stores, the kind large boxes have killed in most places, because Ye Shall Know Them by Their Grocery Stores. Almost everything is overpriced, but what isn’t in that part of the country? I marvel that the non-wealthy can live there at all.

In Manhattan, I made it to the High Line, a truly remarkable new public space, and the September 11 Memorial and Museum, besides a few moments at familiar old places, such as Grand Central and the streets of Midtown. In Brooklyn, I wandered around parts of Bed-Stuy, Downtown, Brooklyn Heights, and Dumbo. Every now and then, I would see a development, usually an apartment building, that I’d written about at one time or other.

Brooklyn Bridge Park, besides being up close under that highly aesthetic feat of bridge engineering, is also a truly remarkable new public space. One morning I got up early and made my way to the bucolic and vast Green-Wood Cemetery, south of Prospect Park. One afternoon I spent a few footsore hours in the Brooklyn Museum, an institution overshadowed by the big-box museums on Manhattan, but a palace of art in its own right.

Years ago, I took a Circle Line tour, which involves taking a boat all the way around Manhattan while a guide makes bad jokes on the intercom. Or at least it did then. This time, I opted for the much cheaper East River Ferry, for a view of the city by night, and no narration. Also, I took a walk on Roosevelt Island, taking the aerial tram to get there, in the company of other tourists, but also a fair contingent of Hasidim on an afternoon excursion.

On the whole, the place made me tired. It’s crowded, noisy, dirty and expensive. Who would have it any other way? I’m glad I was able to make it this year.