Running for Your Life: Elevators, Bathrooms, Fountains

A, A young man I know confined to a wheelchair who doesn’t miss a beat in his courageous life, knows how to get to every elevator in the Manhattan section of the New York Subway system.

M will chart every urban journey across Manhattan and a big chunk of Brooklyn keeping in mind the location of every public bathroom.

I won’t begin a long run without having a mental picture of where I will find public drinking fountains, and how much I will need to drink from them, as I go on my way.

Author Paul Theroux once said urban neighborhoods are like a small section of a jungle that natives know and exploit to their needs and fashion. Beyond that section they are uneasy, out of place. Because that land is another group’s territory.