When Eric and I first got together and for a few years after we got married, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens. We both worked in Manhattan. I was working for a small ad agency on 57th & 7th (right between Carnegie Hall and The Russian Tea Room…great location) and Eric’s office building was on lower Broadway, a few blocks away from what used to be the World Trade Center, around the corner from City Hall.

To get to work each morning, we had to walk about 1/2 mile to the subway stop at 82nd & Queens Blvd. (Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike) to catch the E train into Manhattan. I got off at 7th Avenue at 53rd street and walked 4 blocks up. Door to door could be done in about 40 minutes depending on the time of day and how long we had to wait for a train. There was a green line bus that stopped right in front of our apartment building and then stopped at the corner where the subway was, so on cold days or when I was just being lazy I’d take the bus to the subway rather than walk. Back then there were no bus-to-subway transfers so it cost me two tokens to get to work instead of one if I cheated and took the bus to the subway. Eric’s door-to-door took a little over an hour.

According to Google Maps, my old apartment to my old office is 9 miles.

It also says that it’s a 19 minute drive which if you’ve ever lived in New York City you know that’s my hysterical laughing moment of the day.

I’ve asked myself, what if I was still living in that apartment and working at my old job and had to deal with the transit strike and only one word comes to mind:

telecommute

Yeah, I can just see myself walking all the way down Queens Blvd. and across the Queensboro bridge to get to work. Suuuuurrrrrreeeee.