the distance between blocks

PBS and BAFTA are hosting an event around a new documentary on The Dave Clark Five. I sign up.

It’s enjoyable and nostalgic.  Afterwards, Dave Clark is interviewed.  He’s impressive and an astute businessman.  He is one of the few musicians who retained the rights of the group’s master recordings.

I leave and it is raining.  I do something I rarely do, hail a cab.

I’m lost in thought, thinking about my younger self, practicing dance steps with Marcie in my parent’s finished basement, while listening to 45’s.  I look up to see that the driver has bypassed my street. 

He apologizes, and then tells me that he’ll turn the meter off for one block between avenues, “which is the equivalent of four street-blocks.”  ”t’s not. It’s the equivalent of two blocks,” I confidently tell him.  I even add, “I’ve timed it in a car, and I’m a runner.”  (I think the former may be true and the latter was true once, over 20 years ago.)  He is not convinced.  “I’ve been driving for 13 years.  I know it’s four blocks, not two,” he responds.  I am positive he’s wrong. He then offers to bet me $100.  I think about taking his offer but then quickly run through the logistics of how this would play out.  I’d have to get his contact info, find the proof, somehow communicate it to him, and then what?  Do I really think he’s going to meet me and fork over $100?

I tell him no thanks.  Get out of the cab, no longer back in the 60’s. I come home and just out of curiosity, google walking distances in New York City.  I find this from The New York Times:

The distance between cross street blocks (north-south) are 200 feet apart (with 

exactly 20 blocks per mile). The distance between avenues (east-west) varies from

about 650 ft to over 900 ft.

Wow.  I’m glad the logistics got in the way of my betting.  But on the positive side, I walk further than I think I do.