When old is a-blend with things of the new
To make one long, mysterious avenue,
There, west of this town is where it lays
Traversing miles, and time as well, in ways.

The road, through its length, is a contrast of hue;
There's sad and glad, there's beauty, eye-sores too.
Some ways are above whilst others below,
There's weak and strong, there's ground, there's waterflow.

From up in the north where the Hudson is spanned
The vista comes majestic, oh so grand!
With nature in all of its native splendors
Is garbed in harmony with man-made wonders.

A marriage where each by the other is praised,
And none is paled nor spoiled by mate, but graced;
Though each in its own right beauteous may be
Together gazed they're worth the Muses' glee.

This road, though be wide, is for traveling slow,
To savor every mile and turns as you go,
Reminiscing dreams our puerile minds once wrought
From pictures that cards and story books have brought.

Then sudden as night by the dawn dispelled,
A whole new world and time is there beheld,
With street lamps, balustrades of a century yore,
With cobbled streets and promenades galore.

The vision of yesteryear's glories so like true,
One thinks he'd meet or maybe espy a few
Of parasols laced and those derby hats, too,
Or hear the clop of hooves from cabs anew.

Yet brief is this dream for reality calls,
As the lovely road is torn and downward falls,
To twist in a maze of such gloom and decay,
'Mid rusting piers of once a soaring way.

Now hapless and damp like dungeons of old,
This mile but tells of life when sad and cold;
Some hearts have been broken here, you must agree,
And dreams of a grandiose way shall never be.

Ere long would the road to daylight bright return
Yet charm is lost, like youth by war is shorn,
The trek is now but task, just a chore to be done
The road is now just like but any other one.

The humdrum of sight, though so tedious, is rife
With thoughts for the final strokes on canvas of Life;
For man is accursed with a spiraling quest,
Ignoring what is now had, though often best.

Of life in all phases here then it is showed
By one we take as nothing more than just a "road";
And though with all the riches this city may be blest,
It's but another town without this road on west...

The roughs and bumps and tumble that's FDR,
Speak eloquently of what New Yorkers verily are;
A road that's tough, with goings rough, yet moving on
Albeit slow, it's never stopped, and e'er arriving there anon.
See FDR with paving patches of varied sizes and hue,
But all make up one road, direct and true,
To the city's core, where a world of tasks and myriad goals
Is patterned into one kaleidoscopic quilt of souls.
There's no romance, no nature trip, and little loveliness,
For FDR, like New Yorkers, mean business - nothing less.
The weak and soft have no place here, they can't survive,
They'd better seek another route of less demand or lesser drive.
Though Diplomats, too, in numbers ply its well-worn lanes
Diplomacy is not one of the virtues it affects or feigns;
But surely FDR will get you where you're bound,
That's all that matters, after all - ain't that fair and sound?
Like us, New Yorkers, a breed apart, a kind so rare,
That no one else could claim he can least compare,
Unless he'd lived in New York's clime or drove a car
And made it nicely through the avenue called FDR...

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