I think I've found Tivoli on the Hudson. Or, at least, Tivoli on the East River.
It's not far from where I live. In fact, I've gone there a number of times and passed by on other occasions. There were always bicycles parked there, but never as many as I saw today:
That's just one bike rack on one side of MOMA/PS 1 in Long Island City, Queens. (It's right across the Kosciuzcko Bridge from Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Are you surprised?) Here's what the full contingent of parked bikes on the museum's north side looks like:
Directly across from PS 1, on 46th Road, is a fenced-in parking lot. This is one side of the gate:
Here is the other:
I was impressed by the sheer variety of bikes. Of course, the one I was happiest to see was this Cinelli:
It might not be a classic model. But at least it's made from Columbus Spirit tubing in Italy: It's not a new ersatz "Cinelli" that's poured out of a mold in China.
(I'm sorry I couldn't take a better photo with my cell phone, and without getting flattened by a truck!)
One of the strangest bikes had to be this:
In the mid-to-late 1970's, Raleigh's top-of-the-line racing bike was the "Team." The bike in the photo is a "Team": It's the "Team Record", a Record--then Raleigh's bottom-of-the-line "sport" ten-speed--painted in Team colors.
The frame was made of mild steel, as were most of the components. However, someone fitted a carbon fiber fork and a Shimano aero wheel to the front. And, of course, the bike was turned into a "fixie".
Somehow it makes perfect sense that it was parked near that Cinelli--and across the street from bikes with everything from Brooks saddles and hammered fenders to carbon fiber aero bars. And it makes sense that they're all at PS 1. If Andy Warhol rode a bike, that's probably where he would have parked it.
Would she have been the next Edie Sedgwick?:
Yesterday, while riding to my weekly volunteer stint at Recycle A Bicycle, I chanced upon something I may never get to see again:
Two years ago, David Wolkoff, who owns the property on which 5 Pointz is located, announced plans to raze the building and construct two towers of luxury condos in its place. The demolition has been scheduled for next month.
Given that 5 Pointz is located just behind the old courthouse (one of the most attractive buildings in Queens, in my opinion) and less than half a kilometer from PS 1 and the Citicorp building. As much as it pains me to say this, it's actually rather surprising that 5 Pointz has endured in its location in a quickly-gentrifying neighborhood for two decades.
That means, of course, something else that it pains me to say: Two decades' worth of some of the best graffiti, by some of the best-known graffiti artists, will be lost. And artists who have studios inside the building (for which they've been paying below-market rents) will have to find new digs. Some might actually leave New York altogether.
It also means the loss of one of those landmarks that provides cyclists in New York with a vista different from any other.
I was lamenting the fact that I won't be able to take a big trip this year.
However, I am experiencing the weather and seeing the kind of light one finds in London, Copenhagen and other northern European capitals.
Somehow, though, I don't imagine they've had anything like Hurricane Sandy. Then again, I'm sure they have other kinds of rough weather that I didn't spend enough time in those places to experience.
But I digress. Apart from the chilly, damp air and gray skies, something else gives the part of the world in which I live the flavor of northern Europe:
Those bikes are parked outside PS 1. It seems that every time I ride down that way, I see more and more bikes parked there:
Those racks, installed recently, aren't enough for the bicycle traffic that stops at the museum. Almost as many bikes are locked and chained to lamposts, parking meters and other immobile objects on the surrounding blocks. Some of those bikes are interesting and unusual, such as this one:
A few A. Sutter bicycles, which were made France, made their way to these shores before and during the '70's "Bike Boom." They are much like other French bikes of the period--a little nicer, perhaps than Peugeot, but not quite as nice as Motobecane. But definiely, quintessentially French, for better and worse.
I mean, nobody else did chainguards the way they did them in Gaul. And their fenders are, rightly, the ones that inspire the ones Velo Orange and other companies make:
The bike in the photos, and most other A. Sutters, were manufactured in Chatellerault, in the Loire Valley. A. Sutter also offered a top-of-the line racing model that Olmo made in Italy. Like most top-of-the-line Italian racing bikes (as well as some from other countries), it was equipped with Campagnolo Nuovo Record components.
I don't know whether A. Sutter is still in business--and, if they are, whether their bikes are still made in Chatellerault or anywhere else in France.
If they're still being made, I wonder whether they're available in the light blue of that bike. Lots of bike makers made light blue bikes, but this particular shade, by itself, all but marks it as a French Bike.
Now, for a very different blue bike, take a look at this:
You've probably seen Austro-Daimlers before. They're another marque associated with the '70's Bike Boom. They might be best-known for one of the most elegant catalogs ever produced and their pledge that their top-of-the-line bike, the Ultima, would "leave the factory in a specially prepared foam-filled case." The ladies' version of the Vent Noir might be the most elegant mixte that wasn't made by a French constructeur or English hand-builder!
Even their lower-and mid-level bikes reflected the attention to detail of their best machines:
I find it interesting to see bicycles like this one that are more than three decades old but look as if they just left the showroom. Was it stored in one of those foam-filled cases?
Anyway, enough about bikes. I took a spin down to Brooklyn, and passed by Pratt Institute. I can hardly imagine a campus looking more autumnal than this:
This bike was parked outside PS 1 this afternoon:
Because I have a weakness for stories, I constructed a few in my mind. I imagined a four-year-old girl looking at Lara Favretto's pieces. Wow, I thought, that girl is a much better kid than I was!
Then again, she might have been sneaking away from her parent(s) or whoever else was caring for her. That would make her more advanced, at least, than I was. Imagine having the wherewithal to be able to rebel in such a way! Imagine being able to choose, at that age, riding your bike to an art museum as a form of rebellion!
Or, perhaps she (I assumed she was a girl. I apologize for being so inculcated with patriarchal notions!) was a midget hipster, or hipster wannabe. Believe me, I've seen hipsters ride much stranger bikes than this one!
As I was about to take a picture on my cell phone, a woman walked toward the bike. I explained that I wanted to take a photo for this blog. I got to glimpse and wave at her daughter, who rode the bike and whose name I didn't get. But the mother's name is Holly. Holly, I hope you're reading this!
Anyway, from PS 1, I rode over the Pulaski Bridge into Greenpoint. On the bridge's bike/pedestrian lane, and into Brooklyn, I found myself riding behind a man on this bike:
It's a Strida. I snapped the picture--again, with my cell phone--as we were riding. I was going to approach him at the next light, but he turned. Oh well.
Perhaps the little girl who rode the bike parked at PS 1 will grow up to ride a Strida--or Brompton or some other small-wheeled bike for grown-ups. And maybe she'll bring it inside PS 1 or her school or workplace.
On the other hand, I don't imagine the man I saw on the Strida had ever ridden a bike like hers!
Rain and clouds and rain and mist and rain and clouds.
For two days, that's what we've had. And it followed heat and smog and heat and smog that ended with a thunderstorm.
I got in a very short ride late today, along the waterfronts of Greenpoint, Long Island City and Astoria. I picked up some chicken panang curry and steamed dumplings from an Asian reataurant near PS 1 and consumed them into the mist that was turning to dusk on the Long Island City pier.
Along the way, I saw something that put me in the mind of Ezra Pound's poetry:
Well, it doesn't really remind me of Ezra Pound's poetry. But there is a connection. I had the same reaction to seeing this bike that I did to reading Pound's work: I thought, "All right, it's not my style. But I kinda admire it."
I had to make no such qualification for my enjoyment of what I chased my Thai dinner with:
Tosca couldn't resist the aroma that wafted from it. Actually, I couldn't, but I was trying really, really hard to show that indulging myself wasn't entirely my fault. (Ah, guilt. We never get over it, do we?)
You're looking at the Waffles and Dinges truck, which just happened to be at the pier. I had their waffles and ice cream once before, and loved it. So I was happy to see them again. And the guy and woman on the truck remembered me!
Through this weekend's rain, I did a bit of bike-related tinkering. I'll tell you more about that in a near-future post.
As I rode this evening, I was thinking about what "Velouria" posted yesterday on her Lovely Bicycle! blog. In it, she talks about bicycles with "trusses": an old design that is apparently being revived by a few small builders like A.N.T.
The "truss" frames she showed are indeed lovely, and she mentioned that the bicycles that inspired them were built about 100 years ago and patterned after truss bridges.
You simply can't spend any time in New York without going over some bridge or another. Even the sorts of people who leave Manhattan only to go to Europe pass over stone or girdered spans over streets and roads that were, in some cases, streams or small rivers before they were filled in.
And I can't help but to think of bicycles themselves as bridges. After all, there is something "on the other side" of every bike ride. This evening, it happened to be the wonders of New York--and Nature's-- architecture:
You all know the building in the center: It's the one phoenetically-challenged kids of my generation used to call "the En-tire State Building." I took this admittedly primitive photo from this spot:
The pier in the photo is part of Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. Of course, the opportunity to experience a nautical breeze while taking in one of the best possible views of the Manhattan skyline is reason enough to go there. It also happens to be just a few blocks from the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center.
What's interesting about the park and the museum--and much of the rest of the neighborhood--is that about 15 years ago, they were part of an industrial area, much of which was decaying or derelict. Stolen cars were abandoned there; indeed, the area was, as I understand, the setting for part of the Grand Theft Auto series. In 1885, the Long Island City docks bustled with shipments of Long Island produce headed for Manhattan and points beyond; a hundred years later, those docks were all but abandoned.
However, even in its dilapidated state, the waterfront and some of the buildings on it shared a trait with those classic and classy bicycles that people sometimes find in basements and barns. That trait was perhaps best expressed by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables: "Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus peut-etre." ("The beautiful is as useful as the useful. Perhaps more so.")
I apologize that my keyboard doesn't have those fancy and pretty markings the French and other speakers of non-English languages like to put on their words. My favorite one in French is the "hat," or accent circumflex. Since I couldn't type one, I'll give you a photograph of one. In fact, this photo has a whole bunch of them:
Even if it's named after an auto company that got bailed out twice, it's still beautiful. In fact, the Chrysler Building is still my favorite skyscraper, and one of my favorite buildings in New York. This one ain't bad, either:
Still, to me, nothing constructed by humans compares to a bridge.
And the bicycle is a bridge for many of us.
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