This evening, i helped out at Recycle-A-Bicycle's Long Island City center. I learned about it while helping out at RAB's DUMBO location.
Both spaces are cluttered, as are most bike shops in New York CIty. However, the Long Island CIty location feels more like a bike shop: Spaces are used in ways that even most of us who've lived in postage stamp-sized apartments would have trouble imagining. On the other hand, in DUMBO, some attempt is made to create space (or, at least the illusion of it) in the front area. Also, the front of DUMBO is well-lit, both from the front windows as well as the light fixtures. Even the image of such light is not possible in the more bunkerlike space at Long Island City.
As much as I enjoyed volunteering at the DUMBO spot, I think I'm going to continue helping out in Long Island CIty. For one thing, it's much closer to where I live. Also, the folks who run it--and those who volunteer--seem to be a more diverse group, even if there are fewer of them than there are at DUMBO. I think it has to do with the way the neighborhood around the latter site has become chic in the way Soho was about twenty years ago (before it became the world's first mall with cast-iron architecture). DUMBO is trying to appeal to a crowd that, I think, reads New York magazine when it isn't going to craft and food fairs. In contrast, the neighborhood around the Long Island City site is still mostly industrial--as DUMBO was about thirty years ago--although new condo towers have opened nearby.
Oh, and I can't forget that the folks in Long Island CIty know from music. It's always playing==everything from ''60's rock classics, 70's funk and soul classics to rap from all over the world.
Finally, the Long Island CIty center has a greater selection of bikes: everything from a custom tandem to an early Trek carbon fiber bike, a couple of Peugeot PX-10s and a bike that looks like an imitation of a Flying Pigeon. (Why anyone would imitate such a bike is beyond me.)
And then there was an English three=speed with a missing head emblem and chainguard, but this chainring:
Both spaces are cluttered, as are most bike shops in New York CIty. However, the Long Island CIty location feels more like a bike shop: Spaces are used in ways that even most of us who've lived in postage stamp-sized apartments would have trouble imagining. On the other hand, in DUMBO, some attempt is made to create space (or, at least the illusion of it) in the front area. Also, the front of DUMBO is well-lit, both from the front windows as well as the light fixtures. Even the image of such light is not possible in the more bunkerlike space at Long Island City.
As much as I enjoyed volunteering at the DUMBO spot, I think I'm going to continue helping out in Long Island CIty. For one thing, it's much closer to where I live. Also, the folks who run it--and those who volunteer--seem to be a more diverse group, even if there are fewer of them than there are at DUMBO. I think it has to do with the way the neighborhood around the latter site has become chic in the way Soho was about twenty years ago (before it became the world's first mall with cast-iron architecture). DUMBO is trying to appeal to a crowd that, I think, reads New York magazine when it isn't going to craft and food fairs. In contrast, the neighborhood around the Long Island City site is still mostly industrial--as DUMBO was about thirty years ago--although new condo towers have opened nearby.
Oh, and I can't forget that the folks in Long Island CIty know from music. It's always playing==everything from ''60's rock classics, 70's funk and soul classics to rap from all over the world.
Finally, the Long Island CIty center has a greater selection of bikes: everything from a custom tandem to an early Trek carbon fiber bike, a couple of Peugeot PX-10s and a bike that looks like an imitation of a Flying Pigeon. (Why anyone would imitate such a bike is beyond me.)
And then there was an English three=speed with a missing head emblem and chainguard, but this chainring:
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