In 1979, I rode in New York City’s Five Boro Bike Tour for the first time. It was the third edition of what became an annual event and marked the first time the Triboro (now known as RFK Memorial) Bridge was closed to auto traffic.
I took the ride with two fellow students from Rutgers. We were among the few-thousand cyclists who participated; it had not yet become the sort of event that gets listed in TimeOut. It also didn’t have the $125 entry fee—a sum I never could have afforded as a university—of this year’s Tour.
I would participate in 19 more 5BBTs—two as a marshal—before deciding that it had become something people “did” rather than rode. (Plus, I had long since decided I would not pay to ride in my hometown.) But a recent news story reminded me of something I experienced on that 1979 ride.
In preparation for being one the World Cup host cities, Mexico City built a 24 kilometer (15 mile) protected bike lane from the city center to the main World Cup stadium. As expected, there were complaints and protests. Were city officials concerned about snow removal? Did business owners worry about parking? Are drivers irate over losing one of “their” lanes to cyclists?
I am sure that those common objections—save, perhaps, for snow removal—were voiced in regards to the Gran Ciclovía Tenochtittlán. But GCT upset another group of people who, as far as I know, have never before been involved in a bike lane controversy: sex workers.
GCT’s route includes part of Avenida Tlalpan, where sex work has flourished for decades. (I don’t know this information firsthand: I have my sources!☺️) Before the bike lane came (no pun intended—really!) in, pleasure providers would stand by the outermost traffic lanes. This allowed potential clients to slow down, stop and negotiate.
GCT has “taken” that outermost lane. So the World Cup—which, one assumes, would have been good for business—has instead all but destroyed not only a potential bonanza, but also their future prospects.
Before I make the connection with my 5BBT experience, I have to mention something else that occurs to me: I have heard of one instance in which someone solicited from a bicycle. When I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn during the 1990s, the area under the nearby Gowanus Expressway was known to be an active prostitution area at least since World War II. One raid—which took place around the time then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was “cleaning up” Times Square—resulted from a would-be “John” soliciting an undercover cop from his bicycle. I heard that when he was arrested, his bike was impounded.
The route of the 1979 5BBT, like that of every edition since, included a long stretch along the Brooklyn waterfront. Not far from where that two-wheeled terror met his end years later, there was a checkpoint. Gentrification and hipsters were years into the future for Williamsburg and Red Hook; those then-largely-industrial areas were all but abandoned on weekends.
Note that I said “all but.” At the checkpoint, while we were getting our cards stamped, some of us were greeted, shall we say, by folks wanting to do business. Being a broke student was just one reason why I didn’t. (In case you were wondering: I have never paid, at least monetarily or with goods or other services, for sex.) I wonder, though, whether any other 5BBT riders did—and, if so, whether it’s proof cyclists aren’t bad for business.
