Volunteering In Recycle-A-Bicycle's "Other" Center

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:

A First, But Not A Latest

According to sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, Philadelphia is a city of "firsts", Boston a city of "bests" and New York a city of "latests".

The last part of Baltzell's observation makes perfect sense if you ride along the Ocean Parkway bike lane, as I did today.

Many histories, and the New York City Parks Department, maintain that it is the country's first bike path.  Whether or not such a claim can be made for it, the five-mile ribbon of asphalt and concrete is almost certainly the oldest bike lane continuously designated for the purpose.

Baltzell's observation might well explain why I rode the entire length of Ocean Parkway in both directions and saw only one other cyclist.  Granted, the temperature reached 34C (94F), but one might expect to see people--whether or not they are "serious" cyclists--riding to Coney Island, at the southern end of the path.

But I rode in the morning, before the worst of the heat baked the path, so I would have expected to see more riders.  

Aside from the heat, I think one reason why there was only one other cyclist--and there weren't many more when I rode the path about two weeks ago--is that the younger and hipper cyclists are riding the newer bike lanes, like the ones along the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and along the Hudson on the West Side of Manhattan.

Also, there are no Citibike ports anywhere near the Ocean Parkway lane.  The nearest ones, I believe, are at Prospect Park--at its northern end, near the Brooklyn Museum and Library.  Ocean Parkway begins at the southwestern end of the park, about two miles (three kilometers) away.  So, if one were to take a Citibike from the Prospect Park park, he or she would not be able to return it in time:  One-time renters must bring the bike back within half an hour, while those with annual memberships have 45 minutes.  Even if one is in shape to ride a major race, he or she would have great difficulty in riding to Coney Island (or even halfway there) and back, especially given that Citibikes are not built for speed.

In any event, I hope that the Ocean Parkway path is not forgotten.  I suspect that Citibike ports will be installed along its length, and in Coney Island itself.

The George Zimmarman Verdict

Alert:  Today's post has nothing to do with bicycling--not directly, anyway.  But I thought the issue was too important not to write about.

Being a trans woman, I know what it's like to be presumed guilty simply for being who and what you are.  And i have had people--including someone I mentioned recently on my other blog--use that aginst me.  And he got off nearly scot-free.

When a jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, the storyline included everything in the previous paragraph, except for the trans part.  Zimmerman saw a black kid in a hoodie and figured he must have been up to no good.  And he knew that in an almost entirely white and very conservative part of Florida, many people would share his assumption of Martin's gullt.

To be fair, the jury--which consisted entirely of women, some of whom were mothers--expressed justifiable doubts about what they were hearing in both sides of the case.  Beause Trayvon Martin is dead, there is much that we will never know; whatever happened, George Zimmerman was probably not in a normal state of mind, so even if he was being entirely honest, his testimony (let alone his lawyer's) could not be entirely accurate.

Even if he were in a "normal" state of mind--which would have been all but impossible in such circumstances--I would still have doubts about his account of events. However, even if I or anyone else were to discount such doubts, I still believe that Zimmerman should have been indicted for something, if only manslaughter.

When I was in ROTC (!) a long time ago, I underwent firearms training.  The instructor--who, I was convinced at the time, could have ended up in prison instead of the Army had the screw been turned just a little differently--told us something I never forgot:  "If a gun is in your hand and a bullet comes out of it, you are responsible for where that bullet goes and what it does."

In other words, he said, if your gun fires "accidentally", you are responsible for whatever damage or loss of life results.  "If the bullet from your gun hits me, it'd better kill me," he warned.  "Otherwise, I'll find you wherever you are and finish the job."

That is not only the best (well, only)  instruction I ever got on firearms safety; it's one of the best lessons on personal responsibility anyone ever gave me.  

And so, whether Trayvon Martin was on top or on bottom, or wherever George Zimmerman aimed or didn't, he was responsible for Trayvon Martin's death. Perhaps the jurors didn't understand that, or whether or how they could have voted for a manslaughter convicion.  Or they may have simply been exhausted.  Whatever the case, justice was not done for Trayvon Martin and his family.