Egyptian Art Deco Catholic In Jackson Heights

 Jackson Heights is five to six kilometers from my apartment.  I have ridden through it, many times, along various routes.  Still, a ride can lead me to some interesting corner or structure I’d never seen or noticed before.

This is one such building.  At first glance, it doesn’t seem out of place: Like most of what is now in the neighborhood, it was built during the late 1920s:  around the same time as the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. Also, many palatial movie theatres were constructed during that time, just when movies were becoming the most popular form of popular entertainment.  So it would be easy to take this building for a Loews or RKO cinema, especially when you look up.

Those “movie houses” often combined the line structures and geometric shapes of Art Deco with Egyptian motifs. They sound like an odd pairing until you look at them—and you realize that Howard Carter discovered King Tutankhamen’s tomb in the early 1920s, setting off a fad for all things Egyptian just as Art Deco was becoming the most influential style in architecture and design.

That is why this building doesn’t look out of place in Jackson Heights and would look right in parts of the Bronx or Miami Beach, which were also developed around the same time.

What makes this building so unusual, is this:

I grew up Catholic and have entered all sorts of church buildings and cathedrals here, in Europe and Asia.  I can’t say, however, that I’ve seen any other Catholic Church building—or, for that matter, any other house of worship—that looks quite like this one. 

And to think:  I came across it just because I decided to make a turn, and ride down a street, I hadn’t before.  That is one of the joys of cycling!

In Philadelphia, You Can Park By A Hydrant If....

Firefighters might be one of the most loved and respected groups of people.  Even they, however, sometimes incur rage for doing their jobs.   As an example, one firefighter told me about the man who showed up at his firehouse, irate.  Turns out, the guy parked next to a hydrant and the firefighters had to damage his car to route the hose and ladder to an inflamed building.

Philadelphia has one of the largest communities of bicycle commuters in the US.  In one part of the city, nearly a fifth of all commuting miles are done by bicycle. Riders in the City of Brotherly love have similar complaints to their peers in other cities.  One is the lack of bike parking spaces:  Especially in central areas, where many work or go to school, cyclists find full racks when the try to park their bikes.

So, you ask, how are those two stories related?

The common thread was woven when three young people met in graduate school for industrial design. Grace Choi, Corey Jameson and Colin Lew formed an alliance called Team Sophon.  Under that moniker, they submitted a proposal to the Rack 'Em Up Bike Parking Competition.  Along with 16 others entries, Team Sophon's ideas were judged by a panel that included members of the city's Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability (OTIS), Parking Authority, Fire Department and other agencies.  Five of  those entries were short-listed, and Team Sophon's was ultimately chosen.

Team Sophon's prototype, called "Harbor,"  would include a designated space in front of a hydrant where cyclists would stop and steer their bikes to the racks. That space--painted green--would be segregated by flexible barriers like the ones used to separate bike lanes from streets. Steel bollocks were initially proposed for the purpose, but selection committee members expressed concern that they could be dangerous in a crash.  And the racks, made from thick steel tubing, would sit under a canopy illuminated by solar-powered lights that would be activated when users enter.

Team Sophon's victory comes with a $3500 prize.  To begin, at least two Harbors will be built: one in West Philadelphia and another in the Old City, near a garage owned by the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

Those facilities will at least make some firefighters and cyclists happy.  Motorists, maybe not so much.

Can't Fix Your Bike? It's An Environmental And Economic Justice Issue

When I first became a dedicated cyclist--nearly half a century ago!--bicycles were touted as environmentally friendly alternatives to gas guzzlers.  At the risk of sounding like someone who pines for "the good old days," I'll say that most adult cyclists of the time were not merely "signaling" their concern for our habitat; they, as often as not, made other choices in line with their values.

Today, while some are "bikewashing" their lifestyles, there are some who are genuinely concerned with such matters as human-enhanced climate change.  So, while they might cycle to work or school (or, at least to the bus or train that takes them there), recycle the bottles, cans and other packaging they use during their lunch breaks and, perhaps, try to buy as local as possible, they could unwittingly be making at least one choice that undermines their other efforts.

To wit:  Their bicycles might be part of the problem.  Now, I don't mean to be pick on such folks.  Most people, especially if they're buying their first bike in decades, aren't familiar with how or where their bikes are made, or anticipate the normal wear and tear--and repairs--that come with regular use.  They also assume that "new is better," which is sometimes, but not always true.

Most mechanics, or anyone who's been cycling for, say, two decades or more, won't necessarily agree that "new is better."  It's true that almost any derailleur made today shifts better than almost any made fifty or forty years ago.  And, depending on your point of view, some other parts today are more efficient, convenient or lighter than their predecessors.  

But one problem is that most of those parts--or the bikes themselves--are not built to last because they're not made to be fixed.  "If I get a Huffy from the '90's, chances are I can actually make repairs to it," says Mac Liman. It will be heavy, but at least "the steel will hold together," she explains, and the result will be a serviceable, if inelegant, piece of basic transportation.

Liman would know:  She's been a mechanic for 19 years, the past  14 at Denver's Bikes Together shop.  Those Huffys were sold mainly in big-box shops like Wal-Mart, which sold out all of its bikes in March 2020.  "We're already starting to get those bikes," Liman lamented, "And we can't fix them."

One problem is the shortage of available parts caused by COVID-19-related manufacturing and supply chain disruptions. But an even bigger issue is simply the poor quality of those bikes:  Their frames crack and they have non-standard parts that can't be replaced at a reasonable price. "I've seen bearing cups that just fall out of hubs, so there's no way you can rebuild them," Liman says.

Her experiences have led her to join a petition calling for bikes to be repairable.  Its earliest supporters were mechanics at non-profit bicycle co-operatives and training programs like Recycle-A-Bicycle.  Cheap bikes from big-box stores are often donated, or brought in for repair, to such shops.  And people who buy bikes from such places are looking for something good and reliable for not very much money.

Now I have to admit that I was once one of those elitist bicycle snobs who snickered when I saw a department-store bike.  But I now understand that people buy such bikes, not because they're stupid, but because they don't know (yet!) why they should--or can't afford--to buy something better.

So, making unrepairabe bikes, like making almost anything else that's disposable, contributes to degrading the very environment some for which some folks are signaling their support by being seen on a bike.  And, as with so many other environmental issues, it's also a matter or social and economic justice, because it affects the working poor even more than those who buy those shiny-new Linuses and Brooklyn bikes.