A Ride To The Dancing Girl

Most of you will probably never see me dance.  Consider yourselves lucky.  Trust me.

Of the things I can't do, dancing is probably the thing I most wish I could.  An actual dancer may beg to differ, but I always had the impression that dancers come closest to creating a jeu d'esprit with the human body.  

Probably the closest I come to that is when I ride my bicycle, however gracelessly and (these days) slowly.   

Dancers. as we know, often perform solo.  However, at their best, they're always dancing with someone or something.  Often, I think, it's with the audience, at least figuratively.  Also, they're performing duets or in concert with their surroundings, their memories and the temper of their times. 

The other day, I danced with Arielle.  We traipsed across bridges, rolled through tenement valleys in the Bronx and waltzed, it seemed, across fields and woods that lined the roads just beyond the suburban sprawl of Westchester County.  It also felt as if we were leaping across brooks and streams and along the coastline of Long Island Sound.

I had no destination in particular, but about three hours later, we ended up In Stamford, CT.  Look at what welcomed us to the city:

 Stamford sculptor James Knowles created Dancing Girl in bronze.  In 1987, a local businessman and his wife donated it to the city,where it was displayed in front of the Old Town Hall for fourteen years. Fourteen years later, it was "temporarily" removed for a renovation to the plaza.  For the next nine years, the girl languished in captivity, I mean, storage.  Finally, three years ago, it was re-dedicated.

Who says art has no effect on anything?  I felt lighter as I started to pedal home, even though I was, within a few minutes, making a fairly long (though not particularly steep) climb.  Oh, yes, I had a breeze at my back.  But I think the girl was guiding me and Arielle, in spirit.

You Never Know Where You'll Find One

Here's another example of a bike that, as I rode by it, caught my eye for a reason I couldn't discern until I stopped to look:

It's a Motobecane mixte from the early 1980's--the "Nobly" model, I believe.  I assembled and sold a few of them back in the day. This one is a basic model, made from carbon steel tubing and with stamped dropouts that don't have a threaded "ear" to mount a derailleur.  If I recall correctly, it came with a Huret Eco derailleur, mounted with a "claw", as derailleurs often were on low- to mid-level ten- and twelve-speeds.

One thing I know, though, is that it didn't come with this component:

By the time this Motobecane was made, very few (if any) off-the-shelf bikes came equipped with the Specialtes TA Vis-5 (commonly called the "Cyclotouriste") crankset.  By the 1980's, even European touring bikes were coming with more modern triple cranksets from Stronglight, Sugino and Shimano, which didn't require as many mounting bolts--and, by which time, offered just about the same range of gears--as the TA. 

It's also incongruous to see the crank on this particular model because it was intended as a "sport" or "ville" bike.  While a few Rene Herse city bikes were equipped with TA Cyclotouriste cranksets (particularly if the owner lived in a hilly city), a bike like the one in the photo was more likely to have a double or single chainwheel in front.  

(For the record, I'm almost entirely sure that the bike in the photo originally had a Japanese-made Sakae Ringyo (SR) crankset.)

What I find really incongruous, though, is the fact that the TA crankset, which is intended for triple and wide-range double chainwheels, used as a single-speed.  It's a bit like using a Swiss Army knife to open a candy bar wrapper.

I wonder whether the bike's owner, or whoever installed the crankset (the same person?), realizes that he or she could sell the crankset on eBay for more than what he or she could get for the rest of the bike.

Sunset In The Afternoon

Yesterday I rode to Sunset Park, in part to take in some of my favorite views in this city.

I half-jokingly refer to the eponymous neighborhood around the Park as "Brooklyn's San Francisco."  Just a block away from the park, 45th Street begins a dramatic descent to New York Bay.

Most people think of the waterfront area as part of Sunset Park.  I guess it is, technically, but I think of it as Bush Terminal, after the complex of factories and warehouses that line Second and Third Avenues.

A few businesses have left the area, but the area looks much as it did during my childhood, when two of my uncles worked on the piers.  

They were "longshormen", a job that has all but disappeared.  But with its factories and warehouses, Bush Terminal is one of the last blue-collar waterfront areas of New York.  It's something like the Williamsburg and Long Island City waterfronts about twenty years ago, when the last factories (including the Domino Sugar plant that had been operating since the 1850's) were winding down.

As you can see, the old industrial buildings, in various states of disrepair (and none of which stand taller than five stories) provide a vista of open sky and water that can be found only at the beaches.  But, I think that an urban photographer or other artist will find the light--an almost surreal combination of metallic reflections and diffuse mist--a most accomodating canvas.

I wonder how much longer those factories and warehouses will operate.  When they close--which, eventually, they will, given how a developer would salivate at the sight of such real estate--I hope those weathered brick facades--as worn and useful as a coat that has survived yet another season--won't be torn down to construct condo buildings, faceless in spite of all of the glass that lines their exteriors, that now line much of the Williamsburg shoreline.

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The Ultimate Guide To Bicycle Safety

Amidst the chaos that has been my life during the past couple of weeks, I received an interesting request from reader Courtney Fettu.

She has worked with the law offices of Jay S. Knipsel to create "The Ultimate Guide To Bicycle Safety".  She wanted some feedback on it, which I gave.  She then sent me a revised version, which I am going to reproduce here.

Even if you've been cycling a long time, I think you'll like the guide and find it useful.  It goes beyond the usual "rules of the road": In addition to giving safety tips for children as well as adult riders, mentions some of the laws regarding bicycle safety and what a cyclist should do if he or she is involved in an accident.  The information is presented in an engaging format, which should appeal to visual learners as well as those of us who are readers.  

Please share it with fellow cyclists, school and youth groups, and anyone else who might benefit from it:

Here is a link to the guide I will list it on the sidebar of this blog.  

Why Discounting Memberships Isn't Enough To Get Public Housing Residents To Join The Bike Share Program

Sometimes I wonder what's being taught in journalism schools--or, for that matter, in a lot of other schools--these days.

This article about New York City's Bike Share program (a.k.a. Citibike) seems to have been written by the  cut-and-paste method.  In recent years, I've seen any number of student papers--and, sadly, professional documents written by people whose credentials and pedigrees are supposedly superior to mine. 

OK.  Enough of my ranting.  The article, in spite of itself, raises some interesting and important questions about, not only the Bike Share/Citibike program, but of the nature and demographics of cycling--not to mention other social phenomena-- in the Big Apple.

According to the article, the 58,000 annual memberships sold as of mid-July include only 500 discounted memberships to residents of New York City Housing Authority apartments.  

NYCHA residents can purchase a membership for $60 instead of the normal $95 fee.

Citibike and the Department of Transportation distributing free helmets in New York City Public housing project. From The New York World

Notice that I wrote "residents" in the plural and "a membership" in the singular.  That, according to the article, is what seems to be happening:  NYCHA residents are sharing membership, which the Bike Share program forbids.

If they are indeed doing so (which I don't doubt), I can understand:  After all, NYCHA residents tend to come from lower on the household income spectrum than people in private housing.  Also, families who live in public housing are more likely to have family members or friends staying with them for a few weeks or months after arriving from out of town or the country, or during a bout of unemployment or other difficulties.  I imagine such long-term temporary residents (Is that an oxymoron?) are using their hosts' passes. 

Even if, say, five or six people are using each NYCHA Bike Share membership, residents of public housing are probably using the Bike Share program less, proportionally, than other people in New York.  

One major reason is, of course, that the shared bikes are less available to residents of public housing.  For example, the Bronx, eastern Brooklyn and southeastern Queens, which have large swaths of public housing, do not yet have any Bike Share ports.

Whether those areas of the city get ports any time soon is an open question, as they include some of the highest-crime neighborhoods (and most dangerous streets, traffic-wise) in New York.  Also, in talking with residents of those areas, some express concern or outright fear of cycling in their neighborhoods,  whether because of gang activity or other crime, or traffic, so one has to wonder whether they would ride.  

I don't know exactly which parts of which public housing projects are controlled by which gangs.  But I'm sure that significant parts are controlled by Bloods.  Their arch-rivals, the Crips wear blue:  the color of Citibikes.

Perhaps even more to the point, though, is the paradoxical resistance, and even hostility, one finds to cycling and cyclists in lower-income communities.  In Portland, people of color refer to bike lanes as "the white stripes of gentrification."  Though not articulated in quite the same way, many poor and working-class people of color--who comprise the vast majority of public housing residents--hold such attitudes.  (I know:  I've heard them.)  

So, if membership is indeed low in New York City's housing projects, I think  Bike Share/Citibike administrators will need to address the cultural as well as physical barriers to renting and riding bikes in the neighborhoods in which the projects are located.  Now, if people are sharing memberships, well, I don't know what to say.