Photo of the Day: Riding on a Sunlit Summer Sunday Morning, Englewood NJ

What a difference a few hours make! As I write this on a late Sunday afternoon, the sky is gray and cloudy, with at least some rain predicted.

But this morning—well, it could have been what a local forecaster of some years ago used to feature as one of “the 10 most beautiful days of the year.” Bright blue skies, comfortable temperatures and humidity.

A whole group of guys—it must have been between 15 and 20 of them—thought the same thing, because they were out on their bicycles in my hometown.

They were riding single file as they rounded the corner across from me, barely slowing down. Not that it mattered: at that time of the day and week, traffic at this thoroughfare is much lighter than from Monday through Saturday.

I could barely whip out my iPhone to photograph the scene fast enough. Anyway, I was glad I could time what I did.

Quote of the Day (Stephen Crane, on Bicycles’ Mid-1890s Conquest of NYC)

“The bicycle crowd has completely subjugated the street. The glittering wheels dominate it from end to end. The cafes and dining-rooms of the apartment hotels are occupied mainly by people in bicycle clothes. Even the billboards have surrendered. They advertise wheels and lamps and tires and patent saddles with all the flaming vehemence of circus art. Even when they do condescend to still advertise a patent medicine, you are sure to confront a lithograph of a young person in bloomers who is saying in large type: ‘Yes, George, I find that Willow rum always refreshes me after these long rides.…’ There are innumerable repair shops. Everything is bicycle.”—American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist Stephen Crane (1871-1900), “New York’s Bicycle Speedway,” in Crane: Prose and Poetry (Library of America, 1984)

Stephen Crane might be better known for producing such masterpieces of naturalism as The Red Badge of Courage and stories like “The Blue Hotel” and “The Open Boat,” but during the furious decade of writing that preceded his death at age 28, he was also a prolific journalist. This particular charming slice of life was published in McClure’s Magazine in 1896. 

While noting,  as in this passage, the proliferation of the bicycle, Crane also commented on how it was transforming the larger American realm of fashion and mores—specifically, its encouragement of a ladies’ form of apparel that whose practicality now made it all the rage: the bloomer. A citizen, he writes, with something like the literary equivalent of a raised eyebrow, "covenants with himself not to grin and nudge his neighbor when anything particularly amazing passes him on the street.”

(For a longer-term view of women and bicycles, please see Joanna Scutts’ take on “Women on Wheels.”)

I got to thinking about the changing presence of bicycles in American life because of COVID-19. New York area residents are understandably concerned about the spread of the virus through public transportation. It seems, according to this post on Medium by the advocacy group TransAlt (i.e., Transportation Alternatives), that “Across the U.S., bicycle manufacturers have observed an unprecedented rise in demand since the arrival of COVID-19.”

TransAlt faults New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for not more actively encouraging the spread of the bicycle in the city. But the longer the coronavirus lasts without a vaccine, the more likely it is that enduring changes may occur in how Americans get around. Bicycling won’t, of course, be the all-purpose solution to longstanding issues with public transit crowding and safety, but it is an option that thousands are increasingly choosing for themselves.

(The image accompanying this post—The Byron Company’s 1896 photo "The Evening Telegram Bicycle Parade - Riverside Drive”—is part of the collection of The Museum of the City of New York. It was used as part of the museum’s 2019 exhibit, “Cycling in the City: A 200-Year History.))

Photo of the Day: Sculpture and Rider, Allegheny Landing, Pittsburgh

I took this photo in what seems like an eon ago, in terms of freedom of movement: last October, while on vacation in Pittsburgh. I hadn’t intended to do so at the time, but the image captures at once one of the unique appeals of this stretch of greenery between the 6th and 7th Street bridges on the north bank of the Allegheny River next to PNC Park, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ballpark: its sculptures and its use for recreation. 

Since its dedication in 1984, Allegheny Landing has pointed the way for other major cities on how to capitalize, in a different way, on one of the original reasons for their existence: their location by rivers. In the beginning, rivers served as points of commerce; now, more primally, they remind us of the mainstay of life itself: water.

Photo of the Day: Getting Around in Central Park, NYC

Yesterday afternoon, while walking on West 57^th Street in Manhattan, I passed a sign outside a bicycle shop that read, “The best way to get around New York is by bike.” Judging by the vastly increased number of these vehicles I’ve seen in Manhattan and Brooklyn over the last decade or so, I’d say that thousands of more people agree with that statement. 

The combined warm temperatures and low humidity yesterday afternoon seemed especially to confirm that. Once I get past the memorial to The Maine at the southwest corner of Central Park, I came across hundreds of bicyclists—and several horse-drawn carriages—out to enjoy the beautiful day.

The presence of so many bikes made me think that New York has been moving, by degrees, to something like the environment conservative leader William F. Buckley Jr. envisioned in his quixotic 1965 mayoral campaign. He proposed constructing an elevated bicycle highway on Second Avenue, stretching from 125^th to 1^st Streets. The idea might be “ultra-reactionary,” he admitted with a grin, but it would also be fun. 

Many today, conservatives and liberals, would certainly agree with that.  

Photo of the Day: Bike to the Beat

At lunchtime the other day, as I crossed the courtyard near my building at Rockefeller Center in New York for a quick bite to eat, I came across this crowd of exercise fans on stationary bicycles. I did not get the name of the organization, but, from the kind of propulsive dance music found in discos blaring up to the nearby skyscrapers, it was easy to recall the urging of the peppy woman leading them: “Bike to the beat!”

As you can see from this photo I took, several participants had already worked up quite a sweat after just one song. Remember as you take this in that this event occurred in the middle of the week, before temperatures began to climb and humidity enveloped the New York area. Had this promotion been held even today, I’m sure more participants would have been hanging over their handle bars.