Bike to Work
by Hendrik Hertzberg

Last Wednesday morning, it was definitively proved that it is possible to ride a bike through darkest morning-rush-hour Manhattan -- all the way from Sixtieth Street and Fifth Avenue to Battery Park -- and live. This important fact was established through the efforts of a young architect, Barry Fishman, and his wife, Harriet Green, who recently started an organization called Bike for a Better City.

The Fishmans believe that biking is a healthy, friendly, quiet, inexpensive, non-polluting, fast, and practical means of transportation, and apparently a lot of New Yorkers agree with them. All told, about a thousand enthusiastic cyclists, including us, turned out for the Bike to Work Ride that kicked off the Fishmans' campaign for bike lanes on major thoroughfares.

At a quarter to eight, when we arrived on our battered English racer, several dozen cyclists had already gathered at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Central Park, across from the Plaza Hotel. One of them was David Dubinsky, the president emeritus of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Mr. Dubinsky is a very short, solid-looking man with white hair and a sunny disposition. He was wearing a beret, smoking a cigar, and wheeling a ten-speed Hercules, "I've been riding for seventy years," said Mr. Dubinsky, who is seventy-eight. "When I came to this country, I was crazy for motorcycles, but who had the money for that? So I rode a bike. This is a new one. They already stole on me two good bikes."

"When did you get your first bike?" we asked.

"In 1937, the Union had a convention in Atlantic City," he said. "They wanted to get some kind of gift for me, so they asked my wife. She said, 'Get him a bike.' It was a nice thing to do, because when we were courting, I used to visit her on a bike. Before that, I had to rent. Look, here's Abe." He pointed to A. H. Raskin, of the Times, who had just wheeled up. "I often ride with him on Sundays in the park."

By this time, hundreds more cyclists had arrived. At 8:02, there was a commotion, and, once more, Mayor Lindsay's well-groomed head came into view in the middle of a crush of cameras and reporters. The Mayor took a piece of paper from his pocket and read a proclamation designating the day as Bike for a Better City Day.

A few minutes later, the Mayor took up his position at the head of the line. He was flanked by Charles Luce, chairman of the Consolidated Edison Company, and Jerome Kretchmer, the City's Environmental Protection Administrator, who had evidently found something they could agree upon. Nearby, Sid Davidoff, the Mayor's burly troubleshooter, was shouting instructions through a bullhorn.

"You got a bicycle, Sidney?" asked Mr. Kretchmer, who makes a point of always calling Mr. Davidoff "Sidney."

"You bet I do, Jerry," said Mr. Davidoff.

"Mr. Lindsay! Mr. Lindsay!" piped a female voice from the rear. The Mayor looked around. "Can we go?" the voice asked. "I have to get to school."

"And I have to catch a nine-o'clock flight to Washington," the Mayor said, and then he took off with startling speed, as if it were the Tour de France. Mr. Lindsay, moving out ahead of the pack, pedalled furiously down Fifth Avenue to Forty-sixth Street, where his limousine was waiting to take him to the airport. His performance was the more remarkable in view of the fact that his bike was a one-speed, coaster-brake model.

"The Mayor rides fast," we managed to say to Mr. Kretchmer, who was resplendently dressed in a cream-colored suit and a chocolate-brown shirt and tie, and who was setting a more reasonable pace on a shiny wine-red Raleigh.

"I've worked out with him, and he's in fantastic condition," said Mr. Kretchmer.

At the corner of Forty-second Street, a knot of pedestrians gaped at the extraordinary procession, and Mr. Kretchmer yelled at them, "Don't just stand there! Ride bicycles!"

"Cycling is basically a solitary activity," a man on a fifteen-speed Peugeot remarked to no one in particular "When you ride a bike, you kind of go into a trance."

At the corner of Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue, where a policeman was directing the cyclists east, we pulled over and watched for a while. Because most of the cyclists were taking the unusual step of stopping for red lights, the line stretched out over many blocks. We were struck by the variety of bikes and the variety of the people on them, and by the fact that the majority of the cyclists seemed to be over thirty. A white-haired lady in a long black dress pedalled by on a penny-farthing-the kind of bicycle with a very large front wheel and a very small rear wheel which one often sees in old prints. A black girl careered past on a unicycle. A Rasputin-like hippie took the corner on a contraption that resembled a schematic model of the atom.

The last leg of the ride was on Broadway, where the police had been less successful in clearing a lane for the cyclists, and it was sometimes necessary to weave among trucks and honking cars. Nevertheless, two hundred or so managed to complete the ride to Battery Park, where we asked Ms. Green, a pretty, dark-haired woman in a gray pants suit, if the event had exceeded her expectations.

"Well, when my husband and I first thought of this, we had in mind thirty or forty people making a quiet statement by riding together," she said. "Only lately did we realize we were going to get such a tremendous response. It makes me hopeful that we'll really be able to get some bike lanes. Everybody was so friendly and respectful. I think people will realize that bikes really can make it a better city without tearing it down and building it up again."

Someone handed Ms. Green a bullhorn, she made a little speech, and the cyclists rang their bells in appreciation. Then the cyclists went their separate ways, and once again New York was Car City.

© Hendrik Hertzberg
The New Yorker, September 26, 1970

background art from the Sept. 20th, 1969 issue