Lock Bikes to Street Fixtures At Your Own Risk

Huh. Apparently a few years ago NYC decided to apply an administrative code, 16-122-B, to not only cars but to bicycles. The website, Bicycletter suggests that NYC decided to institute this code to bikes in order to protest events such as Critical Mass. According to their website,


"Previous City administrations deliberately did not apply 16-122(b) to bicycles so as not to discourage bicycle use. This new interpretation appears to be related to recent police actions against cyclists participating in Critical Mass, where NYPD has removed bicycles locked up by Mass participants. Outside of these actions, NYPD has removed locked bikes from the street in only a handful of isolated incidents: from areas in Midtown during the RNC, and from the Bedford Ave (L) and Second Ave (F/V) subway station entrances.


The 5BBC has not heard of any other use of this policy against everyday cyclists. But we suggest that cyclists avoid locking to subway entrances, or in any way that might block pedestrian traffic."


I apparently parked my bike this afternoon to a pole in front of some (self-)important building in Greenpoint this afternoon and returned to it a few hours later with this sign affixed:

Would NYPD actually have removed my bike if I hadn't returned back to it in such a timely manner? I don't know, but the threat effectively scared me.... so be warned!

This NY Love & Hate Relationship

I made my way, early this afternoon, to Manhattan to indulge in a facial at FineLiving New York, purchased weeks earlier from Lifebooker Loot. Enthused to redeem my deal and have my face soothed from winter's harsh effects -- especially at a place so focused on a holistic, all-natural approach -- I tried to block the cold from seeping into my thoughts and my fingertips as I briskly walked along 14th St. Then, literally out of nowhere, right by Union Square, a man kicked my leg, suddenly appeared by my side, glared at me and growled, "Don't you EVER walk up behind me like that again!"

Completely taken aback, my heart pounding from the realization that I had so suddenly and quickly been mildly accosted and assaulted, I literally froze. I saw the man cross the street and disappear. My instinct was to dial 911. After an aggravatingly long talk with the operator -- "You're where exactly? It happened where? You want to meet the police, where?" -- I stood in the exact spot where the man had so quickly appeared and then evaporated, waiting for police officers to show up. Then I saw a man with a "Union Square" work-related jacket, and I asked him if he had seen what had just happened. I wasn't hurt from the incident at all, but I was -- and am -- more shaken up from it than I had expected to be. He seemed mildly concerned for me but said he hadn't seen anything. There obviously were witnesses -- streams of people were walking all around me -- when the incident happened, but in characteristic New York fashion, not a single person stopped to offer their sympathy, ask if I was okay or offer to be a witness.

The only descriptors I have for the man are vague: he was black, about my height, of unidentifiable age, and wearing a leather jacket. How infuriatingly, maddeningly stereotypical. I realized that I should have opened up my phone and snapped a picture of him with it, if I would've even had time for that. At this point, my plan to stay relatively immune to the cold before I reached my destination had proven unsuccessful, and police were still nowhere to be seen, so I simply continued my walk, trying -- unsuccessfully -- to recompose myself.

Finally, once at my ayurvedic spa, I managed to fully calm down and sink into facial-inspired bliss maybe 10 or 20 minutes into the treatment. Poor, disempowered, possibly mentally ill and/or drug-addled man, and heck if I was going to let someone as desperate and angry as him make me not feel safe or become angry and vengeful because of one ignorant, angry act. And so I made myself forget about him for awhile and relax into my little afternoon pampering session.

Ironically enough, when I returned home, I found in my mailbox the newest issue of New York Magazine: "Reasons to Love New York". The last reason given, Reason #59, "Our Most Notable Recent Exile Can't Stop Thinking About Us," quotes author Jonathan Lethem. Here is an excerpt of what Lethem had to say: "I love and hate, disgorge and devour, exalt and revile my old-and-always home just as fiercely and the same way each time I've fled, only to find it stalking me around my mental corner."

Sigh. New York.