Last week, I read an article in the Village Voice about “mutant bike clubs” in NYC and the recent defacement of Brooklyn Industries bike-themed window displays. The vandals etched “Bike Culture Not For Sale” with acid on the window glass. My first thought was, “Wow, what a completely moronic and infantile gesture.” But then it got me to thinking about New York in general. I lived there for very nearly 8 years and I have to say I know Brooklyn, as well as parts of the Lower East Side, East Village, and (shudder) midtown better than I know the town I grew up in (in the sense that the town I grew up in has changed so radically since I last lived there). Yesterday we watched a movie supposedly set in New York. At one point they supposedly went to Coney Island and rode the Cyclone. I could tell it wasn’t actually the Cyclone because (a) the seats were all wrong and (b) the rollcoaster in the movie was situated next to some tall trees. While during that entire time I lived there I would be loathe to call myself a “New Yorker”, it is certainly the city that resonates with me more than any other.
So I read this article about mutant bikers defacing shop windows and I felt, almost quixotically so, that it had something to do with me. And it occurred to me that every time I read about proposed subway fare hikes or wifi in Madison Square Park or some proposed stadium, I feel like it affects my life in some way, however tangential that effect might be. I find myself wondering how long I’m going to feel like that. Am I going to be 50 years old and running a tidy web-based hardware interface business in Buenos Aires, yet cocking an ear when I hear mention about the latest snag in going forward with the 2nd Ave. subway line?
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