It's Memorial Day on Monday -- the official start of summer in America. And in New York, that means that more bikers will take advantage of the lovely warm weather and hit the streets and bike paths in the coming months.
There's one
memento mori that always stops me in my tracks on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. It looks like any other bicycle at first, tied to a street pole or bike rack, but on closer inspection one realizes that it has been crudely sprayed white and sometimes it has flowers on the handle bars and a note explaining that it stands there to mark the spot where a cyclist was killed.
They are called "Ghost Bikes" and described
here as "quiet and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street...They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel."
According to GhostBikes.org, these aren't a New York invention at all. "The first ghost bikes were created in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003, and they have since appeared in over 100 locations throughout the world. For those who create and install the memorials, the death of a fellow bicyclist hits home. We all travel the same unsafe streets and face the same risks; it could just as easily be any one of us." *Shiver*
Above, is a minimal ghost bike that I spotted just off the Williamsburg Bridge, a fantastic bike path between the Lower East Side and Williamsburg. It may not have a plaque or flowers, but it's a stark reminder, nonetheless.
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