For about half of my grad school summers, I maintained a tradition (cultivated the art of...) _the fun summer job_.
(the author during bike work summer, c. 2008)
Hands down, the best best best of them was working the streets for a few months on Birdbath Bakery's cargo bicycle*. Already a student of the streets, it was this summer as honorary member of NYC's two-wheeling pedal force, that I really reveled in the bike's city-seeing powers. How bulk and classification as 'delivery vehicle' changed my relationship with motorists and other cyclists were protracted, provocative meditations through my 7 hour shifts.
I'd leave home at 5am and ride Violeta across the Williamsburg Bridge through vulnerable, just waking streets known only to dog-walking early-risers and NYC sanitation workers. With my back to Brooklyn on that bridge, I'd watch the sunrise knife a big, red gash into the side of the black glassy UN building, three times per week. A gesture from the east about US-headquartered world diplomacy? Could be.
The Revolution Rickshaws depot, founded by Gregg Zukowski, was at that time a couple of alleyway entrance-only "garages" on W. 35th Street near 9th Avenue. Bike safely locked against a fence back there, I'd pick up Birdbath's rig, and pedal down 9th Ave., wiggling my way gradually to 1st Ave. and 14th Street, where Birdbath's 'home' bakery was located.
(film about Birdbath, starring my boss, restauranteur Maury Rubin. Produced by PlentyTV, c. 2007)
There, as two-three other times in a work day, I'd pick up trays of cookies (that slid into a custom-fitted baker's rack inside the cargo hold), large tubs of iced tea, coffee condiments and various paper goods, and pedal across town to the [now shuttered] other Birdbath, at Charles St. and 7th Ave.
I'd also make runs to The City Bakery on 18th Street (Birdbath's parent), for iced coffee, sandwiches, and *most important* to fuel up--rickshaw drivers could have an all-you-can-eat meal from The City's conscionable buffet-style dining room.
On all of these runs, in sweltering summer heat radiating off the asphalt and in heavy downpours, I was elated to be learning traffic work to complement my habitual traffic play. Not only had i joined the multi-modal factory floor, cooperating with large UPS trucks, deft and swift bicycle messengers, wrong way-riding-addicted food delivery guys, I'd joined a class of manual laborers where white 30 year-old, advanced degree-seeking women were a rarity. I pondered gendered division of street labor, but also what it meant to volunteer for NYC's vital but woefully underpaid service class.** Several encounters delivering City Bakery's green food to catering customers, where I was treated rudely--neither thanked nor tipped for my efforts balancing boxes, bags, coffee dispensers and a helmet while holding open doors for me and the customer--were privileged views into a pitifully common but nevertheless veiled side of what money could buy conscience for lunch.
But mainly I had visceral fun. I was in great shape, and once I really got the hang of maneuvering that 200-lb rig, had a blast as a still-human-powered-but-now-with-greater-girth traffic dancer. That summer also marked NYC's inaugural Summer Streets event, where Lafayette Street and Park Avenue were closed to automobile traffic for a blissful sunday morning of running, walking, cycling, dancing, skipping, scooting, skating, mid-road drawing and more. And for that, I borrowed a passenger rickshaw and captured what was among my proudest streetworking moments:
(the author with still minor celebrity NYC Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan)
So, even though I'm about to graduate, I, like so many others, just might go work for awhile 'at' Google...Who knows? maybe they'd pay me to pedal Iceland collecting streetviews this summer...
*Though Birdbath 2 has been closed, Birdbath has three new NYC locations--in SoHo, TriBeCa, and the New Museum's cafe. Soon, Third Avenue between 9th and 10th Street will also host a Birdbath.
**Unlike the mobile factory floor's other pedal workers, however, I was paid a fair hourly wage rather than a piece rate (i.e. comped by number of deliveries made /papers served, and tips). The difference is significant--the more common piece rate is a structural explanation of the regularity with which self-propelled street workers violate traffic laws, and have earned a reputation as menaces to pedestrian safety: courtesy is costly to such low wage earners. This situation is likely to improve in the coming years as a densifying NYC shifts to a more efficient and perhaps even centralized cargo delivery system. Eventually, UPS and FedEx may replace some of their large trucks and vans with high capacity, human-powered bikes and trikes. And demand for their speedy and safe operation could even result in human-powered cargo lanes on streets, complete with strategic signal sequencing. Infrastructure and regulation like this could drastically improve the current ped/pedal worker space competition.
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