On Bicycles

A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology, Urban, History, Modern, Americas, United States
Cover of the book On Bicycles by Evan Friss, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Evan Friss ISBN: 9780231544245
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: May 7, 2019
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: Evan Friss
ISBN: 9780231544245
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: May 7, 2019
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

Subways and yellow taxis may be the icons of New York transportation, but it is the bicycle that has the longest claim to New York’s streets: two hundred years and counting. Never has it taken to the streets without controversy: 1819 was the year of the city’s first bicycle and also its first bicycle ban. Debates around the bicycle’s place in city life have been so persistent not just because of its many uses—recreation, sport, transportation, business—but because of changing conceptions of who cyclists are.

In On Bicycles, Evan Friss traces the colorful and fraught history of cycling in New York City. He uncovers the bicycle’s place in the city over time, showing how it has served as a mirror of the city’s changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics since it first appeared. It has been central, as when horse-drawn carriages shared the road with bicycle lanes in the 1890s; peripheral, when Robert Moses’s car-centric vision made room for bicycles only as recreation; and aggressively marginalized, when Ed Koch’s battle against bike messengers culminated in the short-lived 1987 Midtown Bike Ban. On Bicycles illuminates how the city as we know it today—veined with over a thousand miles of bicycle lanes—reflects a fitful journey powered, and opposed, by New York City’s people and its politics.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Subways and yellow taxis may be the icons of New York transportation, but it is the bicycle that has the longest claim to New York’s streets: two hundred years and counting. Never has it taken to the streets without controversy: 1819 was the year of the city’s first bicycle and also its first bicycle ban. Debates around the bicycle’s place in city life have been so persistent not just because of its many uses—recreation, sport, transportation, business—but because of changing conceptions of who cyclists are.

In On Bicycles, Evan Friss traces the colorful and fraught history of cycling in New York City. He uncovers the bicycle’s place in the city over time, showing how it has served as a mirror of the city’s changing social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural politics since it first appeared. It has been central, as when horse-drawn carriages shared the road with bicycle lanes in the 1890s; peripheral, when Robert Moses’s car-centric vision made room for bicycles only as recreation; and aggressively marginalized, when Ed Koch’s battle against bike messengers culminated in the short-lived 1987 Midtown Bike Ban. On Bicycles illuminates how the city as we know it today—veined with over a thousand miles of bicycle lanes—reflects a fitful journey powered, and opposed, by New York City’s people and its politics.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book People, Parasites, and Plowshares by Evan Friss
Cover of the book A Materialism for the Masses by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Cold War Modernists by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Reading Style by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett by Evan Friss
Cover of the book China’s Search for Security by Evan Friss
Cover of the book The Cinema of George A. Romero by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Between Dog and Wolf by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Conservatives Against Capitalism by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Not Like a Native Speaker by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Translating Mount Fuji by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Triassic Life on Land by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts by Evan Friss
Cover of the book The Politics of Inequality by Evan Friss
Cover of the book Philosophy in Turbulent Times by Evan Friss
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy