The City: The Escape Machine

No form of frustration, no kind of rage, can compare to the feelings of a Manhattanite stuck in traffic. He taps his feet, pounds his fist against the windowpane, vows to move to Colorado, and wishes he could jump out of his conveyance with a ray gun, cutting a deadly path through the surrounding metal wilderness of trucks, buses and cars. Ray guns, so far, are out; but there is an escape machine that a small, hardy band of New Yorkers are using to beat the traffic nightmare: the bicycle.

Manhattan bike riders find that they can snake easily through the traffic snarls, making their way through narrow openings where not even a Volkswagen could pass. Some cyclists are frightened by their first experience of heavy traffic, but, says Allen Bragdon, a publishing executive who pedals to work with an attache case strapped to his bike, “it’s really quite safe. Everyone thinks, ‘Look at that fool on the bike. Let’s stay away from him.’ ” Bicycling gives the riders a strong sense of independence. “You’re a free agent,” says Bragdon. “It’s a gesture of self-determination. I meet lots of people and our friendship lasts for about 20 blocks. It’s a microcosm of the city.”

Phyllis Shaw, a writer for an IBM house organ, Business Machine, finds city cycling enough of an oddity to provoke curiosity and generate sympathy. Once she dashed into a department store shortly before closing time without locking her bike properly, came out to find a strange man standing guard over it. “All he said was ‘I’m glad you came back. I have to catch a train, but I was afraid that someone would steal your bike.'” At the movies, she adds, “I usually put it where the person in the box office can see it. She’s delighted to keep an eye on it.” A motorcycle cop once gave Sweater Designer Pamela Colin a personal escort as she wove through dense traffic with boxes of sweaters strapped to her baggage rack. George Franklin Jr., executive director of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, even pedals in dinner clothes. And Textile Designer George Roper takes his bike up in the elevator of his office building.

Doormen, however, look on the riders with disdain; and sometimes, owning a bicycle in Manhattan is as frustrating as owning a car. A short time ago, Theater Owner Daniel Talbot came downtown from his apartment for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. The hotel refused to let him park his bike in the lobby, a policeman told him to get it off the sidewalk, a garage attendant would not let him park in his lot even if he paid regular prices. He moved on.