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Brooklyn Community Board 1 approved a Department of Transportation plan (still awaiting a final vote on April 9th) to turn 6 car parking spots into 45 bike parking spots. From Brooklyn Spectator:

The bicycle corrals are slated for a stretch of Grand Street near Driggs Avenue (outside Williamsburg Cinemas), Broadway near Berry Avenue (near Marlow and Sons), and Frost Street at Meeker Avenue

- @joshmorrissey

Get it while it’s hot!

Sadly, as Street’s Blog noted:

After building around 50 lane-miles a year since 2007, DOT only built 8.7 lane miles last year, thanks in large part to the sustained political and media attack on bike infrastructure that peaked that year.

nycitybikeshare.com

This summer, New York City is rolling out a shared bicycle program, joining the ranks of cities like Washington D.C. and Paris. There will be ten thousand bikes for rent at six hundred hubs throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. A draft of the station locations, however, shows that Greenpoint is notably lacking.

streetsblog.org

According to local news site DNAinfo, a Department of Transportation draft has no stations east of McGuiness Boulevard. This is odd considering the neighborhood is known for its lack of Manhattan-bound stations and bikes could be an effective way to get people across the Williamsburg bridge, or at least to the L train in Williamsburg. (The neighborhood’s only two stations, the Greenpoint Ave. and Nassau Ave. G trains only go to Queens and south Brooklyn.)

The only map draft I found is from October, which indeed shows the proposed boundary at McGuiness.

c/o Jewish Women's Archive

We know what you’re thinking; more bike news? But lately it seems like cyclists just can’t catch a break.

Jasmijn Rijcken, general manager of VANMOOF Bicycle Company, recently told Streetsblog that when visiting from Amsterdam in April, a cop in Soho threatened to ticket her for riding a bike in a skirt (which is totally NOT illegal by the way).

“I was standing next to my bike … and then this police guy stops and starts telling me about my skirt,” Rijcken said.

“At first I thought he was making a joke or maybe even a compliment, but then I found out he was serious because he got really mad.”

The police officer allegedly told Rijcken that her skirt could distract drivers and cause car accidents.

“That was the bottom line, that I was very dangerous,” she said.

And aren’t there enough dangers on the road without the disastrous prospect of legs? So ladies, for everyone’s safety please, the next time you mount your bike, make sure to put on a pair of tightly fastened bloomers first.

Riding in a bike lane can be like finding your way through an obstacle course. So when East Village filmmaker Casey Neistat got a $50 ticket for “riding outside of a bike lane,” he made a video in protest.
Performing all his own stunts, he tried to navigate bike lanes in Manhattan, purposely crashing into everything that obstructed his path, from parked taxi cabs to safety cones. Yet, as entertaining as it is to watch him go flying, Neistat gets his point across. “Ticket the people blocking lanes, not bikes,” he says in his video, adding, “and give me my $50 back.”

Though Neistat may be out some cash, his video has gotten over 1,000,000 views on YouTube. Watch his protest antics below.
Casey Neistat: Fined For Not Riding In Bike Lane

–Laurie Kamens

Last month the guys at Forking Tasty put together a bike-in movie theater in Greenpoint, where they supplied snacks, space and a screen to show the classic flick Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If you couldn’t make it (of if you could and want to spot yourself) check out the video recap below.

Bike-in-Theater: May 2011 from Manifold on Vimeo.

The video comes with the promise that more theater dates are in the works. And if you would like dinner and a movie without the biking part, they are having a screening of Caddyshack this Saturday. More info here.

Forking Tasty, the food fanatic pair of Jason and Anthony Anello, are bringing food, film, and foot-fueled, fossil fuel-free transportation together (too much of a stretch to get the alliteration there?) tonight when they bring a bike-in theater to Greenpoint. The movie is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and will be screened at India and West streets on the Greenpoint waterfront. The screening starts promptly at 8 pm. Here’s the info:

This first one is an experiment and we want you to be properly prepared. We admit to being a little bare bones, especially compared to our normal Forking Tasty Suppers, but we’ll step it up for future evenings.

1. We will have some popcorn on hand for your enjoyment. We’ll make as much as we can but it’s first come first serve. We highly encourage flavor sharing. For those Forking Tasty Supper fans, we are not providing a full dinner. Perhaps one day this becomes a Bike-In-Dinner-Theater. Baby steps for now.

2. We will have some water to sip on but feel free to bring your own drinks. Just a reminder that this is a public street and alcohol is not allowed to be publicly consumed.

3. There unfortunately isn’t a bathroom close by. Two blocks away are a bunch of bars which should do in a pinch.

4. Feel free to bring something to sit on. Blankets could work but there is not grass in this location. It’s all asphalt warehouse wall to warehouse wall. Plan accordingly.

5. In case of Rain, we will try for Sunday. In case of rain on Sunday we will try for next weekend. Don’t worry, we’ll let you know with a reminder email if the weather makes us push it out.

Earlier this fall, Pablo Airaldi, a 28-year-old bike messenger, opened a bicycle repair shop on Manhattan Avenue and called it Greenpoint Bikes.

Today, he is sitting in a shitty Hudson County, New Jersey immigration detention facility where he’s struggling to hang on to humanity. His crime? A 10-year-old aggravated felony conviction for stealing auto parts in Indiana when he was 18.

Here’s how the legal permanent resident describes the facility in a letter sent to friends, and obtained by The Brooklyn Paper:

“Try to ask for toilet paper and you are laughed at. We go months without feeling the sun, are forced to hand wash our underwear every night because we are only given one pair, go hungry if no one sends us money because the food is not enough and there is a 13-hour span from dinner to breakfast. Men begin to lose their sanity and then you can actually see them slip away, their light getting dimmer and dimmer with each indignity.”

He’s held while the government conducts its deportation hearings, and if all goes to plan, he’ll be shipped back to South America — a home he left at the tender age of 7.

If you’re curious about life in these terrifying whirlpools of ambiguity, read “Locked Up But Not Forgotten,” a document compiled by NYU’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, the American Friends Service Committee, and New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees. Also, if you’re friends with Pablo, give these organizations a call.

Below find a video he posted on Vimeo two years ago for a bike messenger racing team. It’s depressing to realize how quickly one can go from biking around the city like a maniac to begging for toilet paper in some shithole in New Jersey, watching your cellmates’ lights drip out of their lonely eyes.

Six Racing Promo — Playing in Traffic production from Pablo Airaldi on Vimeo.

UPDATE 11/30 12:36pm: Supporters can send donations to pablosfreedom@gmail.com using Paypal.

What do people love more than biking and/or drinking? If by people you mean me, then probably very little. But it looks like I’m not alone with Bike Brooklyn Beer Blitz, happening this weekend.

See historical photographs of various brewery buildings when they were built, between the 1880s and 1920s, compare them with vintage 1970s photos (in the heart of Bushwick’s deep dark arson-and-gangs era) and observe them as they stand today, re-purposed but obviously the same brewery buildings. German Churches, banks and social halls will also be observed.

Sign up here for the three hour tour. (a three hour tour!) $25 includes beer, bring your own bike and helmet. Because safety first!

Here’s a fun question. Who has lived here for 10 years, sent letters to Marty Markowitz about bikes on Bedford Avenue, called the police, and “put forward an idea for bike depots, which would be built in McCarren Park and along Kent Avenue and charge cyclists a $1 fee to park there”?

C’mon, somebody go scour some public records or something.

Also, we now know why the Brooklyn Paper is protecting their bike-gluing source: “because our reporters have not actually witnessed him committing a crime.” Total crock of shit.

Who should be our next make-believe villainous superhero?! Help name him in the comments! Maybe the Paper will publish your story next week.

[h/t to Animal]