Photos from the Bike Ban

A look back with the street photography of Carl Hultberg

On July 22, 1987, Mayor Ed Koch held a press conference to announce what came to be known as the Midtown Bike Ban — outlawing cycling from 10 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday, on Madison, Park, and Fifth, from 31st Street to 59th Street. At that time, a young activist named Carl Hultberg was the unofficial photographer for a precursor to Reclaim called City Cyclist.

According to Hultberg, “Transportation Alternatives was still a mom and pop outfit — and cycling in New York City was chaos.”

“The lady in green is Ruth Messinger, City Council president, a candidate for mayor in 1997. Behind Ruth is John Benfatti, New York City’s first bike coordinator. The ride was organized by Charlie Komanoff for politicians so they could see how trucks were blocking the bike lane. Still a problem, I’m sure.”

Led by its president Charlie Komanoff, Transportation Alternatives immediately took the bike ban to court — while in the streets, a coalition of commuters, recreational cyclists, and bike messengers, led by a charismatic courier named Steve Athenios, protested the ban with twice-weekly traffic-slowdowns: bikes spread across 6th Avenue, blocking all other vehicles and rolling downtown at a snail’s pace.

“That’s Steve Athenios speaking to a crowd of messengers in the little park on the corner of Houston and Sixth Avenue. I must have been standing on the seat of my tricycle to get that high angle. Athenios could really get those guys going.”

“Mayor Koch had been testing the bikers, who had never been able to organize much of anything before,” says Hultberg, who demurs his role in it all. “When the City saw the coordination on the streets of the pro-bicyclists, it made him realize this was a constituency that wasn’t going away.”

Five weeks after the ban was announced, a judge overturned it on a technicality. But Mayor Koch, having seen the organized power of the city’s cyclists, made no effort to try again.

“Steve Athenios, in the center, in white, was meticulous in his organizing of the messengers. The city had no way to deal with a street crowd that had mobility like this. The way Steve looks is a reflection of the way this group took power in the streets. He had a lot to be proud of here. This was the beginnings of Critical Mass.”

Carl Hultberg’s powerful photos of the bike ban document a people-powered protest movement that would not look out of place on today’s city streets, short-shorts aside.

“After Transportation Alternatives and the messengers beat the Bike Ban, I think there was a realization that New York could be a cycling city,” says Hultberg. “When I look at New York City now, it is with disbelief. Millions of bicycles, hot shots dressing up as messengers, bike lanes, bike parking, bike rentals on the street. It’s like our wish list from 1987.”