Ask that bikes be let back in the BMX Bowl in Van Cortlandt Park!
Remember what it was like when you were young and rode
your bike all over the place and every once in a while you would
ride downtown in the parking lot of the supermarket? Sometimes
the cops would chase you off and tell you that you shouldn't ride
where there is so much traffic, you should think about riding in the
park. Well think what it would be like if instead you rode in
the park and the cops came along and told you that you aren't
allowed to ride in the park and that you need to take your bike out
and ride it in traffic. That's what is happening in the
Bronx. Is this stupid or what!?
In the Bronx's Van Cortlandt park (which is amazingly
huge, unless you have been there you can't fathom how big this park
is) there's a small area known as the BMX bowl. It sits on the
north end of the Van Cortlandt Golf Course just east of the old Penn
Central Freight Tracks. People have been riding bikes here
forever. One of the guys at Sid's remembers riding here when
he was a little kid... and he's not close to those years now.
We're talking over a decade ago people. There are also some
nice trails leading around to this area also. This area was
maintained by bikers when no one cared about the park. Well
Rudy made the city safe for the yuppie scum and now guess what, the
yuppies want to take over Van Cortlandt and kick out the
bikers. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Rudy fan. This guy
has taken the worst city in America and has made it the A-1 Primo
place to live. But there is a big difference between keeping
the criminals at bay and harassing twelve year old BMX'rs who don't
want to get plowed under by taxis like some 37 year old goofball
commuting to work on his Gary Fisher.
There is hope. A kindly Park Police dude on his
really-really big horse, while kicking us out a while back, said
that the Parks Dept. might reconsider this bozo idea if enough
people were to make noise about it. So MAKE SOME NOISE!
Please call 1-800-201-7275 and tell the nice people at the Parks
Dept. that you would like them to open the area east of the old Penn
Central Freight Tracks and north of the Van Cortlandt Golf Course up
to bicycles! Tell them that you don't want to see them force
little kids (and big ones too) into riding their bikes on dangerous
city streets just so some yuppie can have an extra quarter square
mile to choke is girlfriend to death in. |
