New York moments

The great thing about New York City is that frequently you get an "only in New York" moment. I had one this evening. My friend Jess, who used to work with me at the Gap, was in town for work. They put her up in the AMAZING Hotel Gansevoort in the uber-trendy Meatpacking District on the West side of Manhattan. The hotel has a rooftop pool and bar on the 20th floor with amazing views of the city. Check out their website here, and look at the "gallery" link to see the photos of the pool. Below is my crappy photo from their bar. The funny part was that everybody there was super dressed up, fancy dresses and suits and ties, while we were sitting in our nasty shorts from the pool and dirty T-shirts with chlorine in our hair.

Then, today there was an article in the New York Times about the Bike Share that I did this weekend with Coco. The article is here. And I also cut and pasted the text below just in case the article goes offline:

Daniel Su and Adrian Garcia usually spend their lunch break going for a walk, then grabbing a bite to eat. But yesterday they tried something different, made possible because they went for a ride using someone else’s bicycles.

The two men took advantage of an experimental bicycle-sharing program meant to show New Yorkers that biking can be a viable transportation alternative to expand their lunch horizon.

Mr. Su and Mr. Garcia had read about the bicycle project online. And since both work a few blocks from Storefront for Art and Architecture, a nonprofit SoHo gallery that is the experimental project’s host, they decided to give it a try, and headed to Union Square for lunch.

The five-day project is sponsored by the Forum for Urban Design, a group of architects, designers and planners, and by the gallery, near Kenmare Street and Cleveland Place. Twenty bicycles are available free, for up to 30 minutes, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until tomorrow. Bicycles can be returned to the gallery or dropped off at other nearby sites like Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park.

Displays at the gallery describe eight European cities, including Barcelona, Spain, and Lyon, France, where bicycle-share programs have thrived. The project is designed to gather data on the viability of such a program in New York.

David Haskell, executive director of the Forum for Urban Design, said, “This is our attempt to imagine bike sharing in New York City.”

“A ride-share program would reduce the dependency on automobiles. It would be a great alternative to subways and bus services — and a lot cheaper for the city,” he said.

“The bikes are definitely a better alternative than subways or buses,” Mr. Garcia, the lunchtime rider, said. “I know I would take advantage of the bike program if it existed.”

Mr. Haskell was in Paris on vacation in April and saw how such a program was shaping up there. Once the Paris program gets under way, in a few days, there will be more than 10,000 bikes available at 750 stations around the city.

New York City officials, who are aware of Mr. Haskell’s goals, are trying to determine if a ride-share program would work.

“We are studying it with interest,” said Molly Gordy, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Transportation. “The big questions for us are how to combat theft and vandalism, which are two problems prevalent in New York.” Borrowers in the test program have to leave credit card information. Ms. Gordy has been closely following the progress of a bike-share program in San Francisco. Similar programs are being considered in Portland, Ore., Chicago and Washington, where it may begin as early as September.

Caroline Samponaro, a bicycle- campaign coordinator at Transportation Alternatives — a nonprofit New York City group that advocates bicycling, walking and public transit as alternatives to driving — believes a bike-share program would benefit not only New Yorkers but also tourists.

“A bike-share program is exciting and interesting,” she said. “It’s one piece of the larger puzzle: nonpolluting transportation. This is a way people can use bicycles. Potentially, it could deal with overcrowded buses, subways, and the number of cars on the streets.”

Barbara Held lives in Barcelona but is from Buffalo, Minn. She lived in New York before moving to Spain 15 years ago. Ms. Held stopped by the SoHo art gallery to visit friends. She did not need to test the program because she participates in the one in Barcelona. She had her bike card in her purse. It was the size of a credit card. An image of a red bicycle with the word Bicing, the name of Barcelona’s program, is on the front of the card. Barcelona started its program in March with 1,500 bicycles and 100 stations.

“The city didn’t think it would take off,” Ms. Held said. “But the program is so popular. People ride the red bikes all the time.”