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When I rode up alongside Karen and struck up a conversation, she was riding on Lexington on her way to a volunteer shift at the main branch of the New York Public Library. Karen had already (gladly!) agreed to do a portrait and I was looking for a decent location, when she slowed down next to a hotel entrance – the Shelburne on 37th and Lex. Through sheer coincidence, we had arrived at a meaningful place.
Karen explained that when she was young her father worked as a manager at the Shelburne – she practically grew up on the property. “When I was about 5, my father got a call at the desk. They asked him could he please go pick up his daughter, who was dangling her legs out of a fifth story window.” When Karen was 10, her father passed away and the family moved to Stuyvesant Town, where she first started riding a bike. Her current ride is this 1962 Schwinn cruiser given to her by her super (he found it in a basement). “Some people are really impressed when they see it – ‘Oh, you have even have the original saddle!’ I had no idea – I just call it a seat.”
How long have you used a bike for transport in New York?
“Let me think, and I might reveal my age here.. I’m not even going to count riding around Stuyvie Town as a kid, because I wasn’t really going anywhere. About forty-five years. I have a photo of me with my bike and my daughter, who is 43 now, on the back of it.”
Has the experience changed much during that time?
“Actually, it’s mostly the same. It’s still a huge city of 8 million people. I do wish there were more bike lanes. I ride everywhere. I’m devastated when it snows and I have to ride the bus with people sneezing and coughing on me!”
What’s your favorite thing about biking in NYC?
“You meet people. It’s just a more humane way of being in the city.”
Even now, Karen hasn’t lost her connection to the hotel business; she leads weekly guided tours of the Waldorf Astoria.