Streetsblog New York City

Oh my god those two are insufferable.  I was happy to see Alexander put all his biases, stereotypes, and irrational axes to grind down in writing, though.

that was stupid

Nice of them to end it before all the comments were published.  

Alex’s comments reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where they criticize Tim Whatley for converting to Judaism, primarily so he could then tell Jewish jokes.

He may say he frequently bikes, but, I find it hard to believe. 

Nobody who frequently bikes in this city could have his attitude towards bikers (i.e. bikers are the problem).  All you need is to be buzzed once by a car or have one manic taxi honking aggressively behind you, to change your tune. 

And what was with all the Class stuff?  Like biking is solely the province of the Rich?  WTF.  I submitted a comment (not posted) where I mentioned that my delivery guy the other day (I live in LES), saw my bikes, and mentioned that he bikes too and that he bikes in every day from Flushing to work.  He’s certainly not a rich guy.  

I mean, it’s pretty nuts that this guy’s personal bias drives so much of the bike commentary.  

to me it was not much of a debate.  the only person against was alex, yet everybody else was either from SB or similar.

a debate is supposed to draw an audience with both for and against it.

and unfortunately in this case, its like 99% of the audience for bike lanes to convince 1 person who is against it.  that is not a debate.

Also, pretty hilarious how Alexander Nazaryan has pre-judged all cyclists as elitist members of the creative class who aren’t real New Yorkers because they moved to brownstone Brooklyn from somewhere outside New York, and who’s viewpoints are therefore invalid.

From what I can tell from his yfrog and 5 minutes of Googling, he wears a corduroy coat to his writing job, is working on a first novel, lives in Fort Greene (or possibly Bushwick?), and was born in Russia, not New York. Sounds like a classic example your typical closeted-self-hating-creative-immigrant-Brooklynite-elitist-hypocrite-cliche to me.