Good morning. It is Friday. We’ll learn about a 60-mile round-trip bike ride in honor of the artist Edward Hopper. We’re also getting details of a $13 million settlement the city is paying to protesters who accused police of unlawful tactics during protests following the killing of George Floyd.
The artist Edward Hopper had a thing for bicycles, cyclists and bicycles – a fascination, to be sure, and maybe even an obsession. He had his own state-of-the-art two-wheeler while state-of-the-art meant a steel frame and tires with wooden rims. In middle age, he attended 24-hour cycling races at Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden.
Art curator Kim Conaty also has a thing for cycling — and swimming and running, having thrown herself into more than 15 triathlons. She also has a thing for Hopper: She was the curator of “Edward Hopper’s New York,” the recent exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Her interests in Hopper and cycling will — sorry for the expression — collide on Saturday, which the Whitney calls “Happy Hopper Day” because it would have been Hopper’s 141st birthday. Conaty is celebrating by participating in a 60-mile round-trip ride from the Whitney, at 99 Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district, to Hopper’s birthplace, the Edward Hopper House and Museum in Nyack, NY
Saturday promises to be another hot day, with temperatures hovering around the mid-80s even in the early morning when the ride is due to begin. The Whitney will give riders water bottles before they take off. (There is an entry fee. Organized with the OutCycling cycling group, the Meatpacking Business Improvement District and the Hopperhuis in Nyack, the ride is limited to 100 cyclists.)
They cycle north on the Greenway along the Hudson River, cross the George Washington Bridge and follow Route 9W to Nyack.
“The first time I did this ride was probably 15 years ago,” Conaty recalls. “I wasn’t a serious cyclist at the time, but I had new friends who were going to do this, and we were looking for an adventure. We got on our mountain bikes – that’s what I had, I didn’t have anything else at the time and I don’t recommend it. This is a road trip. You don’t need the traction of mountain bike tires or the suspension.
It wasn’t a ride Hopper took, though he cycled past Nyack when he was young, she said. After moving to the city, “it would have been different to drag his wood-framed bicycle up several flights of stairs to his apartment.”
And a wooden bicycle might not handle the bumps on the way to or from Nyack. “It makes you realize how much better your gear is today,” she said.
There was another reason why Hopper couldn’t have followed the route for Saturday’s trip: “A big part of this is crossing the George Washington Bridge, which didn’t open until 1931,” Conaty said. “He was almost 50 by then. He didn’t do this ride.”
Still, Hopper kept up with cycling into middle age, when six-day bike races at Madison Square Garden packed the fans. And in the same way that he reimagined so many New York scenes on canvas, in 1937 Hopper painted “French Six Day Cyclist,” an image of an exhausted racer on the sidelines, sitting on a bench between bicycles.
The six-day races were grueling, 24-hour endurance races, Conaty said, with riders handing their teammates over and sleeping “right there on the track.” DailyExpertNews described one such race a few years before Hopper painted the French rider, saying there were “frequent bursts of wild riding” and “spil enough enough to thrill the crowd.”
No wonder: As Nathalie Lagerfeld wrote on Atlas Obscura, the contestants couldn’t hit the brakes to avoid a collision — their bikes had none. They had to grab the front wheel to stop.
Hopper apparently enjoyed the spectacle in the Garden. His wife, Josephine, noted in 1935 letters that he spent a lot of time on the rides, “watching people just go around,” Conaty said. “It was mainly that it was a waste of time and that he should spend his time painting. That was the idea.”
Hopper went to the garden alone. “That’s right,” Conaty said. “We often have ticket pairs in our archive — for the theater, his ticket and Jo’s. Only one ticket for the six-day ride.”
Weather
Be prepared for showers and thunderstorms to last through the evening, with high temperatures hovering around 80 degrees. At night, temperatures drop to around 60 degrees.
ALTERNATIVE SIDE PARKING
In effect until August 15 (Feast of the Ascension).
New York City reaches $13 million settlement over police crackdown on George Floyd protests
New York City is paying more than $13 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging unlawful police tactics violated the rights of nearly 1,400 people during New York protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis three years ago.
If approved by a judge, the settlement would resolve one of the most important cases arising from the protests in the city, which saw mass arrests. A provision of the settlement stated that the city would pay $9,950 to each of approximately 1,380 people “arrested and/or subjected to violence by NYPD officers” at 18 locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers, who are affiliated with the left-wing National Lawyers Guild, said the total payout would be the largest ever awarded to protesters. (In 2013, the city settled hundreds of claims from people who said they were wrongfully arrested at the 2004 Republican National Convention in Manhattan. About $10.3 million went to those taken into custody. Another $7.6 million went to attorneys’ fees.)
Police referred a request for comment to the city’s legal department, which did not immediately respond. The plea agreement stated that the defendants denied having any pattern or practice that deprived anyone of his or her rights.
Floyd’s death at the hands of a police officer sparked nationwide outrage over police brutality as the Black Lives Matter movement pointed out injustice and people took part in marches that filled streets and highways.
Sabrina Zurkuhlen, one of the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, took part in a march on the West Side Highway on June 2, 2020. When protesters were confronted by a line of police officers stretching across the road at Vesey Street, Zurkuhlen began to back away while recording the scene on her phone. The lawsuit stated that an officer pointed at her and lashed out, knocking the phone out of her hands. The suit also said he beat her with a baton as he tackled her, and other officers punched and kicked her.
That subpoena was later dismissed, the lawsuit said. Zurkuhlen never got her phone back.
METROPOLITAN Diary
No room
Dear Diary:
I recently sat in a crowded elevator at the 72nd Street Q train station on my way to St.
The woman standing next to me had a beautiful bouquet in her hand.
“Beautiful flowers!” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. She was dressed casually, in a blouse, jeans and sneakers. “I got married today.”
