SO SOCAL; THE BEST...THE BEAUTIFUL...AND THE BIZARRE
By Daniel Nussbaum
Los Angeles Times Magazine, Home Edition, July 26, 1998
Without aerial food drops, exotic equipment or the assistance of Sherpas,George Rivera has scaled the equivalent of 50 Mt. Everests since 1993 withoutever leaving Los Angeles. Rivera, a 33-year-old downtown bike messenger,figures he climbs Bunker Hill an average of 10 times a day, speeding documentsfrom law offices--mainly south of 5th and between Figueroa and Hill--tothe courthouses on Temple. While Bunker Hill rises only 120 feet from therest of downtown, it's steep, and those ascents add up.
Until recently, Rivera and the 50 or so other messengers who pedal downtown'sstreets had help from a device unavailable to Himalayan climbers: the elevator.For as far back as the collective memory of messengers goes--about 10 years--theyhave crammed their two-wheelers into parking garage elevators at 400 S.Flower and made it uphill sweat free. Because the parking structure--whichserves the Arco Center, Bonaventure Hotel and downtown Y--was built againstthe side of the hill, passengers enter an elevator at street level, climbseven stories to the roof and arrive at street level again, this time amongthe austere bank towers on top. From there, it's a flat sprint to the courthouses.
At the end of May, the company that manages the garage, North AmericanBuilding Management, banned bikes from its elevators. Signs went up citingthe relevant municipal ordinance; newly hired uniformed guards watchedthe doors and, according to a company executive, braced themselves foracts of vandalism that never came.
Other elevators go up and down inside buildings, connecting the streetto floors above. But these elevators do something else. Connecting streets,they become part of the street. The life of the sidewalk enters a box andresumes intact a few minutes later, on the sidewalk above. More than elevators,they are vertical ferries.
Charles McClure, a manager at North American, blames the bikers fordisrupting his smooth operation. He describes frightened monthly customerspushed into corners in bike-filled elevators and workers who put in hoursscrubbing tire-scarred walls. "We're just trying to protect our propertyand the people that use the parking garage," McClure says. "Wehave nothing against the messengers."
Rivera, for his part, points the finger at "rookies and young idiotswho blow it for the rest of us." But most messengers have adjustedeasily: they now ride the escalators that run alongside the Bunker HillSteps. The messengers, wearing helmets and backpacks and steadying theirbikes on the moving stairway, have melded quietly into the daytime crowdsof tourists and office workers on the graceful steps, and nobody's operationseems to be threatened.
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