A common sight on all streets, Manhattan messengers accept hazardsin return for money
 

By Jerry Morgan

Newsday, July 27, 1987

ROBERT HATCHER
Age: 22
School: Scarsdale High School, Bowdoin College
How long on job: 3 years
Earnings: $250 to $300 weekly
Type of bike: Raleigh 3-speed
Why selected that bike: Low cost; bought it second-hand
Cost of bike: $125
`I'm a writer and this is an easy way to make some money. But the ethosof the job is that we are bicycle terrorists and everyone knows it. Ifthey want to stop it, they are going to have to enforce the laws.'
 
ELBERT HULL
Age: 26
School: GED, Brooklyn Community College
How long on job: 5 years
Earnings: $300
Type of bike: Cannondale
Why selected that bike: Lifetime guarantee
Cost of bike: $700
`This is good money, better than in a bank where you have to dresslike you are making $300 to $500 a week when you are only making $200.And I'm my own boss.'

THERESA HOWELL
Age: 23
School: Middle College High School, Queens
How long on job: 2 years
Earnings: $200 to $300
Type of bike: Renegade Mountain Bike
Why selected that bike: Feels comfortable
Cost of bike: $225
`I really don't like inside jobs. This is an outside job, not in anoffice filing papers where I would eat all day and get fat. This keepsme fit.'

MICHAEL HABERMAN
Age: 18
School: General Equivalency Diploma (GED), Kingsborough Community
College
How long on job: One year
Earnings: $300-$400
Type of bike: Track Bike (brakeless)
Why selected that bike: Easy to ride
Cost of bike: $450
`I can work fast, and make good money, and it's healthy. I have otherbikes and I also ride for pleasure.'

`PEDESTRIANS. They all jaywalk," said bicycle messenger Leroy Joseph,"and you never know what they are going to do.

"They step off the curb, take a few steps out in the street, step back,don't know what they want to do," he continued, the lilt of his nativeTrinidad unchanged by four years in Brooklyn.

Joseph, 27, a messenger for Manhattan's Creative Carriers Inc., startedriding for a living three years ago.

He took the job for the reasons most messengers give: "Moneywise andindependence, the job is pretty good," he said. "You can work without pressure.You don't have a boss on your back and you are an independent contractor.If you mess, it is your fault. If you work hard you can make good money."

It is in pursuit of the money, $300 to $400 a week, that an estimated5,000 bicycle messengers ride the streets, and often the
sidewalks, of Manhattan every day. Some go through red lights, or thewrong way on one-way streets. Some hit pedestrians. Some are hit by carsor buses. There were 640 collisions involving bicyclists and pedestriansin New York City last year, and almost 2,500 bike-vehicle accidents.

Nancy Cooper, president of Creative, and also president of an industrygroup called the Association of Messenger Services, estimated that about7,000 people use bicycles for deliveries in the city; about 5,000 of themwork for the 350 messenger services in the five boroughs.

But the concentration is in Manhattan, she said, where about 50 firmseach have more than 20 bike messengers.

A bicycle messenger flying through traffic  -  hunched overthe handlebars, head down, eyes focused, legs pumping  -  isnow an everyday image for New Yorkers.  Time is money for messengers.But earning several hundred dollars a week means making 20 to 25 tripsa day, pedaling hard, all over town. Joseph said he doesn't know exactlyhow many miles that adds up to each day. "It is really hard to say. Itdepends on how many trips and where," he said of his seven-hour shift.

Money is the reason that messengers are complaining about  - and their companies are trying to find a way to fight  -  anorder by Mayor Edward I. Koch that will prohibit all bicyclists from usingFifth, Madison and Park Avenues for three months starting Aug. 24.

The ban is aimed at bicycle messengers and, according to some in thebusiness, it could hurt them.  Rick Katz, a partner in Orbit MessengerService on East 31st Street, said: "They [messengers] make good money.It [the job] has moved them into the lower middle class. If you cut outthose streets, you are going to cut into their incomes."

The ban would force messengers to detour around major avenues, which,many say, could make their deliveries take longer.

Joseph estimated it now takes eight to 10 min- utes, depending on weatherand traffic, to get from the Creative Carriers office on 18th Street, betweenSeventh and Eighth Avenues, to 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, and aboutthe same time to get down to Wall Street. It takes about 20 minutes, hesaid, to get from 59th Street to Wall Street.

More than corners are cut to make that time. Joseph said he goes throughred lights ("Cautiously; I look first because I don't want to get hit")and goes down one-way streets the wrong way ("I got a ticket doing that").

Joseph wouldn't say how he planned to deal with the ban, but most messengers,asking not to be named, said they expected to ignore it.

"We'll ride over to 31st Street and look up Madison," one messengersaid, "and if there are no cops there, we'll just ride up the street."

Joseph worries less about getting ticketed than getting hit by cars."Some people just don't see us, but some, especially the Yellow Cab drivers,got a vendetta with us for some reason."

But getting hit is part of the job. "It is an occupational hazard tobe knocked down or cursed by drivers and pedestrians," he said.

Joseph has been in accidents. Once he was knocked down by a hit-and-rundriver. He suffered cuts and bruises, and the front wheel of his bike wasruined. A new front wheel can cost $50 for his $700 Cannondale or his $350Peugeot; a rear wheel, $60 to $70. In another accident, a suddenly openedtaxi door also sent him flying.

Even without getting knocked down, the job is hard work, and bad weatherpart of it. In winter, he said, the wind-chill factor can be below zero;in summer, there is the heat. And always, there are the exhaust fumes andthe dirt. "You turn up Madison Avenue at four in the afternoon," Josephsaid, "and the air is black. When you get home and wash the exposed partsof your body, the water is black."

All that is bearable. What is harder to take, he said, is the condescendingway messengers are often treated.

"A good dispatcher makes a place good to work at," said Joseph, whois working for his third service. "Here are a lot of people who are illiterateor school dropouts, and you hear the dispatcher treat them, people whohave families, like they were kids. That isn't right."

Receptionists in offices are another annoyance. "You come in hot andtired and they are nasty," he said. "It is frustrating because you arenot allowed to say anything to them."

Joseph, looking to the future, now works part time as a dispatcher forCreative. "There comes a time to get off the bike," he said.

But because he likes riding, Joseph doesn't carry his 18-pound bicycleinto the subway to get to and from work, as many messengers do.

Instead, at 9:30 each workday morning, Joseph leaves the Flatbush apartmenthe shares with his older brother and rides his bike the 15 miles to hisoffice in Manhattan.