not to move until I’m ready. The shock 
passes. I pick myself up unsteadily and 
walk my bicycle over to the curb. Still 
shaken, I get back on and begin to ride, 
a little slower, a little less arrogant, no 
longer trying for that magic number." 
So ended my first week as a bicycle 
messenger. I took the job in order to 
study bicycle messengers, but after a 
day or two I had become more con- 
cerned with magic numbers than with 
researching the story. Although it 
made me hesitant to continue riding, 
the accident on the cement powder put 
me back on the right path: I began to 
concentrate on meeting and arranging 
interviews with other messengers. I also 
began to understand the attractions of 
“messengering” as a way of life, partic- 
ularly the romance of danger. 
The 600 bicycle messengers who ply 
New York City’s Borough of Manhat- 
tan are a diverse group of people. They 
cross over class, ethnic, and racial lines, 
and although a small minority, there 
are women riders too. But all share a 
kinship with the heroes of the Wild 
West. They are romantic adventurers 
who prefer the exhilaration of danger to 
civilization’s deadening routine. 
The streets of Manhattan are a fron- 
tier, a no man’s land. In the main busi- 
ness districts, they interrupt the flow of 
civilized behavior, contrasting with the 
sterile, almost hermetically sealed 
world of high-rise offices. If there are 
laws regulating New York City traffic, 
they are barely enforced. Bicycle mes- 
sengers are fast and contemptuous of 
the rules They intimidate pedestrians 
and alarm the drivers of other vehicles 
competing with them for space on the 
road Messengers sometimes wear out- 
landish clothes that go well beyond 
what is functional attire for riding in 
town. Some wear gas masks to filter out 
particles of dirt from automobile ex- 
haust fumes. Others wear special racing 
gloves from which their knuckles pro- 
trude in a vaguely menacing way And 
they all have one identifying mark — an 
oversized bag slung behind their backs. 
Bicycle messengers consider them- 
selves part of an elite. Their sometimes 
stimulating and often hazardous work 
puts them in a different class from 
Manhattan’s thousands of foot messen- 
gers, who are mostly unskilled youths, 
mentally impaired persons, or older 
men, past retirement age 
Speed and maneuverability make the 
bicycle messenger an indispensable part 
of New York City’s most time-con- 
scious and competitive industries — 
film and advertising. The public at 
large, however, gives scant recognition 
for the service they provide. Because 
messengers generally look scruffy, peo- 
ple respond to them accordingly. 
Working conditions in the industry 
do not support the bicycle messengers’ 
sense of their elite status either. Mes- 
sengers are independent contractors. 
They are not eligible for vacation pay, 
unemployment compensation, or acci- 
67 
