Manhattan

Monday night was the first meeting of the Ninth Avenue Renaissance project. About 130 neighborhood stakeholders filled the gym at the Holy Cross School in Midtown to begin a process to transform Ninth Avenue from a dysfunctional, traffic-choked, polluted highway into, what organizer Christine Berthet says should be "a neighborhood Main Street" for Hell's Kitchen and Clinton.

Unlike the Mayors of Chicago, London, Paris and a growing number of other world cities, it is exceedingly rare to hear New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg say anything at all in public about bicycling. So, we thought that this was an interesting big of reporting in The Villager last week:

A sacrifice we were willing to make: Until 1922, much of Park Avenue was, in fact, a park. Looking north on Park Ave at about 50th Street. That's Saint Bartholomew's Church on the right.

On the evening of Saturday, January 10, 2004, Peter Hornbeck, 26, stepped off the curb at Park Avenue and 96th Street and was struck by a Chevy Suburban traveling 74 miles per hour. The SUV, being driven by a 26-year-old man from Queens who had had his license revoked years earlier, dragged Hornbeck for a block as Hornbeck's friends cried out in horror. The driver, Gurpreet Oberoi, sped off, ditched his SUV and continued by bus to Atlantic City, where he spent the night gambling. Oberoi's friends stayed in the city, went to the police and called Oberoi on his cell phone to urge him to turn himself in. Oberoi was arrested (NYT Select, 2nd item) days later and sentenced (NYT Select) to up to nine years in prison for second degree manslaughter.

Photo: Metrolens

Eric Ng, a 22-year-old teacher and activist, was killed on December 1 by a drunk driver as he rode his bicycle on the Hudson River Greenway. Yesterday, Time's Up! and Visual Resistance organized a series of events to pay tribute to Eric's memory. Clarence Eckerson was there with his video camera. (You can find higher resolution Quicktime video here).

$15 Million in Grants Are Available for the Study of Congestion Pricing

There will be a memorial bike ride for Eric Ng, the cyclist killed by a drunk driver on the Hudson River Greenway last week. Details below. Also, here is a note from the Visual Resistance blog. VR are the guys who make the "ghost bikes:"

Gothamist has the sad, outrageous story.