Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Bike riding in the bike lanes

Late last year, bike lanes were installed on Madison Avenue from McNeil to Cooper after several months of debate on whether they would be used, on whether reducing the number of traffic lanes would be detrimental to the businesses along the street, etc.  Once the project was approved, I chronicled the progress on this blog (through Phases I, II, III, IV and V).  Since that time, I have heard numerous comments that the bike lanes were rarely utilized by cyclists.  Let this post serve as a rebuttal to those comments.  The following photos were taken randomly over the course of just one month, from early March 2012 - early April 2012.

The combination of a wide bike lane and a wide parking lane affords plenty of room for the cyclist to navigate around opening car doors on the one side and moving traffic on the other.

...which allows bikers to be casual (note the hand in the pocket)...

...to ride in pairs, side-by-side...



...to "color outside the lines"...

...to avoid vicious dogs on the sidewalk...

...to text-while-riding...

...to get off of the bike and run....


...to go the wrong way...

...or carry sundries...

...or to ride on both sides of the line...


Some will wear helmets....


...and some will just wear a headband....



...but there will always be a few who just prefer the sidewalk.

And let's end with this perfect shot - - - a cyclist in each direction!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

1750 Madison: Then and Now

The Madison Professional Building, located at 1750 Madison, is the tallest building on the street east of Cleveland.  Sheathed in white marble with very narrow windows on each floor, the building has a rather severe look to it.  This is in stark contrast to its one- and two-story neighbors which were largely built in the 20s.  But, as this post demonstrates, it wasn't always that way...

This photo reveals what used to be the tallest building on Madison east of Cleveland, the old Bellsouth Building (located behind the billboard).

For most of the 20th century, this building graced the northwest corner of Madison and Auburndale.  According to its pediment, it was constructed in 1910 for a D.C. Brignole.  This photograph from 1940 shows it housed the Silver Liquor Store and a small adjoining building housed the Idlewild Cafe.  Note the concrete obelisk street sign at the corner.


This floorplan shows a proposal filed with the Board of Adjustment in 1940 to convert the upper story apartment at the building into four smaller apartments (three of the them being efficiencies).