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Leaders of South Williamsburg's Hasidic community are pressuring the city to paint over the newish bike lanes on Bedford and Wythe Avenues because they're appalled by the immodest attire of female cyclists pedaling through their neighborhood. Simon Weisser, a member of Community Board 1, tells the Post, "I have to admit, it's a major issue, women passing through here in that dress code. It bothers me, and it bothers a lot of people."
The DOT's addition of the bike lanes have been warmly welcomed by cyclists who brave the heavily trafficked corridor between Williamsburg and South Brooklyn. At a contentious community board meeting Monday, local Hasids tried (and failed) to stop a third proposed bike lane on Kent Avenue, a precursor to a Kent Avenue Greenway with a separate path for cyclists and pedestrians stretching from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park.
Weisser made no mention of the cyclists' dreaded sex appeal at the board meeting. According to the Brooklyn Paper, he told board members that he "has the whole community behind him. There is already a bike lane on Wythe Avenue — now they want a bike lane on Kent Avenue? You can’t accommodate every single street with a bike lane.” Milton Puryear, of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, argues that "the whole idea for the Greenway is to provide a benefit to the people of the community — not just bike riders — by making a truck route into a more inviting streetscape. If you look at Kent Avenue now, it’s just not a place you want to stroll, or ride a bike."
As if to prove his point, a bike rider was in an accident with a car service sedan on Kent Avenue the morning after the meeting, breaking an elbow and collarbone. No word yet on what the cyclist was wearing. [UPDATE: Cut-offs!]
Photo courtesy Media Eater.
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I understand their views on modesty... but they don't own the streets, c'mon!
I respect the Hasidic community's right to wear silly clothes and live under silly rules, but expect them to extend me the same courtesy.
[1] - Word to that.
Y'know what? I'm offended by THEIR women wearing long skirts, sweaters, and "Blossom" hats in 85 degree weather. I get heatstroke just looking at those chicks, but I don't give them crap about it.
Stick your religion up your ass, rube.
f*ck 'em
I guess all I can say is this bike lane is a test from God. A burden like Job's, but without the death of your family. They chould see it as a blessing and rise to God's challenge to prove their faith. Oh and no peeking at those boobies
I have always been rather uncomfortable with the political might a community set on isolation and apartness has with city government. Their dress code applies to their religion, not to those passing through their community. They choose to live the way they live and they need to respect that they are in a large ever changing city and can't dictate who passes them on the street.
This country is great in that you can practice your own beliefs without fear of persecution but it in order for you to have that you need to have some tolerance towards others as well.
If you want to get upset about someone riding down a PUBLIC street wearing something that you deem inappropriate, then don't get upset if they turn around and have a problem with some of your practices. Lighten up, let it go and live your life. It's the price we all have to pay in order to live the lives we want to live.
Their argument that bikes don't obey traffic laws is laughable. Hasids don't give a sh*t about traffic laws - especially in their own hood.
Change happens
That is New York City
Just like everybody else
Deal with it.
Please fix the title--"Hasidim" is the plural of "Hasid", not "Hasids".
i must say i've felt rather self-conscious riding through Wmbrg in my relatively scanty bike attire.
But legislating what people wear while passing through a neighborhood is completely ABUSRD!
Their religious convictions should afford them the strength to use mind over matter and ignore whatever feelings bare shoulders and knees brings up in them!
Newsflash: South Wburg is not a gated community.
the fact that their complaints aren't laughed at is frightening.
what are they going to do, station people with robes at certain "community entrance points"?
Uh huh. They're oh, so offended. And I'm equally offended when these frume hasidim pull over in their minivans on Bedford Ave and proposition me, blatantly, in broad daylight, while I'm walking home from work wearing a backpack and dowdy office clothes. This used to happen to me all the time when I lived in North Brooklyn. Talk to anyone in the sex industry in this town - doms, strippers, etc - and they'll tell you that Hasidic men are among their best customers. And even if you're an average, unsexy office drone like me, if you're not one of them, you're fair game. All women but their own are whores - the Yiddish word is "Pritze".
I don't know what everyone's problem with Kent Street is. It's a perfectly fine place to ride a bike on the weekend.
at first i thought that lady had a bald beave.
i hope the city doesn't give into these guys, they have their own little world there already. if they want they can move to the middle east and join with the rest of the religious nuts.
Hi.
I was the cyclist involved in that crash on Tuesday morning. To set the record straight, I wasn't struck, but rather went over the bars trying to avoid a head-on collision with a Northside car that did not yield whatsoever to oncoming traffic while making a left-hand turn across the double-yellow on to N. 7th. Also for the record, I was wearing cut-off's.
Boycott Northside please! They are a terrible presence in our community, and do NOT respect other users' right to the road!
It's OK to ogle a woman on a bicycle, so long as she's a shiksa. Sadly, the city government takes these fanatics seriously.
What happened to Separation between Church and State? Don't they have enough holidays and no alternate side of the street parking?
if they want all women to be covered up all the time they should move someplace where they'll feel right at home...like saudi arabia.
Anybody notify Critical Mass that there's a golden opportunity to make a point & "take back the streets" the last Friday of this month by a scantily clad CM via this bike lane? Around sunset, maybe? Now THAT is one I'd like to see. Rabid scantily clad bikers, Hasidim in Sabbath mode, & NYPD confused trying to protect the "chosen" (politically) from the "unchosen".
I spent many years working as a professional dominatrix and countless hours were (most unfortunately) in the company of Hasidic men getting their rocks off AND trying to be more perverted than the average respectable joe. After that experience, it seems the more one is cloaked out of religious beliefs, the more one is hiding odd sexual proclivities. Can't imagine what the Pope gets into.
Oh, and the Hasidic community totally sucks at driving. I know, I've been hit. Maybe they are against the bike lanes cos they can't pilot a bike.
they need to go back to 19th century poland.
YOu ever see the jews in those silk robes and furry hats that look like crowns? they walk around like kings with their wives following behind them pushing strollers. I thought the whole point of orthodoxy was to lower yourself to god? Looking regal and walking around like a douche doesn't seem to fit.
Hasidics are an embarrassment to the rest of the Jewish population in the city. They live in their little own world making up stupid rules, which they think God told them to do.
24
That sounds like the makings of the funniest porn flick this year.
Spill it!
buncha Anti-Semites....
I keed...I keed!! Actually I am just surprised that no one HAS stepped in with that old canard.
They've tried to have the West Indian Labor Day Parade rerouted out of "their" Eastern Parkway neighborhood because they found the costumes and dancing offensive. "The road of life is rocky, and you may stumble, too. So while you point your finger, someone else is judging you." - Bob Marley
As a Scientologist I'm appalled that these complaints weren't directed to the nearest talking goat. These Hasidim have no respect for others.
Does it matter if there is a bike lane there??
They drive real bad, in their beat up mini vans and station wagons!
I think the goal is to run down any outsiders...
Why can't they be like the Amish and move their little xenophobic community out to the sticks? If you live among others in the city, you normally have to deal with others, not force them to follow your beliefs.
31: "As a Scientologist"
Can you have these people beamed to another planet? Send over a space ship or something.
"I have to admit, it's a major issue, women passing through here in that dress code. It bothers me, and it bothers a lot of people."
I put up with the 18th century clothing, the ridiculous hats and the spooky curly sideburns, so I guess we're all par for the course.
I actually live in South Williamsburg in the midst of Hasidic culture. I won't insult them as a group of people, but riding a bike through the neighborhood can be a frustrating and dangerous experience because so many of these Hasidim don't respect others when it comes to traffic. The charges that cyclists are the safety issue is beyond laughable.
I will be encouraging my girlfriend to exercise her right to wear only shorts and a sports bra when outside as much as possible.
they should do one of those cracked out panda parties in south williamsburg and combine it with a critical mass.
Their bullying ways should surprise no one.
When their leaders are pressed to act for a bigoted separatist conservative religious community they have to do these things. They has a right to complain as we all do. Trouble is, they approach it in a hugely unamerican way.
I watched video of their leaders testifying in City Hall why gays shouldn't have equal rights, while their community filled the balcony shouting ugliness. I had to take five showers afterward.
please change "has" to "have" above!
things that don't add up (as i watch this story on wcbs tv at 6pm):
they didn't mention issues with attire of pedestrians, did they?
would they be happy to set up a roadblock and choose which cyclists are dressed modestly enough to ride through?
according to the rabbi interviewed on tv, the problem is cyclists threatening pedestrian safety, which is not a fashion issue.
this issue has been through community board meetings already.
if the bike lane was removed, cyclists would still ride through but with less safety among traffic.
Immodest dress doesn't seem to bother the hasidic dudes that troll the bars for wasted chicks just before closing.
Does anybody remember pre-clubland meatpacking district? Tons of Haseeds would pick up tranny hookers at 5am. Now that was immodest dress!
What a chaloshes with these Hassidim.
is abraham ruunig for councilmember?
Abraham later said another major concern is the safety of children, noting that cyclists "aren't obeying traffic laws. Green lights and red lights are the same
Let them live on reservations if they don't like real life. I'm all for freedom of religion, but that shouldn't mean we all have to follow everyone else's religion and adapt to their religious beliefs or taboos!
Go live on a reservation if you don't like modern life!
Ladies from the Go Topless movement should have their next protest there.
Exactly, let's remember that underneath all the black suits, curly locks and wigs they are a separatist group. They are also bigots. I say too bad. Wah
religion is poison