David Byrne Blasts City "Gatekeepers" Over Bike Rack Rejection

David Byrne next to one of his city-approved bike racks. The proscribed designs, right. (G.R. Christmas)

Back in the summer of 2008, when the city installed nine site-specific bicycle racks designed by the former Talking Heads frontman, we wondered, Is there anything this city won't do for bicycling renaissance man David Byrne? Apparently, yes! David Byrne is pissed this week, because the city’s Design Commission, which has the final say on permanent street art and architecture, has rejected two of his bike rack designs. While the original nine have been permitted to exist, one that the New Museum wanted installed on the Bowery was dismissed, as was another shaped like a liquor bottle, which the commission "deemed to be in bad taste." Byrne, writing on his blog, says it was bureaucratic politics, not taste:

So, between my office, the New Museum and the DOT the requisite applications were filled out and filed in the fall and then the wait began—months later the day of reckoning arrived (that would be today) and the cultural gatekeepers who would decide the matter were, it seems, mightily pissed off. They were annoyed that the DOT had—in some of their eyes—encroached onto their territory, and this effrontery would not stand.

As a compromise they would allow the existing—and can I say well-received?—bike racks to stay, but as retribution for not going through said gatekeepers the DOT (and the rest of us) would be punished by no more additional bike racks being allowed.

The end result, according to Byrne, is that "there will be no more no more bike racks from me for NYC—unless a building or institution wants them on their own and not on city property. Sorry folks, sometimes stupidity wins the day." Same as it ever was. But if you're curious about the traces of Byrne's whimsy that still remain, here they are. [Via City Room]