Dispatch from LaLaLand: Zoobomb Bike Rack Opening: Portland
Posted May 25, 2009 by icky in Events
Zoobombing is a recent local tradition where people take little-kids bikes on the light rail under the West Hills in Portland. They get off in the station in the tunnel, take the elevator up the hill, and then ride a nice, fairly depopulated, stretch of road past the zoo through Washington Park and into downtown Portland. It's a weird local spectacle, pissing off cops and drivers, but somehow gathering support of other people in power so that it hasn't been outright criminalized. One issue that became a sore spot is that the zoobombers leave all the kids bikes (like 20 of them) locked up to a single bike rack across the street from Powell's books downtown.
I think the city was threatening to cut all the locks and throw away all the bikes...? (I could be wrong, I'm writing most of this from memory).
Of course all of this perfectly legal, you can take your bike on the light rail, you can ride down the West Hills on a bike made for a 5 year old, and you can lock your bike to a rack. But that has never prevented the cops from either fucking with people on technicalities (two feet on the ground at a stop sign, or no bike light, or public intox or whatever) or threatening to get a reactionary politician to push through a law that is ridiculous (eg- you can't lock more then 6 bikes to a rack, or something). But also this is Portland, where the popular local bumper-sticker is "Keep Portland Weird" and this is one of those things that managed to get attention in the media to the point where people who ran for city council got asked how they felt about the zoobombers. Which is funny cause its just a bunch of spazzy kids, something like a more-fucked-up and less-(overtly)-political critical mass. Somehow the Regional Arts and Culture Council steps in with some money to design and build a new public art sculpture/bike rack for the zoo bombers (this is, I suppose, a compromise so that the Zoobombers stop piling on top of one bike rack). Justseeds' good buddy and ally Vanessa Renwick (with bad ass local public artist Brian Borrello) won the grant for the design.
The bike rack/sculpture ("Pyle" in zoobomb parlance ) is done and will be opened this week! If you're in town, come on down. Even the mayor will be there!
downtown Portland
Fri May 29
4PM 10th & SW Oak (then parade to)
5PM 13th & W. Burnside
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Nearly complete! We are very excited for all this, thanks Brian and Vanessa!
all the animals from the zoo are gonna be there, are you?
Posted by: revphil at May 25, 2009 2:55 PM