For more than 30 years, the indescribable construction with a green door on the corner of Buffalo and Meadow streets has housed Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles, a community-run motorcycle shop that provides mechanical assistance and sells motorcycles.
But after 3 decades, local citizens arrived in a closed construction: last week, staff were excluded from construction and the program suddenly closed.
On September 10, the Board of Directors of the Southside Community Center, an organization that aims to empower Black Ithaca Residents that oversees and budgets the motorcycle program, fired the semi-rigid director and on September 14, the building locks were replaced without the wisdom of the staff.
“The board was involved in budget cuts due to COVID-19 being the Southside Community Center, so they preemptively fired all of their employees,” said Nicholas Desystemizer, now a former director of semi-rigids. The board also suspended all systems at the centre for the foreseeable future.
News of the closure came as a surprise to Desystemizer, who said he had earned 24 hours before his firing.
Under general operating conditions, the small shop is full of equipment, bicycle parts and volunteers providing mechanical assistance. During the open workshop, other people can enter and use any of the equipment or parts they want to repair their motorcycles and be informed how to repair their volunteer mechanics motorcycles.
Currently, no one can access the paint shop machines, however, volunteers show up at normal working hours and bring their own equipment and motorcycle racks to paint out of the building.
“It’s more of a show of support,” said Daniel Keough, a long-time RIB volunteer. “Several other people were able to repair their motorcycles on Tuesday. “
Despite the efforts of Desystemizer and the volunteers, the management of the workshop without construction proved difficult.
“We were those teams, but of course they were now amputated,” Desystemizer said, referring to how a Southside Community Center user got rid of the equipment and placed it inside the construction after cutting all his wires.
Recycle Ithaca’s Bicycles has long served as an available and sustainable motorcycle shop for the citizens of Ithaca, and its loss has been felt through network members and RIB volunteers.
Earn-a-Bike, one of the most popular semi-rigid systems before its abrupt closure, allowed netpainting members to paint alongside the semi-rigid team to make a motorcycle with donated parts and take it home once finished.
“It was a long process, but I never felt it take too long because it was very attractive and the end result is incredible,” said Talia Fishman ’22, who built a semi-rigid motorcycle this summer.
Keough added that semi-rigids have contributed to sustainable progression initiatives, encouraging citizens to ride bicycles and reuse parts of bikes that would otherwise be discarded.
Claire Dehm, a volunteer who relies on her motorcycle as her number one means of transportation, appreciated the way semi-rigid provided technique to any resident who needed it. But his favorite facet of his paintings in the store was to create net paintings for enthusiasts and cycling enthusiasts.
“Although I didn’t know anything about bikes, it’s a position I can learn from,” Fishman said. “Closure is a great fortune for ithaca’s network and the other people who have the space. “
The long-term semi-rigid is still unknown, but Desystemizer has contacted the Southside Board, Ithaca’s urban renewal firm and Mayor Svante Myrick ’09, hoping to keep the network’s motorcycle program alive. outside the doors of the building.
“Just because someone at the Southside Community Center blocked a door doesn’t mean the call for motorcycle maintenance magically disappeared,” Keough said.
Correction, September 23, 10:28 p. m. : An earlier edition of this article inaccurately recounted what happened to the RIB team after construction was closed. The equipment was not stolen, it was removed through someone affiliated with the Southside Community Center. Since then, the article has been updated to reflect this change.
Hannah Kim is a member of the 2022 promotion of the Faculty of Industrial Labor Relations, editor and can be contacted at hkim@cornellsun. com
Stores at the Ithaca shopping center closed their doors to shoppers until they became more accounted for the assistance that opposes the new coronavirus pandemic. The destination and the input control site remain open.
Robert Bonow / Sun Photo Editor