NEW YORK — In the mid-1890s, New York was seen as the "Metropolis of Cycledom," home to 250,000 bike-owning citizens, ten cycling journals, 55 cycling clubs in Manhattan alone, twenty-nine cycling academies, and cycling racks everywhere from Madison Square Garden to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bicycles became a status symbol for the city's middle class, which was committed to buying the most expensive, luxurious and tasteful bicycle and accessories possible. Even though it was seen as a genteel, decorous pastime and riding extremely fast was frowned on, the reduction in the cost of bicycles brought a number of new young riders who rode wildly and irresponsibly.
Still, not many years later, the city's citizenry would abandon the bicycle as quickly as it had been taken up. In 1899, approximately 1.2 million bicycles had been produced in America — four years later, only half as many were made. Public interest waned, and the bicycle magazines and schools closed.
New York City spent the decades that followed embarking on a transportation policy that stressed mass and, later, automobile transportation, and completely ignored the bicycle. However, cycling culture was revived in the city about a decade ago. Today the bicycle, rightly or wrongly, is often associated with progressive values like environmentalism,
