For a Departed Daughter, a White Schwinn on a Manhattan Street Corner
New York Times
Published: Mar, 1 2009
For the past seven months or so, the couple has made the trip to the corner of 49th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan 20 times. There,
chained to a “no standing” sign, is a bicycle painted in white. This spot, rather than a grave site, is where they go to feel close to their daughter.
Ms. Geocos.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Last July 11, their only daughter, Amelia Geocos, 24, was riding a bicycle north on First Avenue when she collided with a van heading west on 49th Street, according to the police. She received head injuries and was pronounced dead at a hospital 45 minutes later. The driver was not charged, the police said.
The bike that now stands at the intersection is not the one Ms. Geocos was using when she was killed. Instead, it is a five-speed Schwinn cruiser that Ms. Geocos’s mother, Marian, used to take her daughter around on when she was a little girl. Now adorned with flowers and Mardi Gras beads, it has also been decorated over the months with candles, old photos and farewell notes from friends. It is a sidewalk memorial that Ms. Geocos’s family keeps careful watch over.
“It’s just a way of me taking care of her, because I have nothing left as a mom,” Marian Geocos, 54, said on a recent Wednesday afternoon as she reattached a sheet of paper with the lyrics of the Rolling Stones’ song “Ruby Tuesday” to the bike’s wheel. The song had been placed on the bike by one of Ms. Geocos’s cousins because it seemed to fit her personality.
Ms. Geocos’s father, Cliff, 54, said, “It’s hard to think of my daughter dying on this street, but we all come to make sure the bike looks good.”
On this particular day, Marian and Cliff Geocos were joined by their 27-year-old son, Will, and two of Amelia’s closest friends. A bouquet of flowers placed in a water-filled Folgers coffee can was attached to the bike and some leftover pine cones from the holidays were cleared away.
The bike is yards from the entrance to the Beekman Tower Hotel, and the doormen have made it part of their job to stand guard over it. “You always try to see that it’s not tampered with and make sure things are not removed,” said one of the doormen, Richard Branker. “Some things shouldn’t be touched.”
Shortly after Ms. Geocos was killed, someone anonymously placed a bike at the accident scene, a practice that has been taken up by bicycle advocates as a way to call attention to the deaths of bikers on city streets. Advocates say that about 20 bicyclists a year have been killed in New York City since 2005.
When Marian Geocos was contacted by the New York City Street Memorial Project, which has installed dozens of memorial bikes throughout the city since 2005, and told that a bike had been put up in her daughter’s memory, she expressed gratitude but said she preferred a bike with more personal meaning.
“It’s definitely spiritual, going there,” she said during a recent interview at her apartment in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, where Amelia’s ashes are kept in an urn. “You don’t often get a site where you can go and just think about her last moments.”
Amelia Geocos, who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in 2007, had a large circle of friends, according to her parents, many of whom also regularly visit the memorial bike. “It’s about giving yourself a few minutes there to really focus on her life,” said Zoe Ellis, 24, a friend of Amelia’s since they were both teenagers.
Mr. Geocos said he would like the bike “to be there forever,” though he knows it is unlikely since the police or neighbors will probably remove it eventually.
“I can’t protect her anymore,” said Mr. Geocos, a train conductor for Metro-North, “so I’m kind of protecting her bike in my own little way.”
Will Geocos, left, with his mother and father, Marian and Cliff, at Amelia Geocos’s memorial.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
NOTE: Links to internal pages on ghostbikes.org have been added by site editors, and are not part of the originating work.
Published: Mar, 1 2009
For the past seven months or so, the couple has made the trip to the corner of 49th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan 20 times. There,
chained to a “no standing” sign, is a bicycle painted in white. This spot, rather than a grave site, is where they go to feel close to their daughter.
Ms. Geocos.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
Last July 11, their only daughter, Amelia Geocos, 24, was riding a bicycle north on First Avenue when she collided with a van heading west on 49th Street, according to the police. She received head injuries and was pronounced dead at a hospital 45 minutes later. The driver was not charged, the police said.
The bike that now stands at the intersection is not the one Ms. Geocos was using when she was killed. Instead, it is a five-speed Schwinn cruiser that Ms. Geocos’s mother, Marian, used to take her daughter around on when she was a little girl. Now adorned with flowers and Mardi Gras beads, it has also been decorated over the months with candles, old photos and farewell notes from friends. It is a sidewalk memorial that Ms. Geocos’s family keeps careful watch over.
“It’s just a way of me taking care of her, because I have nothing left as a mom,” Marian Geocos, 54, said on a recent Wednesday afternoon as she reattached a sheet of paper with the lyrics of the Rolling Stones’ song “Ruby Tuesday” to the bike’s wheel. The song had been placed on the bike by one of Ms. Geocos’s cousins because it seemed to fit her personality.
Ms. Geocos’s father, Cliff, 54, said, “It’s hard to think of my daughter dying on this street, but we all come to make sure the bike looks good.”
On this particular day, Marian and Cliff Geocos were joined by their 27-year-old son, Will, and two of Amelia’s closest friends. A bouquet of flowers placed in a water-filled Folgers coffee can was attached to the bike and some leftover pine cones from the holidays were cleared away.
The bike is yards from the entrance to the Beekman Tower Hotel, and the doormen have made it part of their job to stand guard over it. “You always try to see that it’s not tampered with and make sure things are not removed,” said one of the doormen, Richard Branker. “Some things shouldn’t be touched.”
Shortly after Ms. Geocos was killed, someone anonymously placed a bike at the accident scene, a practice that has been taken up by bicycle advocates as a way to call attention to the deaths of bikers on city streets. Advocates say that about 20 bicyclists a year have been killed in New York City since 2005.
When Marian Geocos was contacted by the New York City Street Memorial Project, which has installed dozens of memorial bikes throughout the city since 2005, and told that a bike had been put up in her daughter’s memory, she expressed gratitude but said she preferred a bike with more personal meaning.
“It’s definitely spiritual, going there,” she said during a recent interview at her apartment in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, where Amelia’s ashes are kept in an urn. “You don’t often get a site where you can go and just think about her last moments.”
Amelia Geocos, who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in 2007, had a large circle of friends, according to her parents, many of whom also regularly visit the memorial bike. “It’s about giving yourself a few minutes there to really focus on her life,” said Zoe Ellis, 24, a friend of Amelia’s since they were both teenagers.
Mr. Geocos said he would like the bike “to be there forever,” though he knows it is unlikely since the police or neighbors will probably remove it eventually.
“I can’t protect her anymore,” said Mr. Geocos, a train conductor for Metro-North, “so I’m kind of protecting her bike in my own little way.”
Will Geocos, left, with his mother and father, Marian and Cliff, at Amelia Geocos’s memorial.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
NOTE: Links to internal pages on ghostbikes.org have been added by site editors, and are not part of the originating work.