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Penny-Farthings Help Rededicate Bike Plaque
by Allan Appel | Jun 21, 2010 12:06 pm
(1) Comment | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
“An enterprising individual propelled himself about the Green . . . on a curious frame sustained by two wheels, one before the other, and driven by foot cranks.”
That earliest word portrait extant of a bicycle in use is from the New Haven Daily Palladium newspaper of April 5, 1866. It also comes close to describing the festive gathering of 25 cyclophiles, including four on reproductions of turn-of-the century high-wheelers, noticed on the Green Saturday afternoon.
They were there to rededicate a plaque on the southwest corner of the Green marking the debut of the bicycle in the United States by Pierre Lallement, The French mechanic settled in Ansonia in 1865. In April, a year later, he rode his contraption to and around the New Haven Green. Thus the description.
In addition to a reporter, Lallement was noticed by someone else, who became the backer of his patent that came through a year later.
The original metal plaque was dedicated in 1998 but broken by a snow plow several years ago, according to Matthew Feiner of Devil’s Gear Bike Shop and the commander of the fleet of penny-farthings.
(If you don’t know, you must read to the end of the article to learn why the high-wheelers, also called ordinaries, were dubbed penny-farthings in England.)
Feiner and local photographer Mike Franzen used the magical cranking hand-jive motion over the granite plaque to make the low-keyed event official.
As bicycling is deeply democratic, the event was relaxed and social, with the hierarchy of speakers, well, non-existent. Franzen therefore offered his unofficial language of dedication: “I hereby dedicate this plaque to anyone who has ever bicycled or is thinking about it in the future.”
Feiner said that the city’s landscape architect, David Moser, had orchestrated the re-setting of the granite square in the cement at Chapel and College on Friday.
Feiner said Moser confirmed it was only a rumor that the original bronze Lallement plaque had been swiped several years ago during a rash of metal thefts that swept the city.
The granite is larger, more legible, and arguably more durable than its predecessor. “It’s got to last to the 150th anniversary, in 2016,” said David Herlihy. The author of Bicycle: A History was down from Boston, where he established the Lallement Memorial Committee.
The committee has undertaken two projects. The first: Dedicate a bike path in Lallement’s name in Boston, not far from where he lived after moving there (and dying) in 1891. The second: Rededicate New Haven’s plaque.
Herlihy said he was pleased to see the plaque back. It is arguably the only historical marker on the Green to celebrate an industrial invention, of the kind that put New Haven on the map in the 19th century.
And now to penny-farthings. The high-wheelers replaced Lallement’s invention in the first decades of the 20th century. The English saw those bicycles in profile as a small coin, the farthing, trailing the larger penny.
After Saturday’s democratic dedication, riders took the penny-farthings on a brief spin that culminated in a party and bicycle history PowerPoint by Herlihy at Jamie Arabolos’s new event space, Master of None, on State Street at Edwards.
Herlihy’s newest book, Lost Cyclist, which he was also promoting, traces the round-the-world bike ride of one Frank Lenz. He set out on a penny-farthing in 1892, got lost in Turkey in 1894, and was never heard from again.
Feiner’s Devil’s Gear will definitely be heard from again, On Aug. 1 he moves his shop into the 360 State Street project, in the corner storefront facing Pitkin Plaza.
Not only can he line his bikes up on the pedestrian-oriented plaza at the new location. But little kids can ride around there and in safety try out the bikes.
Not likely the penny-farthings, though.
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Comment
posted by: 38967467 on June 21, 2010 6:37pm
I don’t think Frank Lenz rode a penny-farthing on his world tour but no matter. I enjoyed Herlihy’s bicycle history book almost as much as Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s “Le Tour.” If I had known about the event, I would have gladly bought him a pint at Richter’s.
Glad to see the plaque back.
