NY Retail Store Attacked for Bike Culture Homage
by Warren McLaren, Sydney 
on 03.23.06
Our profilic and anonymous tipster brought this strange story to our attention. A month ago, Brooklyn Industries, purveyors of designer T-shirts and apparel, found their retail shopfront windows had been acid etched with the words "Bike Culture Not for Sale". Seems someone took umbrage at their use of home-made bikes to grace the window display. Apparently only individuals are allowed to fabricate ‘mutant bikes’, not businesses. Even if the bikes were there to bring attention to Brooklyn Industries' promotion whereby they'd donate $2 from sales of messenger bags to the non-profit Recycle-a-Bicycle. RAB informs New York kids about bike cycle, and teaches them to make their own bikes - (Holy weird twist, Batman). For a fuller background piece see the original article by Karen Tucker, in the Village Voice, where she interviews various mutant bike gangs, including C.H.U.N.K. 666, for their respective takes on the issue. Oddly C.H.U.N.K. themselves also had a charity auction to sell a mutant bike. (The pic is from their site).
We've had this discussion before, like when Nestlé introduced fair trade coffee. On one hand we demand business be more environmentally and socially engaged, and then on the other we attack them for taking just such a stance. Any wonder many business folk just throw up their hands, exclaiming; "Don't bother with that corporate social responsibility stuff, you can never please the zealots anyhow. We'll be attacked whatever we do." Could a Girlcott be a more positive solution, than negative aggression?
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Here's a good post about this on Suckapants extacly one month ago:
http://suckapants.com/2006/02/brooklyn-vs-brokelyn.html
Comments from Black Label, the store, etc.
And, shameless freakbike and charity related plug. Team Tallbike is riding tallbikes from SF to LA, 580 miles to help people living with AIDS, checkitout!
www.aidslifecycle.org/617