By: M.Tony Peralta
PHOTO BY: M.TONY PERALTA
You’ve got to love the hood sometimes. Cats really get creative at times and me being an artist, I really appreciate the ingenuity that comes out of the block. From towering bikes, to electronic ice crushers for piraguas to bmx bikes with a booming system. I was standing on the corner, having a brief conversation with a friend, when I hear loud Hip-Hop making it’s way towards me (a normal accordance east of broadway and something that I’m use to) but instead of it being a gas guzzling SUV with 20 inch rims, it’s this young man on his bike with a customized speaker box at the tail end of it. He was just peddling along sharing his music with the rest of the neighborhood. I have to say that this contraption is pretty ingenious, the speakers are hooked up to his iPhone, which is docked on the handle bars and a long wire runs along the bike and connects to the speakers on the back, LOVE IT. I know some folks out there might find this obnoxious or even ghetto but I bet you some corporation will snatch this idea up in a minute and wrap up the speaker with some advertisement or some young film maker will see this and make a documentary about it and show you what the boys in the hood do for fun. This is what makes NEW YORK, NEW YORK!! ROUGH, RUGGED AND RAW!!
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I know the owner of this bike, he is actually very talented and has other interesting inventions. However that picture doesn’t look like him. He lends his bike out a lot and he is always up by 180th and cabrini.