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Mercury on 2
Wheels
New York Times, August 4, 1976
By Tom Buckley
Heads down, legs pumping furiously, the intrepid bicyclists of the Can
Carriers Messenger Service help to keep the heart of the nation's
commercial capital throbbing.
Their royal blue canvas dispatch bags slung over their shoulders, they
wheel their 10-speeds through the traffic that constricts the arteries
of the metropolis, carrying advertising proofs to nervous creative
chiefs, accounts receivable to grasping factors, precious stones and
gold for the silent men of the diamond district, and even, once, a live
duck for a television commercial.
"From river to river and all around midtown there's nothing quicker and
cheaper than the bicycle," said George E. Cooper, the 26year-old
president of Can Carriers. "And there are no bicycles quicker than
ours."
Unlike most of the thousands of messengers who crisscross the city on
foot or by public transportation - feeble retired people, former mental
patients who tend to talk to themselves in elevators, or disgruntled
beginners goofing off between errands - Can Carriers' bicyclists are
blithe spirits.
"Part Horatio Alger and part hippie," Mr. Cooper said. "The reason is
they are independent contractors rather than salaried employees. They
get half the charge for each delivery they make, and we usually have
enough work to keep them as busy as they want to be."
A half dozen of the 45 men and 5 women who work as bicycle messengers
average over $200 a week, he said, and several others come close to
that figure, but to do so they must stay on their bikes for a long day
and probably pedal 35 or 40 miles.
Mr. Cooper, an open-faced young man came to this city from Pittsburgh
with a guitar slung over his back, a motorcycle between his legs and
career in country-rock music in mind.
When the career went glimmering, the motorcycle, like a faithful steed,
gained him employment as a hell-for-leather messenger. Making almost
instantaneous deliveries brought him to the favorable attention of Bill
Blake not many years older than himself, who headed a firm called Sound
Transfers - film recordings and the like - and published a photography
magazine called Millimeter.
Bill Blake told the eager motorcyclist he wanted to start a messenger
service relying mainly on bicycles and specializing in work for the
film and television industries. The name Can Carriers, for that matter,
refers to cans of film.
George Cooper agreed to start it up, and one of the first messengers he
lured was
Nancy Haas, a slim student at Hunter College.
"I fired her three times the first week because she wouldn't make
deliveries to the film labs over on the far West Side," said George
Cooper. "A couple of weeks later, the messengers had a party. I got to
talking to her. I found myself asking her for a date. Two months later
we got married."
"The men in those labs were fresh," Nancy Cooper said. "It was worse
when I had to ride by all the construction sites on my way over to the
labs."
Anyhow, she is now the second in command of Can Carriers, which now has
a wider clientele and grosses better than $500,000 a year. She still
rides her bicycle, although purely for pleasure, just as her husband
likes to take a spin now and then on his Honda 450.
Headquarters and nerve center of the service are on the third and
fourth floors of the decayed walk-up at 139 East 43d Street, over a
gypsy palmistry establishment.
"You don't find many landlords anxious to rent space to an outfit
that's dragging bicycles up and down stairs all day long," Mr. Cooper
said. "Also it keeps the overhead down."
The messengers generally get their assignments by telephone, calling in
when they have completed a run and picking up another that begins
nearby.
However, a couple were lounging around during the lunch hour, and one
of these, a stocky longish-haired youth with cut-off jeans and a
t-shirt, was introduced as Andy (the flash) Fink.
"What's great about this job is that you can come and go as you
please," he said. "I bicycled down to Florida last winter and spent a
couple of months there. In two weeks I'm going up to Canada. I don't
have to worry about getting back at any particular time."
Like most of the other messengers, Andy Fink, who is 21 and from
Brooklyn, has another interest in life. Some are aspiring actors and
writers, or are graduate students. He is studying the drums, although
he is mainly thinking about making enough money to have a good time.
He and Mike Benson and Jim Bickelhaupt and Allen Greenberg, who
wandered into the office, all agreed that being a bicycle messenger was
difficult and dangerous for all the advantages of the job.
"Cabs are our natural enemies," Mike Benson, said. "They're always
cutting us off making us come to a full stop when we're rolling good.
And Cadillacs. People who have caddies think they own the world."
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