Boasting two Ivy League degrees, Henry “Hank” Gutman recently retired as partner from the Simpson Thacher & Bartlett law firm, one of the top ten most profitable in the country. He also recently became NYC’s transportation commissioner.
Upon appointment, Gutman promised 10,000 new bicycle racks by 2022, triple the city’s current target. For this, he was hailed by Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets, both pro-bicycle, anti-car activist groups. Hank and his wife are longtime residents of the tony, affluent neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights — a place of much charm, where obsessions like bike lanes are as “virtuous” as they are First World.
Forty-five minutes away by subway, along 8th Avenue in Sunset Park, is Brooklyn’s Chinatown, created by immigrants scraping together a living in an area hollowed out by the 1980s crime epidemic. Through toil and enterprise, this Chinatown has grown larger than NYC’s original Manhattan Chinatown. The narrow 8th Avenue artery, with just two travel lanes, usually bustles with freight trucks, buses, cars and motorized delivery bikes serving local businesses and residents.