Mysterious Ghost Bike Raises Questions

Tragic symbol of child’s death leaves neighbors confused

By Allen Houston with additional reporting by Reid Spagna and Alice Robb

A poignant reminder of a child’s death left at West 100th Street and West End Avenue has sparked rumors and speculation for residents living near the block.

It all started last week when a tiny “ghost bike,” one training wheel gone, the other bent, was chained to a streetlamp across from the Synagogue Ansche Chesed. Written on the seat of the bike was “R.I.P Jonah Shapiro, Age 9.” Other written details reveal that the boy was the victim of a hit-and-run that occurred June 3.

The mystery swirling around the child’s bike has become the talk of the neighborhood over the past few days precisely because no one recalls a death occurring and there is no police record of any such fatality occuring June 3. When contacted, the Street Memorial Project, the organization which started the practice of putting a bike painted white in the location where a death took place, had no knowledge of the bike’s existence.

Ghost bikes have become an increasingly common sight in New York over the past few years. According to the Street Memorial Project, more than 65 such white-painted bikes have been placed throughout the city since 2005.

Josh Hanft, executive director at Ansche Chesed, said that the synagogue was open the day of the supposed accident and that no one on staff or any of their neighbors heard an ambulance or saw anything out of the ordinary that day.

He was so curious about the mystery bike that he went to nearby Police Precinct 24 to inquire about the incident. The police told Hanft that no fatalities had occurred in that area during that time and that they had no record of any accidents involving anyone named Jonah Shapiro.

“We were open all day, so I find it impossible to believe that an accident could have occurred on that corner without the Synagogue being aware of it,” Hanft said.

NYPD confirmed via email that no incidents with someone of that name or near that date occurred.

Hanft speculates that the accident probably occurred somewhere else and that the person who placed the bike near the synagogue did so because they thought it was a proper place to share such a tragedy.

With all of the children attending summer programs at the temple, however, he said that the bike has had the inadvertent effect of producing “anxiety” among parents and has left him fielding questions about the safety of the intersection. “We’d like to see the bike moved,” Hanft said. “It is not an appropriate place for such a memorial.”

Monica Murphy, an Upper West Side mother who was sitting on the steps of the synagogue across from the ghost bike on a recent weekday afternoon, said that she couldn’t fathom such an “unspeakable horror” and what it must do to the parents.

“I can’t imagine that there’s any getting over something like that,” Murphy said.

She said that her daughter asked her about about the ghost bike and that led to a conversation about death.

“It makes me a little resentful that I had to speak to my child about it,” she said. “I don’t know what the purpose of placing the bike here is.”

Another mother pushing a stroller past the bike said that she can’t help but think of the pain that the parents must have endured.

“It’s very distressing to come by here because we’re all with our kids,” she said.

Hannah Leider, a resident of the block, questioned whether a real incident had occurred or not. “It’s disturbing if it’s an actual commemoration, but it’s disturbing in a different way if someone just put it up,” she said.

Conversations with a handful of doormen in eyeshot of the ghost bike didn’t produce anything other than rumors about the ghost bike’s presence.

Ellen Belcher, volunteer spokesperson for the Street Memorial Project, said that they had no information on the ghost bike or who might have put it on the corner. The organization was started to honor cyclists and pedestrians that have been killed on New York City Streets.

“This has happened several times over the last couple of years without us knowing,” Belcher said. “Friends and family decide to put them up and don’t tell us.”

She said that sometimes the bikes appear with names and locations of accidents and the group is never able to track down information on where it comes from. There have also been incidents where people have placed ghost bikes near their homes in cities where the accidents didn’t occur, in honor of friends or family that died someplace else.

She said that the Jonah Shapiro bike has extra gravity because he was a child. “There’s an extra seriousness when you see one of these for a kid,” Belcher said.