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“Yeah we like to party,” interjected one of the older kids from the group who had been listening. He must have been 16.

The 21-story Oakland Tribune tower that once used to dominate the skyline appeared. A green colored campanile sits at its top. On all four sides, giant clock faces tell the tale of time. All of this is crowned by a vertical flagpole. In 1923, Harry Houdini astounded the world when, dangling from it, he escaped from a straight jacket.

View of Lake Merritt in the background was taken by Greg Barron, also pictured above, when he toured the tower in May 2014

I kept talking, “OK so for bike central, what we want to do is have a building complex that has an auditorium at its center. You know, a giant room that can hold say four hundred people that would serve as a community room where we could have dances for you guys and then to pay for such a big hall, rent it out so community groups could have classes for everything from swing dance to tai chi and yoga and stuff. It would be big enough that we could have trade shows for the local business community and mixers and we could even hold conferences there, even bike swap meets or indoor flea markets.”

I was on a roll.

“And then to get the local bike organizations involved, we’d have cheap office space there for them and to make it even more bike central, when the community at large comes in to use the hall, they’d see all these bike activism names on the doors that open into the community area.”

“Cool!” one of the kids exclaimed. I had to keep my eyes on the road as I spoke so I didn’t look back to see who it was.

“And when we get enough financial backing we’ll …….

<snip>

From “How America Can Bike and Grow Rich”