New York Western Union boy. Scanned and digitally altered.
I scanned this one from the wonderful book New York Street Kids by John Von Hartz, and I couldn’t resist playing with it some digitally.
Western Union messengers were sometimes barely able to reach the pedals of their bicycles. Some even lacked the spanking uniform with its shiny buttons. But there was always pride in the work of delivering messages at any hour of the day or night, a pride reflected in the well-pressed and starched appearance of the boy shown here.
The original is a black and white, part of The Jacob Riis Collection, Museum of the City of New York.
Bowlers And High Collars 
March 28th, 2015 at 4:44 am
Poor little chap it looks like he would find it very difficult to balance on that bike
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March 28th, 2015 at 4:45 am
Notice the bike has no brakes. LOL. I can imagine N.Y being ok, but how was it in San Fran? Haha!
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March 28th, 2015 at 4:50 am
Legs wide open as he sped uncontrollably down the hills, although it could have been a fixed wheel
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March 28th, 2015 at 4:52 am
Oh, by fixed wheel you mean the ones you pedaled backward to break? I don’t know what they’re called but I forgot about those!
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March 28th, 2015 at 5:10 am
I had forgotten about those but I had a bike where the peddles were connected directly to the rear sprocket so no free wheeling :-/
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