Culture
Ghost Bikes, Infrastructure of Grief
Part memorial, part protest symbol, these all-white bicycles mark the places where cyclists have been killed by cars.
Matthew Sampson didn’t know Jeffrey Hammond Long, but he made the memorial that marks his death in downtown Washington, D.C.
In July, Long, 36, was cycling through an intersection when he was struck by a turning truck. He died a day later in the hospital. After reading the news, Sampson issued a somber callout on Twitter asking for someone to donate a bike. The next weekend, he painted it completely white and chained it to a post at the site of the collision. Sampson typically makes playful pop-up street installations, publicizing his antics as the self-appointed D.C. Department of Transformation on Twitter. This project was different, though: It was his first “ghost bike.”