Hi, Jeane: My friends and I used to rent out bikes in that shop when we were twelve and thirteen years old. Right next door to the bicycle shop was a pet store that specialized in pigeons. In my neighborhood (Little Italy), most of the guys were pigeon crazy. Almost every block had a coop or two on it. Back in the late fifties, the rents were so low that landlords really didn’t care what you put on their rooftops– although it was much wiser to seek permission from the landlord before you started building your coop and buying pigeons for it. We had coops on Mott and Prince Street, on Prince and Mulberry Street, on the Bowery and Prince Street, and on Houston and Mott Street. Sometimes, when we were up on the roof during school hours, the truant officer would come up. Then my friends and I would have to scamper six-stories down the fire escape and into the yard to get away from him, laughing all the way.
Getting back to the bicycle shop you mentioned in your post. I believe the name of it was “Barbares.” And that it was located across the street from Sara Roosevelt park, a short distance from the corner of Houston St. The owner used to charge us thirty-five cents an hour to ride those old, heavy, hard-to-pedal bicycles that we used to call “trucks.”