A Bangladeshi Rickshaw in the Midst of Brooklyn

The story of how a rickshaw named "Rick" ended up in the city that never sleeps and got itself an even unlikelier owner.

Rickshaw 1
Andy Isaacson riding his rickshaw, custom-made from Bangladesh

Sarah Khan

|

November 20, 2019

It’s hard to draw attention to yourself in a city as unfazed as New York. Ride the subway dressed as Spiderman in the middle of August, and no one looks up from their phones. Have a decibel-decimating brawl with a friend in the middle of a sidewalk during rush hour, and people will veer around you and carry on their way. Be Jake Gyllenhaal and pop into a La Colombe for coffee, and you might at most elicit a curious double take or two. 

But when you’re a white guy at the helm of a Bangladeshi rickshaw cruising around Brooklyn Bridge Park? That’s a different story. 

The streets of Dhaka are teeming with three-wheeled cycle rickshaws, handmade contraptions that are festooned with vivid colors and embellishments that upgrade them from utilitarian modes of transport to individual works of art. Unfortunately, it's also something of a dying art. But for now, a million rickshaws ferry commuters across the city, and the florid, customized vehicles are as synonymous with Dhaka's traffic-choked roads as staccato horns and plumes of exhaust. But Brooklyn? Not so much. 

Join today to read the full story.
Already a subscriber? Log in