Craig Murphey

Craig Murphey's ghost bike was created and installed by his friends, using one of his old bikes. They organized a memorial ride for him and a vigil. We merely made the plaque. This was the first time that this aspect of the project has been facilitated by mourners who were not previously involved with making street memorials.

Here is what one of Craig's friends had to say about him:

Craig was cut from a different cloth. His warmth, generosity and overall compassion for others was so real and so impressive that it was tough not to want to be a better person when you were with him or saw him in action. Although we only knew each other a few years, I feel lucky enough to call him a close friend and one of the best people I will ever meet.

Oraia Reid, Executive Director of RightRides for Women's Safety, sent us this statement to read at Craig's ghost bike at the annual Memorial Ride:

RightRides for Women's Safety wishes to honor the spirit of Craig Murphey. Craig was a dedicated volunteer, humanitarian, and friend. His enthusiasm for so many causes, ours included, left an incredible impression on everyone who met him. In 2006, he approached our organization wanting to take our Safe Walk bike patrol program from concept to reality. He made Safe Walk possible by spending countless hours that year recruiting friends, helping get the word out to the community, and making sure that people could receive a safe escort home. Craig was a kind, giving soul who made a huge difference in the lives of many. He will be dearly missed.

Craig was an acquaintance; I wish I could say he was a friend. When I learned of Craig’s death in a casual phone conversation, I was shocked and upset. I put up some words quickly, trying in vain to do justice to his life and personality. I worried about what I should say and what I had the right to say. We all grapple with owning grief. I certainly cannot claim the grief of his close friends and family. But maybe I can express the loss of a really good person I was lucky enough to know, if ever so briefly.

These words never feel right, even now. But here is what I meant to say.

I remembered the bike Craig's friends used as the memorial from when I volunteered with him on the SafeWalk program that he organized as part of RightRides. Craig was committed to working towards safe spaces, and through SafeWalk we took phone calls to bike over and meet people to walk them to their destinations safely. I remember the first time I volunteered with the program; everyone seemed to be friends and I knew no one. But Craig, ever the gracious host, made me feel immediately comfortable. That welcoming spirit and concern for everyone present is one of the rarest qualities, but Craig was a rare person.

He was endlessly positive. I only now realize, trying to run the SafeWalk program this summer, how hard and how much work it is. It can be thankless work, and yet, he did it with a smile, and made it fun for everyone involved. And more than that, he was running a community-driven program to prevent sexual assault. It is uncommon for people to make the connections between sexual assault and community awareness, but especially uncommon for men to do something about it. Perhaps it is just another way in which Craig was remarkable.

Craig also worked at Cathedral Community Cares and West Harlem Action Network Against Poverty and organized a CSA program for the neighborhood, and probably did other amazing work I'll never know about. He was generous in all aspects of his life. Who else would help a strange girl try to find an apartment when she was in a bind? He didn’t have to do any of this. But he did.

When I moved to a new neighborhood, Craig advised me to “walk with a purpose.” He was talking about street safety, and it was both good sense and a kind gesture from someone who knew those issues quite well. But I realize now that those are also words for life. Craig walked with a purpose in everything he did. And he inspired others to do so.

I’ll never forget seeing such a powerful community of friends come out in support of each other to honor his memory. His was the kind of loss that demonstrates what loss really means. You could see clearly the ripples and fractures, what was and what could have been. That loss is just as great and deep and sharp for every death, but here it was evident.

Craig was struck early in the morning by a truck turning into his path. The accounts of his friends dispute the police report that characterized him as trying to "beat the truck"; they counter that Craig was a safe and experienced rider and would have been traveling in the opposite direction to come home. Craig was pronounced dead at the scene. He was returning from dropping off a friend at her home—-again, looking out for the safety of another. The tragedy and the irony here still strikes me, almost painfully. How someone who cared so deeply about creating safe streets could be so carelessly killed on them.

This city is callous and cruel. The feeling of inevitability, of anonymity and regret and abandoned buildings and empty pavement, hurts. Craig struggled against that, and we struggle too to honor him. A family member of another fallen cyclist once said that “we will never get over these losses.” It’s true. Like a shard of glass that the sea grinds smooth, it doesn’t go away, it just stops pricking. You go about your days, you learn to live with the sadness, and you only feel its strikingly solid presence at unexpected moments.

Craig’s death gave me a new perspective on the project, and an occasion to think about my involvement. I said, "In some ways, I feel like what Craig was trying to do with SafeWalk is what I want to see ghost bikes do: create a community of concern and support and get people to look out for each other. To recognize a problem as an epidemic, as a social issue, rather than an individual incident. In a broader sense, there is a way in which the two projects are infinitely knotted together." I don’t know if that’s really true, but for me, these two projects are inextricably linked. Safe streets might mean policy or design or enforcement or respect, but mostly, they mean all of us looking out for each other. They mean all of us acting more like Craig.

When I think about why I do this, or anything else, I think of joy and that hard tug of loss. This project, our words and stories, the shared grief and the strength we find in each other give us meaning just as they give Craig meaning. In that short time I knew Craig, I was able to observe a miracle of a human being who lived life to the gills, fully, freely, and joyfully. That’s what still inspires his friends and gives them strength. In every memory, every picture they have shared, I see repeated those words that Craig had tattooed on his body. They are a quiet reminder of how he lived, of why we live: Hug life. Be better.

www.craigmurphey.com
http://www.flickr.com/groups/craigmurphey
http://williamsboard.com/topic/48066/&r=235