City removes mysterious cyclist installation on Maple Street Bridge column

On Halloween, during a holiday block party in the often sleepy riverside neighborhood of Peaceful Valley, Aaron Brown looked up and saw a woman riding her bike.

Except she was hanging stationary about 15 feet up in the air, riding vertically along a concrete column holding up the Maple Street Bridge. She was strapped to it with a rope and steel cable. The art installation, a mannequin donning a scarf and skirt and equipped with a helmet decorated with a peace symbol, her basket filled with wildflowers, quickly became a reason for Brown and other residents to look up as they passed under the bridge at the Clark Avenue cul-de-sac.

“Yes, absolutely, it added something to the neighborhood,” Brown said.

Though the cyclist has hung from the bridge column for at least seven weeks, the Spokane city administration only learned of the statue earlier this week when The Spokesman-Review reached out to officials to see if the installation was officially sanctioned or if the artist’s identity was known.

“Crews are going to fit removing the unauthorized display into their normal maintenance activities,” city Public Works Communications Manager Kirstin Davis wrote in a Wednesday email.

“While we appreciate the sentiment of the piece, it is not appropriate for the public to alter or attach things to City infrastructure, facilities, or equipment without prior planning and approval,” Davis wrote.

By Thursday, the cyclist was gone, disappearing with as little fanfare as when she first appeared. Davis wrote in a Thursday evening text message that removal had been on the bridge crew’s list of projects for the morning.

She’s already missed by some who live nearby, including Julius DeFour, who lives just across the street from where the cyclist was installed.

“I think it’s fun when something makes you pause and look up like that,” DeFour said. “It’s surprising, it’s fun art.”

DeFour wasn’t surprised that the city had wanted to remove the installation but takes a different view on guerrilla art and the friction it often creates with authorities.

“I grew up on hip-hop, and graffiti is one of the four elements, right?” he asked. “I mean, I get that if the statue or the fixture fell on someone, but I think that whoever’s doing it is being thoughtful in that way. It seems like they know what they’re doing.”

Several neighborhood residents believe the artist is the same person behind the blue bike placed improbably on top of a concrete pylon in the middle of the Spokane River near People’s Park, located on the far edge of the Peaceful Valley neighborhood. That bicycle has mystified passerby since the summer of 2022 when it appeared. While it is also unsanctioned art, it’s difficult-to-reach location has stymied efforts by the city to remove it, Davis wrote.

“The location is problematic because it’s in the middle of the river and our normal maintenance equipment would not be able to make that happen,” Davis wrote.

As for the now-confiscated cyclist, Brown said she had been a welcome part of the neighborhood during her short stay.

“I don’t know if everybody loved it, but everyone at the block party, at least, seemed to like that she was there,” Brown said.