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Pit Kirstein
Photos taken by Heather Halliday
Age: 30
Bike: GT fixed gear with stuffed Pooh Bear on handlebars
Years on the job: 5
Cities she had messengered in: Berlin, New York
She plays Klezmer music - Yiddish folk music - on the violin, has four rats,
keeps her hair some shade of orange and was once the snowboarding champion of
Berlin. She is thoughtful, fair minded and introspective.
"I studied several years to be a copy writer in advertising. I finished
studying and I first became a waitress because I thought nobody is complete
until he has waited in his life." But that job didn't last long. "I didn't
know what kind of fork and knife (to put where) so I got fired. I always
thought bike messengers were cool." So she got her first messengering job.
"I felt alive like I never had before. I started in October and Berlin has
very bad weather in October. It was raining and I was dirty. And it was OK,
that I was dirty."
Being on the streets of NYC keeps messengers in touch with the city be it the
awful nastiness or lively vibrancy of the mutitudes of people. Pit is quick
to recognize and learn from both ends of the spectrum.
On bad days, she commiserates, "I'm 30 years old, I'm am intelligent person,
I am sitting here dealing with these children (people with whom she works)
feeling like a third class person. I think, 'Man, I don't want to be treated
like that any more.' I don't want to get sent along the garbage cans into
the building, ya know, because we're not allowed in the lobby. Many times,
'Oh ya, you can go up, but you go outside, out of the lobby, past the garbage
cans...'"
"But when I'm feeling good, and I am confident, and my life goes well it's
the kind of job I chose. It teaches me something everyday, to be treated like
that. I always think it gives me something because I know that people get
treated like that all the time and it explains a lot."
On a personal note, she says, "I love it (messengering) because I was always
such a nice girl and I was always so smart and people always told me, 'Oh ya,
you will make a big career.' And fuck you, I'm out here and I'm dirty and I'm
riding my bike and I'm just as cool as the men are. Just to be out there. If
some people hear about a demonstration in the news at night, I've seen it."
And she sums up her joys of messengering saying, "Being dirty and not pretty,
getting to know that city and being out there with the world. (I enjoy)
dealing with people that I wouldn't haven't gotten know if I wasn't a
messenger. They didn't finish high school, never went to college, but who
have this basic wisdom, and many of them being much more precious to me, who
taught me more, than all these high tech people."
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