Virtual Exhibitions

Yesterday we moved a very old bicycle from the second floorto the first.  It was the type of bicyclebuilt in the late 1800s with an extraordinarily large front wheel and a very tiny back one.  Needless to say, this made the entire thing rather unwieldy, particularly because we couldn’t simply roll it.  It has about half of each of its tires left, and over the years they have turned red and started falling apart.  That and its not considered proper museum procedure to go pushing artifacts that are over 100 years old around the building, even if their tires are intact. 

So, after freeing the bicycle from its restraints (it had been tied, with wire, both to the base that it was sitting on and to a plastic bar that was attached to the wall) we lifted it onto a dolly cart.  It took three of us, two holding onto the bicycle to keep it from falling over or rolling away and one guiding the dolly, to get it down stairs.  Once we were onthe first floor we had to make sure it was set up safely down there.  We drilled three plastic bars into the walland carefully tied the bicycle up so that it could stand safely on its own.  I’m pretty sure that this was a once in a lifetime experience.