When the sports of the rich and middling classes intruded on the poor, they could make social tensions manifest. Cycling, which became immensely popular in the 1890s, was one of the few sports open to both women and men, but it was always a middle- and upper-class preoccupation. Six-day bicycle races at Madison Square Garden attracted working-class spectators, but because it demanded the purchase of a bicycle and a place to ride it, cycling largely excluded the urban poor, black and white. When urban cyclists rode to work on Wall Street, crossing through immigrant neighborhoods, they annoyed
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