A perhaps-unanticipated use for a New York City public bicycle rack, a piece of public infrastructure designed to help secure citizens’ private forms of two-wheeled transportation. 

But what if the thing that you want to secure, and which is also inconvenient to carry around with you and/or disallowed from being carried inside, is not a bicycle? What if it isn’t even a mode of transportation? Is this use “wrong” to you, and why/not?

I’m assuming this practice is to save someone(s) the burden of having to carry tables and chairs from their homes to a place they routinely come and relax or sell their goods (maybe even in the adjacent High Line park), but I didn’t have the chance to observe long enough to be certain.

All I know for sure is that this practice has been going on at least since the end of 2017 (according to Google Street View).