Since 1997, Nuri and Michael Wernick have been the sole proprietors and creators of Rising Wolf Motorcycle Parking Garage, located in the East Village in NYC. Both Nuri and Michael are avid motorcycle enthusiasts who turned their passion of motorcycling into a business. Ironically, they met because Nuri sold Michael a new motorcycle when she was managing a motorcycle dealership. After many years of parking their bikes on city streets, they would walk around and ask themselves, why isn’t anyone addressing the needs of the motorcycle owner, where one could park and work on their bike indoors?
To fill this void, the Wernicks purchased an existing garage and transformed it into an exclusive motorcycle parking facility. They wanted to create a friendly, secure, and congenial atmosphere where like-minded people could share tech-tips, help one another wrench, and gather for group rides.
Michael and Nuri Wernick have been married for 27 years and in that time not only built the first motorcycle garage in New Yorks Cities central metropolis, but have built a life that goes beyond the expectations of any one individual or couple. Their story is one of enduring love for one another and a city that has experience both tragedy and triumph like no other American city in the last 20 years. It is about community, travel and their passion for the two-wheeled machine and the community that surrounds it.
Honoring the memory of Firefighters of 9/11 through the restoration of a 1979 Honda.
Several weeks before Sept 11, 2001, Firefighter Gerard Baptiste, FDNY Ladder Company 9, purchased a battered unrideable ratty 1979 Honda CB750 with the hope of restoring it and learning how to ride. He fell in love with the simple classic lines. With no knowledge of motorcycling, his fellow colleagues joked that he would not be able to get the bike running. Upon Gerard’s tragic 9/11 death, Michael and Nuri and a host of others decided to restore the bike in his honor and memory and make the dream bike a reality. After numerous chain of events, the motorcycle became transformed from a ‘bike of healing’ known today as ‘The Dream Bike”. Through tremendous perseverance from Nuri, and being widely received from the public, the “Dream Bike” has been in several museums, TV, movies, magazines, Rockefeller Center, Arizona film festival and finally rests today in it’s rightful home and is forever on display at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in NYC.