On the city sidewalk in front of our Manhattan building, there is a small, u-shaped bicycle rack that our condo put up years ago (or perhaps had the city put up at our request) so that deliverypeople don't chain their bikes to our building's metal fence. (We don't have a doorman.)

Yet people -- both from our building and, evidently, elsewhere -- leave bikes locked there for days or weeks at a time. Sometimes we'll even find just a bicycle frame without wheels. Our on-site managing agent, who works for one of the biggest management companies in the country, says there's nothing he can do. He says city law allows bikes to be locked there overnight, night after night, and that if we remove them the condo can be fined.

In the meantime, deliverypeople who legitimately need to use the rack have to use the metal fence instead -- and our manager says restaurants with deliverypeople who do so won't be allowed to deliver to our building. That seems to penalize condo-owners who have nothing to do with these derelict bikes.

Is there nothing we can do? Must we have derelict bikes and ugly abandoned frames in front of our building, preventing deliverypeople or bike-riding visitors from using the rack? And what about penalizing condo-owners because of that? Does anyone have any suggestions?