First street green, an art park in the East Village

For this month’s second entry, I’ve decided to once again cross the pond, and highlight one of my favourite stops when in NYC. These photos are from the First Street Green Art Park, which as the name suggests is on East first street, near Houston (pronounced HOWS-ton), just on the border with the Lower East Side. It’s a community effort, and features new art nearly every time I visit. I enjoy this space, because many of the murals, in addition to being quite beautiful, also convey positive, optimistic messages. Something in short supply these days. There aren’t too many concentrated spots for street art in this part of the city; it is plentiful, but scattered. Here is the space’s twitter account, so you can keep up with any goings-on.

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June in Manhattan

These shots come from my (now) annual trip to the US just before and after Memorial Day, in which I spend about 7 of those days roaming NYC in search of anything interesting that may have popped up since my last visit during the subzero cold snap at the end of December. New York never disappoints, and I found some fantastic street art. In fact, I’ll have to divide the post into three parts: Manhattan, Jersey City, and Brooklyn.

The photos in this entry come mostly from the Lower East Side and East Village, though there are a few shots from Harlem as well.

Manhattan street art tour: NYC trip post 2

Post number two of my NYC trip is dedicated to the street art tour I decided to take on a chilly Saturday morning. The tour was run by an outfit called Free Tours By Foot, and they run tours on all different types of themes in cities all over.

It definitely felt a bit odd, to be walking with a tour group in a city which I had called home for so many years. But considering that my interest in street art didn’t start until well after I had left NYC, it was a really great way see the city for the first time. The tour guide was a great source of information, being an artist himself, and put a lot of time and research to make the tour as educational as possible. I definitely learned a lot, and don’t feel quite so much as a layman as I did before.

The tour took us through SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, and scraped the Lower East Side, all areas which were a part of my regular stomping grounds when I lived there, so it was a great experience to see such familiar streets from a different point of view. The tour finishes off on Mulberry street in the slightly tacky heart of Little Italy, so I didn’t linger around for too long. Though I couldn’t resist grabbing a cannoli before moving on.

Needless to say, I definitely recommend this tour next time you’re in NYC. There are also tours of Bushwick, Astoria, and Williamsburg available. Here’s the link.