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.

Star sightings and political passions: NYC trip, post 1

As a teacher here in Barcelona, I generally get holidays around the same time as schools and universities. One of the more important ones is the Holy Week break, which is basically spring break, culminating in Easter. This year I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and book a short trip to my old stomping ground, New York City. I had a few bureaucratic issues to take care of, but I was also quite interested in rediscovering and reconnecting with the place I had called home for so long. My departure from NYC predates my interest in street art, so exploring the streets of Gotham became one of my main objectives. I was able to snap nearly 800 shots, way too much to put into a single post.

Instead, I’ll be spreading it out over a series of posts.

This first one will be rather small, and just a small teaser.

These first shots of the late Amy Winehouse and the great Jerry Seinfeld were both found on the same East Village alleyway, while the larger than life mural in memory of David Bowie was found on Kenmare Street, on the Lower East Side.These photos are quite special to me as they highlight one of the peculiarities of living in New York: the possibility of seeing some of the most famous faces in the world going about their daily business. Any true New Yorker, outwardly, wouldn’t bat an eye at sharing an aisle at Whole Foods with Madonna, but of course we all notice, and tell our friends about it later. I suspect with the advent of mobile technology some will even dare a discreet photo.

The other three photos are also quite significant as they are two political figures which have managed to inspire more passion and engaged more people politically than I can remember. The figures are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Both very different ideologically, but equally passion-inspiring to their followers (and detractors). Which one do I prefer? Shouldn’t be too difficult to guess…

PS: check the captions for locations

Artist credits:

Amy Winehouse and Jerry Seinfeld by SacSix

Trump the turd by hansky

David Bowie the graffiti room

Near Suffok and Rivington

Kenmare and Mott Sts

Freeman Alley, off Rivington

Freeman Alley off Rivington

Orchard off Canal