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.

Advertisement

Paral·lel, celebrity tributes in Raval, and a gritty garden

Today’s shots come from the free walls at Tres Xemeneies, near Avinguda Paral·lel, some random wanderings through the neighbouring Raval, and a new location (at least for me): the Jardins de Walter Benjamin, which are just near the Port, and mark the last frontier before the city gives way to Montjuic Park. As suggested in the title, the “gardens” themselves are nothing to marvel at, but the walls, which separate them from the playground of a local school, are the main attraction.

The Raval was full of tributes to famous faces, among them Debbie Harry, Kafka, Dennis Rodman, the late Prince, Jesus Christ (by artist sm172), and Football Club Barcelona’s favourite tax-dodging wunderkind, Neymar Jr.

As my geo-tagging feature on my camera app has become a bit unpredictable with the latest android update, my locations aren’t quite a precise as before. That said, a good wander round the Raval/Poble Sec area does a body good!

 

Back to the neighbourhood: zombie tourists,paste-ups and killer popsicles

For my second May post (which is actually hitting in June) I’ve decided to return to Gràcia, as I haven’t posted much from the surrounding area lately. Most of these shots come from strolls around the vila over the last three or four weeks. As suggested in the title, one of the more interesting ones is a portrait of tourists as paella-wielding, selfie-sticked zombie hordes who come to invade our quiet little neighbourhood nearly year-round. This sentiment can be seen in occasional graffiti which read “tourists go home”. As a foreigner who first came as a tourist, I’m a bit torn; while I recognize that tourism is vital to our local economy, and that a good majority of tourists are well-behaved and civilized, I also know as a resident what a putada it can be having the area so constantly crowded. On balance, I’m in favour of tourism, but I think that we need to start moving toward a more sustainable model. This is what the current city administration (in theory) is going for–a city planned and built for its residents, but also welcoming for tourists. A difficult happy medium to achieve, but a noble objective, in my humble opinion.

The other shots are rather random and generally political in nature, along with some anthropomorphized popsicles from konair, and some paste ups which have been appearing with increasing frequency.

With or without the love?

On the right side is a stenciled image I had found toward the beginning of my collecting career, hence the poor color quality, etc. I liked the goggles, reminded me of some post-punk performance video I saw in college, people beating on metal, machinery, with chains hanging everywhere. I think there might have been sparks or some minor pyrotechnics, but the goggles were mostly for effect. They may have been wearing one of those thick aprons that machinists wear also. Anyway, the image on the left was the same stencil but at a different location. This one has been retouched with the crown and a bit of love, which I think comes courtesy of artist tmnk, who we’ve seen here and here. So ignoring the poor quality of the right side image, is the goggled guy better with or without the touch of love?

Famous sneer

This is a stencil of a famous photo of Sid Vicious. I’ve been having trouble finding the original source. The photo can be found on the cover of Mojo magazine, but from 2005, 26 years after Sid died.

BCNeta

This graphic is a tribute to the police action by the Mossos d’Esquadra anti-riot squad when they brutally broke up the 15 May movement protesters in Plaça Catalunya. It was called a cleanup, which is why the caption is BCNeta, the municipal cleaning crews. In case you missed it, the police action is here.

Profile Sunny day, Siesta

From the look of this guys hair and the reflection on his sunglasses, it looks like he’s decided to go out during the hours of 14.00-18.00, when the streets of Spain are a ghost town.

Swing swing

I wonder what song they’re dancing to…

Simplicity

The true beauty in this image is its black and white simplicity. When I was younger my parents only had a small balck and white tv, and looking back on what I can recall of that time, the memories of tv are in color, as if my mind automatically colorized the programs for me.

Ziggy Stardust

Screwed down hairdo…