The Harlem Neighborhood Block Association

Neighbors united to improve the quality of life in Harlem

Tag: Art Exhibition

Wards Island Sewage Treatment Site

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Completed in 1937, the Wards Island Sewage Treatment plant was the first to use the activated sludge process to treat sewage by removing solid matter, known as sludge, to leave behind clean water that could be released back into the environment. Prior to this only a fraction of the city’s sewage received treatment. Instead, most spilled from sewers directly into surrounding waterways where it strangled marine life and polluted city beaches. The project was realized with more than $11 million in grant monies from the Works Progress Administration. By 1939, both the Bowery Bay and Tallman Island sewage treatment plants were also in operation with more being planned. Today 14 Wastewater Resource Recovery Facilities treat over 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater every single day and New York City’s waterways are cleaner than ever.

Below is a photo of the sewage treatment plant in 1950.

The area to the north, where the FDNY training facility now exists, was a marshy peninsula, sticking out towards the Bronx.

Here is an image of this plant being build during the New Deal 1930s:

And the completed Administration building:

New Uptown Gallery and Exhibition

Be sure to check-out the AHL Foundation’s new gallery in Harlem (on FDB at 139). Their inaugural exhibition features Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio and Dianne Smith and is well worth visiting.

The exquisite drawings and digital art by Buhm Hong is mesmerizing and somehow both calming and disquieting at the same time.

https://www.ahlfoundation.org/ahl-foundation-announces-opening-of-new-gallery-in-west-harlem-in-april-2022-inaugural-exhibition-featuring-buhm-hong-gyun-hur-devin-osorio-and-dianne-smith/

New York, NY – AHL Foundation is proud to announce the opening of its first gallery in West Harlem in April 2022. The wheelchair-accessible gallery is located on the ground floor 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY with a basement space for additional programming. The new space houses the Archive of Korean Artists in America (AKAA) and an educational space for the community.

Following AHL Foundation’s move to Harlem after its 19 year history, it is fitting that this inaugural exhibition in the new space uptown responds to its new neighborhood. Guest curated by Amy Kahng, the inaugural exhibition, Space Uptown opens to the public on April 30, 3-6pm and is on view until May 21, 2022.

An exhibition about locality and neighborhood history, the exhibition features artistic practices that reflect the local neighborhood. Participating artists Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio, and Dianne Smith, three of whom live and work in upper Manhattan, consider the communities, histories, memories, and environments that make up Harlem and Upper Manhattan more broadly.

Dianne Smith’s dynamic video work, The House of Lois K. Alexander-Lane, celebrates Harlem’s Black cultural history by weaving together footage from Smith’s participation as a young model in the 1985-1989 iterations of Harlem Fashion Week. Buhm Hong’s intricate and labyrinthine architectural designs, rendered both digitally and on paper, draw on various architectural references from his personal biography including his current homebase in Harlem. Devin Osorio’s fantastical paintings and sculptural works document his neighborhood of Washington Heights, highlighting the quotidian experiences of community, work, commuting, and familial connections. The twelve teardrop vessels filled with Hudson and Harlem River water by Gyun Hur reflect on loss, commemoration, and memory, particularly for the victims of the 2021 Atlanta Spa shooting. Installed here in Harlem, Hur’s work takes on new resonances within the current and historical movements for racial justice that have taken place in this neighborhood.

Asthma Prevalence – Adults

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How Calculated: Estimated number of adults aged 18 years and older who reported medically diagnosed asthma with symptoms in the last 12 months, divided by all adults and adjusted for age; expressed as percent.

Source: New York City Community Health Survey (CHS)

Asthma Prevalence – Children ever diagnosed with asthma (ages 0-13 years)

How Calculated: 

Estimated number of children ages 0-13 years who were ever diagnosed with asthma, divided by all children of the same ages, expressed as a percent. 

Source: NYC KIDS Survey

En Foco: Deep Roots

En Foco has a wonderful exhibition of a powerful collection of work from Harlem artists. The exhibit runs until August 19th:

Deep Roots, curated by Lisa Dubois, featuring photographers Samantha Box, Burroughs Lamar, Carmen Lizardo, Richard Louissaint, and Joana Toro, includes visual narratives that poignantly connect the artists with their beloved heritage, past and present. The photo essays explore themes of history, survival, and tradition; depicting the various ways each photographer has retained the customs and culture of their birthplace in their adopted land.

See: https://enfoco.org/deeproots/

Black Man Magic Art Exhibit

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The Underground Gallery and Studio at 2508 ACP is currently showing Black Man Magic.

Mulching Tree Pits in East Harlem

If you can, pick up a bag or two of mulch sometime and spread it on a nearby tree pit (after removing any trash) to help the tree with nutrients, and water retention.

Not only does it help the tree, it also shows your neighborhood that this tree is cared for.

(It looks great too)

Long Gallery Harlem

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Make the time to visit the Long Gallery Harlem (2073 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr Blvd.) before the current (fantastic) show closes on August 14th

(Make sure to check hours and call ahead):

https://www.long.gallery/

INTERIOR DIALOGUE is an exhibition about social perspectives through the lens of the artist’s personal life experience.  The works are engaged in the active centering of the artists’ intersectional identities through the critical lens of decoration and ornament. This work explores how aesthetics often buttress systems of appropriation, oppression, and erasure. Norsworthy asserts that aesthetics are often used as a vehicle to justify the commodification of cultures and, by proxy, communities.

The exhibition is couched within a created environment that interrogates ‘Whiteness.’ The white-box space is defined by Norsworthy’s latest wallpaper work, Blackity (2021), and a series of objects that traverse function, decoration, and art object. The exhibition is held together with six tondos, each depicting an antique European vessel. Images of these ceramic artifacts were sourced from online and estate auctions. The vases are centered in the round space, and each sit atop a surface situated against a highly decorative backdrop.  Although the vases appear to be depictions of beauty and decoration, they function on another level as symbolic representations of the artist. 

The three planes in each tondo (the vase, the surface, and the background) conceptually evoke ways of understanding foregrounding identity within larger conversations of intersectionality. The hierarchy of these planes, vis-a-vis weight and importance, shift between the six tondos; with each acting as a different visual strategy that describes the interplay of object and background. The objecthood of the central object holds power, but is also at the whim of the space within which it is placed. 

For Norsworthy, the process of creating these circular works was an exercise in identity-centered space-making, an idea that pivots the idea of ‘ownership’ from other to self. The titles of the works speak to this contemplation:  The parenthetical titles, Lot #1, Lot #2, etc. play with the idea of commodification, creating a double entendre of the contemporary auction market while also evoking the violent history of the ‘auction block’ and the repercussions from Antebellum America that still reverberate today. 

Governor Cuomo Gives $11,000,000 to Build Supportive Housing for Formerly Incarcerated or Mentally Challenged Homeless Men and Women

Bishop’s House on West 128th Street (east of Lenox) will be demolished and a 9 story building for supportive housing will be built.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that the state would provide nearly $11 million in funding toward two new supportive housing developments in Upper Manhattan.

Through the state’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program, the funding will help provide 71 supportive housing units at Bishop House Apartments in Central Harlem, operated by the nonprofit The Bridge, as well as 56 additional units at the Jericho House in Harlem.

Unlike standard homeless shelter units, supportive housing units primarily serve homeless residents with other issues, from recent incarceration to mental health conditions — offering an array of services designed to provide residents with the necessities to lead stable lives off the streets.

See: https://www.amny.com/news/cuomo-providing-11-million-toward-nyc-supportive-housing-homeless/

And:

Permits Filed for 39 West 128th Street in Harlem, Manhattan

Art At Collyer Brothers’ Park

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Make sure to walk by 128th Street and 5th Avenue to check out the artwork on the fence of the Collyer Brothers’ Park:

Artist Julio Valdez’s work (collectively titled: I Can’t Breathe) is a response to the murder of Black Americans at the hands of the police.

Julio Valdez is a former artist in residence at The Studio Museum of Harlem.

To learn more about the park and its creation, see:

https://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/historical-signs/listings?id=7845

The Firetower

Vote for Love

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Census Data from 1661: Multicultural and Multilinguistic Dutch New Haarlem

The first European colonists to arrive and settle in Harlem were strikingly diverse. The Dutch West Indies company that settled the village that would become New York City, focused on the robust accumulation of wealth as a primary objective and not on a monocultural populace. The earliest record of Harlem residents shows a variety of ethnic origins:

French

  • Daniel Tourneur
  • Jean Le Roy
  • Pierre Cresson
  • Jaques Cresson
  • Philippe Casier
  • David Uzille
  • Jacques Cousseau
  • Philippe Presto
  • Francois Le Sueur
  • Michel Zyperus
  • Jan Sneden

Walloon (Belgian)

  • Simon De Ruine
  • David Du Four
  • Jean Gervoe
  • Jan De Pre

Dutch

  • Dirck Claessen
  • Michiel Janse Muyden
  • Lubbert Gerritsen
  • Meyndert Coerten
  • Aert Pietersen Buys
  • Sigismundus Lucas

Danish

  • Jan Pietersen Slot
  • Nicolaes De Meyer
  • Jan Laurens Duyts
  • Jacob Elderts Brouwer

Swedish

  • Nelis Matthyssen
  • Monis Peterson Staeck
  • Jan Cogu

German

  • Adolph Meyer
  • Adam Dericksen
  • Hendrick Karstens

This list, of course, only itemizes white, European men. Children, women, Indigenous People, and African slaves, were not included in this 1661 census.

Jacob Lawrence Panel Discovered

Our neighbor’s blog: https://gothamtogo.com/the-met-discovered-a-missing-jacob-lawrence/ alerted me to this important mid-century Harlem artist and the stunning discovery of a ‘lost’ painting of his:

The Met announced the discovery of a painting by esteemed American artist Jacob Lawrence that has been missing for decades. The panel is one of 30 that comprise Lawrence’s powerful epic, Struggle: From the History of the American People (1954–56), and it will be reunited immediately with the series, now on view at The Met through November 1 in Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle. Titled by the artist There are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to. —Washington, 26 December 1786, the work depicts Shays’ Rebellion, the consequential uprising of struggling farmers in western Massachusetts led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays; it protested the state’s heavy taxation and spurred the writing of the U.S. Constitution and efforts to strengthen federal power. The panel is number 16 in the Struggle series.

The painting has not been seen publicly since 1960, when the current owners purchased it at a local charity art auction. A recent visitor to The Met’s exhibition, who knew of the existence of an artwork by Lawrence that had been in a neighbor’s collection for years, suspected that the painting might belong to the Struggle series and encouraged the owners to contact the Museum.

The work will be specially featured at The Met and will also join the touring exhibition, organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), for presentations in Birmingham, Alabama; Seattle, Washington; and Washington, D.C., through next fall.

Harlem Quilts Project

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“The Harlem Quilts” series stems from the idea that quilts were displayed and used as code to mark the escape routes for the Underground Railroad. 

Curated by Eileen Jeng-Lynch, Art Off-Screen is an international exhibition of artwork placed in outdoor locations so that the work can viewed by the community. Art off-screen provides access to art beyond a computer screen, inspiring creativity, amplifying voices, encouraging change, and sharing messages of hope and healing.
​

Artist Vladimir Cybil Charlier created “The Harlem Quilts” which are displayed in the neighborhood. They are inspired by the stories that quilts used codes to mark the escape routes for the Underground Railroad. The quilts display two images: The North Star which shines every night above Marcus Garvey Park and which symbolizes hope and the path to a better life and a portrait of a member of the household (pets included) where they will be displayed.

For more information visit: neumeraki.com and vladimircybil.com

​Locations of Art:
​(September 26th – October 10th, 2020)
​1 & 2) 124th street between 5th and Madison (2 houses, window display) 
3) 5th Avenue between 124th and 125th Street (East side of street, window display) 
4) 123rd Street between Mount Morris Park West and Lenox Avenue ​(North side of Street, display under tree in front of Apt Building)
5) Williamson Community Garden, 128th and 129th Street between 5th and Madison Avenues
6) 135th Street between 5th and Lenox Avenues (private building community display)
7) 137th Street between Lenox Avenue and Lenox Terrace (Window showing/building)
8) 94th Street between Columbus and Central Park West (Lobby of building showing)
9) 3rd Avenue between 109th & 110th Street (Private showing)
10) 94th Street between Columbus and Central Park West (Lobby of building showing)

Sculpture Exhibit on West 132nd Street

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A new exhibition of sculpture in a community garden is opening today. Take a mask and walk on over to the gorgeous West 132nd Street Block Association’s Community Garden.

4 international artists have created works that celebrate the theme of ‘Encircle’ and ‘Sanctuary’. All are welcome. Friday + Saturdays, 3:00 – 6:00 PM until October 3rd.