“Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!” ~ Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman, 1860
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Caryn Cast, Chris (Robots Will Kill), Christian Penn, Fumero, Hugus, IMK, James Vance, Jenna Morello, Joao is Typing, Kosuke James, LeCrue Eyebrows, Luch, Mike Shine, Nandos Art, Ninth Wave Studio, Ottograph, Peachee Blue, Prez Arecta, Renek X, and VEW.
New York is gearing up for a deep freeze from the weather and Donald Trump’s inauguration this weekend. With 100 Executive Orders reportedly queued up for him to sign, the forecast for the next four years includes ACA repeals, immigration crackdowns, Medicaid cuts, trade wars, inflation spikes, elimination of laws that corporations find restrictive, and civil rights rollbacks. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the timing feels bitterly ironic. But hey, maybe it’ll be sunshine and puppies, and everyone who is worried is just overreacting. “Poorer Voters Flocked to Trump,” said the Financial Times, so perhaps those petrified of the next four years are misreading the situation.
Regardless of the outcome over the coming years, we’ll be tracking the creative spirit on the street, and we are thankful for your support, as always.
Meanwhile, the polar vortex is set to bring approximately six inches of snow to New York City, followed by dangerously low temperatures with wind chills making it feel like -15°F. Interestingly, some graffiti writers will tell you that is the best time to get up on walls, because nobody is watching, but then perhaps you might lose feelings in your toes and fingers because of the cold?
The West Chelsea Arts Building in Manhattan, a longtime hub for artists and galleries, is on the market for $170 million, raising concerns about potential rent hikes or evictions for its 200 tenants. Over the years, notable artists like Ross Bleckner, Louise Fishman, and Hiroshi Sugimoto have called it home. Affordable studio space is essential to New York’s creative identity, yet rising costs make it increasingly difficult for emerging artists to thrive here. Imagine if the City prioritized supporting artist spaces instead of leaving culture at the mercy of the real estate market.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring Stikman, Homesick, ERRE, Cody James, Hops Art, BK Ackler, Denis Ouch, Jenna Morello, WGE, QUES, Real Wrek, Kyle, AKSone, and 974MC.
Nobody was out Friday night when we went to see “Stop Making Sense” on the screen; the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn at 10 pm were rather lightly attended, possibly because everyone was recovering from a mid-week Halloween/Day of the Dead blast of drunkenness, revelry, laughter, and tears. Sometimes, even New York turns into a series of bedroom communities standing vertically.
The New York City Marathon is here today, with about 50,000 runners sprinting from Staten Island to Central Park, traversing neighborhoods, bridges, boroughs, and millions of spectators. It is two hours for the head of the pack – although it lasts all day, with some people still running/walking/rolling through the street when the sun sets. And, of course, it really lasts your entire life if you let yourself become engulfed by the human spectacle of it, which we often have and still sometimes do.
The world is still tense and angry and nervous and mournful about the events in the Middle East as we all feel like we have reached a never-before-seen turning point that is changing the world’s perception of that region and our roles in it. New York is showing signs of this stress as well.
Here is our weekly interview with the street: this week featuring City Kitty, Homesick, Modomatic, Eye Sticker, Michael Alan, Jenna Morello, OSK, Mue Bon, Keoni VGN, Salto, BH, BAKA, and Swed Oner.
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! Hello Friends! Lots of good new graffiti and street art and murals out there this week as the city was pausing for some fireworks – nearly every day including the official ones on Tuesday night. The illegal fireworks never completely go away, but they ebb and flow from year to year. The rotating sculpture of the Statue of Liberty that was made of drones really impressed the crowds of New Yorkers this year as they were waiting for the show on the 4th.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: finDAC, Jenna Morello, DepsOne, TomBoy NYC, Tom Bob, Hiroshi Masuda, Cale K29, Fel 3000 Ft, Edospac, Seb Bouchard, Quaker Pirate, GOAT, and Trasheer.
A community-fueled project in a small town in Upstate New York has the draw of Lady Pink, the well-known 1970s/80s NYC graffiti writer, who lends her art and name, and spearheaded the project.
Today we go outside our fair city for “Roses for Rosendale”, a town-sprucing initiative two hours north of NYC that just bloomed with a number of murals by artists whose names you’ll recognize like Shiro, Queen Andrea, Alice Mizrachi, Muck and others – along with some local talents.
On-the-spot veteran photojournalist Martha Cooper hopped the bus up there to catch the action and she reports that the heroes of the day were the many volunteers who assisted in every way to assure that the artists had what was needed to adorn many walls here.
“The rose murals were painted both on Rosendales’s charming vintage brick and clapboard buildings as well as on the shopfronts of a nearby strip mall,” the renowned graffiti and street art photographer Cooper tells us. “It was a sweet little festival in a non-urban location familiar to a lot of Brooklynites.” It is true that many New Yorkers, especially Brooklynites, escaped to this region in a huge wave along the Hudson River Valley after September 11th, and then again recently many city types ‘discovered’ this storied region after the Covid lockdowns chased them to find greener pastures.
“We have over 16 locations with over 35 volunteers painting,” says Lady Pink on her Instagram posting. “Professional and emerging artists, people who just wanted to help! Locals and artists from as far as Japan came to paint roses and beautify a town. It was a weeklong painting extravaganza that filled hearts with joy.”
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Abe Lincoln Jr., Alexis Diaz, Brian Alfred, Celso, City Kitty, Cranio, Deih XLF, Diva Dogla, Dog Byste, Fales, Gane, Jenna Morello, MTO, Pleks, Raf Urban, Slomo29, Spaint, Uriginal.
This one caught our eye for the merging of classic graffiti nerve, blunt style execution, sentimental velvety roses, inspirational verses, …Read More »
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
