Three Bridges Walk-Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg

Last November I joined a group meet-up to walk across the three bridges that connect Manhattan and Brooklyn. Often referred to as BMW, the three bridges are the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and Williamsburg Bridge. Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges are near each other while Williamsburg is a little bit further. You can see the bridges in this photo I took while riding the ferry to Governors Island last year, even if only the towers of Williamsburg is visible.

The group met at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station subway stop which is right across the pedestrian entrance of the bridge. I previously wrote about walking across Brooklyn Bridge. It's always great to walk across the bridge, even if it was slightly raining when we started our walk that day.

There are a lot of love locks on the bridge. I like the colored ones with the names printed, sometimes some of them even have designs of the bridge on the locks.

A close-up of the bridge's overhead cable wires doesn't show the repair works being done which is expected to last until middle of this year. The cable wires always make a great picture of the Brooklyn Bridge.

As we neared the exit on the Brooklyn side, I saw this sweet sign.

After reaching Brooklyn, we walked just a few blocks to start the walk on our second bridge for the day, the Manhattan Bridge. Its pedestrian walkway has great views of the Brooklyn Bridge. I could see the whole bridge and a very foggy lower Manhattan.

This was my view looking up at one of the towers of Manhattan Bridge.

There are lots of graffiti on Manhattan Bridge. I could not even read the bridge data and names of those involve in the building of the bridge as the marker is full of graffiti.

 

As we neared the Manhattan side of the bridge, I could see more graffiti on many of the buildings in the Two Bridges neighborhood.

Soon we reached the Manhattan end of the bridge which is marked by the Manhattan Bridge Arch and Colonnade.

In 1910, a year after the bridge opened, the architectural firm Carrère and Hastings drew up preliminary plans for an elaborate grand entry to the bridge on the Manhattan side, as part of the "City Beautiful" movement. Construction began that year, and plans were finalized in 1912. The arch and colonnade were completed in 1915. The decoration includes pylons which were sculpted by Carl A. Heber and a frieze called "Buffalo Hunt" by Charles Rumsey.

That Manhattan end is in Chinatown. We walked several blocks in the neighborhood to get to the Williamsburg Bridge pedestrian entrance which is in Clinton and Delancey Streets. Along the way we passed by many of its business establishments and also its fire department, the Chinatown Dragon Fighters.

We also passed by and stopped at Seward Park as some wanted to use the restroom facilities. A short walk around the park perimeter led me to a statue of Togo, the lead sled dog of Leonhard Seppala and his dog sled team in the 1925 serum run to Nome across central and northern Alaska.

Then we were on our way to the Manhattan entrance of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Here's the group walking in the light rain across the bridge.

Looking up from pedestrian walkway, I saw one of the bridge's towers.

There are also a lot of street art as we neared the Williamsburg end of the bridge. I like this American flag formed with car doors. Very original!

We also passed by this huge mural by twin brothers How & Nosm.

Our walk ended at the Brooklyn Flea Market where we bought lunch. Upon arriving, I saw this huge artwork Queen Mother of Reality by Pawel Althamer.

The Brooklyn Flea is located inside the East River State Park which has great views of Manhattan, especially on clear days. However, by the time we arrived rain has fallen steadily and the fog over Manhattan has thickened. When I look across the East River, some of the buildings were no longer visible.

After lunch I bade my leave from the group and boarded the East River ferry to go to Brooklyn Bridge Park. The ferry ride gave me a great view of the Williamsburg Bridge.

When I got to Brooklyn Bridge Park, lower Manhattan looked hauntingly beautiful covered in fog.

It wasn't as foggy in Brooklyn looking at the Watchtower building.  I can still see the numbers on the LED clock.

I walked a little bit at the park and when I looked out the New York harbor, Lady Liberty was a very faint outline in the thick fog.

I proceeded at the back of the park's Pier 1 to walk across the Squibb Park Bridge, which opened in March 2013.

If you walk across Squibb Park Bridge, you may notice a little bounce in your step. The bridge was designed with trail bridge technology and is meant to be lightweight and flexible like the trail bridges in our state and national parks. So whether you’re a first timer or returning visitor of the Squibb Park Bridge, expect an extra pep in your step and know that this is completely normal and part of the design. 

The bridge offers a great view of lower Manhattan, as well as the beautiful vegetation of the park.

I could also see more construction work going on. I know when all the work is done, Brooklyn Bridge Park will be one of the city's best parks.

I finally made my way back to Pier 1, lower Manhattan was still shrouded in fog,

I also dropped by the area at the park where visitors often leave love locks.

Then it was time to head home. One last look at the park near Jane's Carousel with Manhattan still covered with heavy fog.

It was also foggy at Manhattan Bridge, to think we were just walking there earlier.

At the start of our walk across Manhattan Bridge, I saw artwork along some of the walls and promised myself to look into it. I learned that the artwork are part of Dumbo Walls.

Using brick walls as canvas, international artists transform DUMBO’s streetscape with works by CAM, DALeast, Eltono, Shepard Fairey, Faith47, MOMO, Stefan Sagmeister, and Yuko Shimizu. - See more at: http://dumbo.is/itineraries/667#sthash.MP1x9SSP.dpuf

The DUMBO Improvement District has teamed up with Two Trees Management to bring art to the blank brick walls underneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called "DUMBO Walls", the installation brings eight world-renowned artists to the Kingsborough, transforming disused space into an outdoor gallery.

Artists CAM, MOMO, Stefan Sagmesiter, Yuko Shizimu, Shepard Fairey, Eltono, and Faith 47 added their signature styles to the walls with colorful, semi-permanent murals. Visitors can marvel at the outdoor art exhibition, which traverses the walkway near the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Each of the eight murals signify the debut of the DUMBO Walls project, which hopes to transform other areas in DUMBO into an open air exhibition space.

I like the owls at the Bar and Grill Park by CAM.

And the reindeer by DALeast at the BQE Underpass on Pearl Street.

All of the murals are really good, I've placed the photos in a separate album on Flickr - Dumbo Walls

That was a great walk even if it was raining and foggy. 

This is just a rough illustration of the paths we took on the Three Bridges walk but I'm posting this map to give you an idea where I walked that day.

For the rest of my photos, here are the albums on Flickr:

Three Bridges Walk

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Dumbo Walls

DALeast

Pearl Street (BQE Underpass)

sing brick walls as canvas, international artists transform DUMBO’s streetscape with works by CAM, DALeast, Eltono, Shepard Fairey, Faith47, MOMO, Stefan Sagmeister, and Yuko Shimizu. - See more at: http://dumbo.is/itineraries/667#sthash.MP1x9SSP.dpuf

Using brick walls as canvas, international artists transform DUMBO’s streetscape with works by CAM, DALeast, Eltono, Shepard Fairey, Faith47, MOMO, Stefan Sagmeister, and Yuko Shimizu. - See more at: http://dumbo.is/itineraries/667#sthash.MP1x9SSP.dpuf

Better Out Than In: Banksy in NYC

Last month, the elusive British street artist known as Banksy was all over New York City for a month long "residency". For each day during the month of October, he created a new installation on the streets, in trucks and even in cyberspace and announced the appearance of the new piece on his website and instagram account, which also included the general location of the piece.

Banksy called his project Better Out Than In. The header on his website included a hashtag, #banksyny, and a Paul Cézanne quote: "All pictures painted inside, in the studio, will never be as good as those done outside."

On October 1, Banksy's first work for the project showed up in Chinatown. He captioned this "the street is in play", it depicted a child reaching for a bottle of spray paint on a sign reading "Graffiti is a crime". The sign was stolen and later replaced by Queens-based graffiti group Smart Crew with a new sign that read "Street art is a crime".  However, the following day, the stencil has already been painted over.

Since most of my free times are during the weekends, the first Banksy piece I managed to take a picture of was his Day 3 work in midtown Manhattan. I took the pic two days after this was posted and there were already a lot of tags on the piece. At least, it hasn't been painted over yet.

I didn't get the chance to take any picture of Banksy's works the following weekend as I was busy with Open House New York, and by the time I got the chance to go where the piece was, either it has been tagged, painted over or removed by the building owner. This article from Gothamist shows the project in chronological order so you'll know what I missed those first two weeks. I had better luck during the second half of the month.

Day 14 was a man erasing the end of a quote from the movie Gladiator and was located in Woodside, Queens. As I was going in that area that day, I was able to take a pic before it was defaced later that night.

Banksy also made a comment on his website after posting this piece. 

"Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from 'Gladiator') but you know what? "I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker" as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor."

The following day, Day 15 was a 9/11 Tribute in Tribeca. The piece was on Staple Street and by the time I got there, a sizable crowd was busy taking pictures.

Somebody even left a bouquet of flowers in front of the stencil art. Here's a larger view of the area, the wall of the building is also full of graffiti.

Day 16 was a traveling Ronald McDonald statue, complete with a barefooted shoeshine boy. Banksy noted on his website that the sculpture will visit the sidewalk outside a different McDonalds every lunchtime for the next week. I never did get to see this.

While a lot of Banky's fans were excited to see his daily work, some people have expressed strong disapproval at his graffiti tactics. And, unless a building owner files a complaint, the police wouldn't look for the elusive artist. This did not stop the New York Post from posting the headline “GET BANKSY!” on their October 17 edition. An accompanying story claimed police were “going all out” to find Banksy, and quoted unnamed law enforcement sources who said police wanted to arrest the artist and charge him with vandalism. Banksy posted a copy of the newspaper on his website and the message: "I don't read what I believe in the papers." 

That New York Post edition made a great accessory to the Day 17 piece, which was located in Williamsburg.

Many pointed out that the piece, two geishas and what seems to me was an ikebana plant, seems to be inspired by Kara Walker's work. By the time I arrived at the site, the geishas were already covered in plexiglass to protect it from being tagged or defaced, as somebody tried to do earlier.

Friday, Day 18 was a collaboration with the Brazilian twins Os Gemeos and resulted to two paintings hanging underneath The High Line. It was noted on Banksy's website that the paintings were available for viewing until Sunday, right in time for my Saturday morning photo shoot at the park together with my fellow volunteer photographers. After our photo shoot, I went down to the street level to take a look at the two pieces.

The paintings hanged side by side and were inside an enclosed area, complete with guards. At the time I took this pic, the gates were still closed to the public but there were already a lot of people taking pictures. 

Here's a closer pic of the canvasses. The pic on the left is a Banksy with an Os Gemeos figure at the center.

The other one is an Os Gemeos with a figure by Banksy at the center. But that's not all. If you look closely, the figure directly underneath the Banksy is wearing a shirt with a Banksy design, girl with a balloon. It's a hidden Banksy!

Banksy's piece for Day 19 was in a form of a video and that the piece could be found in Staten Island. I don't think anybody tried to look for it or found exactly where the piece is located.

Day 20 was a hammer boy at the Upper West Side, so before going to Central Park for my weekly walk, I dropped by W 79th Street.

As usual, there were a lot of people taking pictures of the piece, posing in a lot of different ways. Well, if you want a selfie with a Banksy you have to be creative.

Then it's the workweek again and I resigned myself to seeing the pieces in the weekend and hoping they weren't tagged yet or painted over. Day 21 was a stencil art in the South Bronx. Day 22 was a scale replica of the Sphinx in cinderblocks but was taken from the site by some people claiming it as theirs the same day it made an appearance in Queens. Well, there goes my weekend trip to Willets Point.

I guess Banksy rested on Day 23 when he posted this: "Today's art has been cancelled due to police activity."

For Day 24, Banksy returned to Manhattan and left a stencil art on the roll up doors of Larry Flynt's Hustler Club along the West Side Highway. I remember this building from a previous walk last summer.

Banksy captioned this piece "Waiting in vain... at the door of the club."

By the time I arrived in the area, the club management was already talking about the best way to remove the section of the door with the artwork, while some workers at the club managed to pose with the piece.

About nearly an hour after I got there, welding work on the roll up door started and eventually, the part with the art work was secured by the club staff.

 
In the morning of Day 25, Banksy posted that he will post the pic and location of his piece around 5 pm. It was nearly 6 pm when he finally posted a pic of the Reaper along with a video featuring Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper".

When I got there Mr. Reaper was driving a bumper car to the tune of the Blue Oyster Cult song. The area, at Elizabeth and Houston wasn't that big and Mr. Reaper sometimes had a hard time maneuvering his vehicle.

After driving around to the tune of the reaper song, the music would switch to live music played by Mr. Accordion Player so the Reaper could slow down for a bit. Very entertaining, as much as the crowd was that night.

One of the upsides of going to the Banksy Reaper show was passing by the Hurricane Sandy-themed Bowery mural, which was finished that night. The mural is by Swoon who joined forces with teens from affected communities to work on the project. In the center of the mural appears the Greek goddess Thalassa, a familiar image in Swoon's work.

 

When the weekend came, I made it a point to go to the Day 21 piece in the South Bronx. The piece featured a butler bringing a boy spray cans, and the words "Ghetto 4 Life." Five days after the piece came out, it was now covered by four panels of plexiglass. With the plexiglass in place, the art work has been preserved, but at the same time, I cannot get a decent picture. Anywhere I position myself, the buildings across the site were always reflected on my pic.

That was a little bit frustrating. At least the nearest subway station at 3rd Ave/149th Street has a great set of subway art. The tile mosaics are by José Ortega and is called Una Raza, Un Mundo, Universo (One Race, One World, One Universe). Here's one of the panels.

Banksy's piece that Saturday was an "alternative New York bumper slogan" on a truck somewhere in Sunset Park but I didn't go out to look for it. Instead I spent the day walking in Central Park and enjoying the peaking fall foliage.

Day 27 was a graffiti in Greenpoint which, according to Banksy, was a response to a rejected NY Times editorial he wrote about One World Trade Center. I wasn't able to go to this site either, as I was with Untapped Cities for a scavenger hunt along Prospect Park/Park Slope/Gowanus area using Google glass.

A robot and a barcode appeared in Coney Island on Day 28. I think this is now covered with plexiglass.

Housing Works, an organization with a mission "to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, the provision of lifesaving services, and entrepreneurial businesses that sustain our efforts" was the recipient of a Banksy on Day 29. Banksy bought a painting from the store and painted a Nazi soldier on the oil painting. He wrote: "A thrift store painting vandalised then re-donated to the thrift store."

The painting is originally by K. Sager, and below his signature on the painting is Banksy's.

The piece, which Banksy called 'The Banality of the Banality of Evil' went up for auction to benefit Housing Works at Bidding for Good. Starting bid was $74,000 and the bid ended at $615,000. However, word came out last week that the winning bidder failed to make good on the winning offer for the unique Banksy work. The painting was ultimately sold to someone, although Housing Work declined to disclose its final price or the name of the buyer out of respect for the person's privacy.

Banksy posted the photo of his Day 30 piece almost past 6 pm and I was already on my way home. It was a big cat located across the Yankee Stadium. I was able to visit the area three days later and this was all that remained of the piece.

That was sad. I wish other street artists would leave alone the works of their fellow street artists so that the public can enjoy and appreciate all the art around. The new Yankee Stadium was a commanding presence across the scarred Banksy cat.

Banksy signed off his month-long residency in New York with a set of balloons that read "BANKSY!" The balloons were tied to the side of a warehouse visible from the Long Island Expressway in Queens. Just a few hours later some men tried to take it down and eventually the police took the balloons away for evidence. And there went the last Banksy piece. 

Banksy's final message on his website:

And that's it.Thanks for your patience. It's been fun. Save 5pointz. Bye

Thank you Banksy, that was really fun! I was kind of reminded of my hunt for the Sing of Hope pianos last June. And I'm glad Banksy mentioned 5 Pointz. Too bad he didn't do anything about it during his month-long residency. Now, the graffiti mecca in Queens is due to be demolished, probably as early as next month. When I was there last month, 5 Pointz had a big sign with regards to Banksy.

But whatever the differences between artists, and whatever medium they choose to work with, I have much respect for them. I won some drawing contests in school when I was young and I think my talent was limited to that. Now, i can't draw a straight line so I am always in awe of those who can, and those who make something out of nothing armed with just a pencil, a brush or a spray can .. something worth looking at, or something thought provoking, something that can trigger a spark of conversation, or something that can inspire and make a difference in someone's life.

If you want to know what happened to the rest of the Banksy pieces, this link has a great article on the current status of the pieces.

Here are the rest of my pics on Flickr:

Banksy pics: Banksy in NYC: Better Out Than In

Bowery Mural: Recovery Diaspora by Swoon

Scavenger Hunt with Untapped Cities and Google glass: Prospect Park-Gowanus, 10.27.13

5 Pointz: 5 Pointz, 10.27.13 / 5 Pointz, 10.06.13

Central Park Fall Foliage: Central Park - Autumn 2013