by Hanna Armour, Cristina Fyfe, Evan Powell, and Adrian Simon
In less than two hours, a pedestrian can easily traverse his or her way between the neighborhoods of Chelsea and East Harlem in New York City. These areas are also conveniently connected by the MTA subway system; A short ride with a seamless transfer of trains can transport someone from the 14th Street—8th Avenue subway station to Harlem—125th Street in just under forty-five minutes. A typical drive is even shorter, as it lasts roughly half an hour. The neighborhoods share similar geographical features insofar as they both reside within the island of Manhattan. They also feature rivers as borders, the Hudson River as Chelsea’s western border and the Harlem River as East Harlem’s eastern boundary. Though these neighborhoods call the same city home, sharing all that New York City has to offer, Chelsea and East Harlem are separated by vastly different experiences.
On the daily, tourists flock to Chelsea in Lower Manhattan. Thousands of pedestrians walk along the High Line, an elevated railway converted into a pedestrian friendly park. The many apartment buildings surrounding the High Line—some modern and extravagant, others historic and modest—suggest an affluent neighborhood. Directly beneath the High Line’s south end, crowds of shoppers pack the insides of the Chelsea Market, a block-long indoor food hall and upscale retail center. The exposed brick walls reflect the market’s long history as a local biscuit factory whilst also depicting Chelsea’s present path of urban renewal[1]. Such observations indicate that Chelsea is a conglomeration of pieces derived from a history of ups and downs.
Though East Harlem, also known as ‘El Barrio’, is less of a tourist attraction, it is nevertheless a 
bustling community. Often referred to as Spanish Harlem, though this a slight misnomer due to its lack of Spanish immigrants, East Harlem boasts a heavy concentration of immigrants from Latin America, constituting one of the largest predominantly Latino communities in New York City. The sounds and sights of the streets directly reflect cultural features of the Hispanic Caribbean, as well as South and Central America. While walking the streets, it is easy to note the beats of reggaeton, bachata, or bomba sounding overhead from the small three story-walk-ups or from the cars driving by. In stark contrast to Chelsea, the neighborhood’s commercial landscape is largely made up of ‘ma-and-pa’ shops, family-owned bodegas, and local retail stores. However, in recent years, large chains like Target and Costco have made their presences known in East Harlem, bringing multitudes of New Yorkers from various neighborhoods to shop at these superstores daily.
In traveling between East Harlem and Chelsea, it becomes immediately apparent how noticeably different these two areas are. In just gauging the aesthetic features, it is easy to note the varying degrees of income, as evident by Chelsea’s affluent commercial landscape and East Harlem’s local working class businesses. In terms of demographics, whilst East Harlem’s population is largely Latino, Chelsea’s is over sixty percent white and under twenty percent Latino[2]. Though the extravagant apartment buildings in Chelsea compared with the public housing projects in East Harlem might be an indicator, according to the 2010 NYC Census, population density in these neighborhoods also contrast significantly. Whereas Chelsea has an average population density of 77,418 people per square mile, East Harlem’s is much higher at 99,322 residents per square mile. With varying degrees of peoples, cultures, demographics, and capital, the local politics of Chelsea and East Harlem are defined by disparate ideology. That being said, the political demographics are largely similar insofar as the populations of Chelsea and East Harlem are predominantly Democratic. In the 2013 Electoral Mayoral Primary, of the voter turnout for each neighborhood, the votes were largely in favor of Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate[3]. To reflect this notion, both Chelsea and East Harlem boast liberal atmospheres.
As with most liberal environments, Chelsea and East Harlem are both neighborhoods in which art is prevalent. Perhaps the most noticeable similarity, of these otherwise contrasting areas, is the heavy presence of street and public art. Both street art and public art are common staples of 
these communities. On any block, a passerby is bound to encounter one form or another. However, within such artworks, these neighborhoods find yet another point of contrast. Whereas Chelsea hosts a large amount of commissioned works, utilizing a variety of mediums such as sculptures, architectural design and more, East Harlem’s street art finds its presence mostly through murals and graffiti. Though the aesthetic features differ in various ways, the most significant differences stem from the underlying principles. In Chelsea, the street art and public art are largely tied to its commercial landscape, whereas the works in East Harlem seek to speak to the neighborhood’s cultural identity of the population itself.
Street art and public art in Chelsea and East Harlem work to reflect the past, present, and future. As these neighborhoods experience rapid growth and change, as evident by recent studies and tangible experience, the works in these areas react to the changing tide. Street art and public art in Chelsea and East Harlem continue to be rendered differently and similarly as they coincide with the evolving politics of their respective locales, as well as to the politics of New York City as a whole.
Reflections of the Past and Present
Through an examination of the street art and public art in Chelsea and East Harlem, it becomes apparent that the works attempt to articulate the present through the past. Often taking a nostalgic approach, the street art and public art in these respective neighborhoods utilize the past to express and understand the current landscape.
In Chelsea, many of the public art works reflect Chelsea’s commercial history. Before the industrial buildings and modern day facilities that now comprise Chelsea, just two and half centuries ago, the area existed as rural farmland. The neighborhood has “always been the locus of food in the city, beginning with the Algonquin Indians, who traded their game and crops on the banks of the Hudson River”[4]. Renowned artist, Spencer Finch, draws upon this understanding of Chelsea’s history of commerce in his piece, The River That Flows Both Ways, a rather inconspicuous work integrated into the architectural design that constitutes the High Line.
The piece consists of 700 colored panes of glass, each finding its tint from a wide array of blues, greens, browns, and purples. The windows are situated in a tunnel, an old transit passage, on the 1.5 mile elevated park that runs along the West Side of Chelsea. The Friends of the High Line, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line, has maintained the exposed brick walls that contain the stained windowpanes. The walls are that of a former loading dock at the Chelsea Market Passage. In this way, the artwork reflects an interaction of old and new—past and present. The piece, installed in 2009, has become one with vestiges of the railway that dates back to the early 1930s.
Finch draws upon an even earlier past. The work’s title, The River That Flows Both Ways, is actually a translation of ‘Muheakantuck’, the Native American name for the Hudson River. Using colors from photographs of the Hudson River snapped on a day-long trip via tugboat, Finch speaks to both the Hudson River and the High Line’s history. “Like the rail line that existed on the High Line, the Hudson River was, and still is, an active route for the transportation of goods into Manhattan”[5]. In this way, The River That Flows Both Ways articulates the present through the past. The piece is a constant reminder of the High Line’s history as a commercial railroad utilized for the transportation of commodities. In a wider commentary, Finch shows how Chelsea’s current identity draws upon a foundation laid by a commercial presence.
As a neighborhood, East Harlem has traditionally been identified as the hub for Latin American immigration in Manhattan. East Harlem’s artwork reflects the rich history brought to the area by Hispanic immigrants over the past century. These public art pieces depict both the memories imported by Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants, as well as what their new life in the neighborhood looks like. Many murals decorate the bodegas around the corner, harkening to the music, art, and landscape of the Caribbean. Other times the murals are paying homage to an important figure in the neighborhood, or a youth that has passed away. Regardless of the imagery, there is a common nostalgia that brings the community of East Harlem together and becomes one of the main features of their identity, alongside their nationalism and cultural heritage.
The Spirit of East Harlem, by Hank Prussing, is one of the integral art pieces that reflect the immigrant experience and identity in East Harlem. This beautiful mural occupies most of the north side of a four-story building, on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 104th street. It displays vibrant scenes of neighbors playing dominos, bodega owner, children playing basketball, and others playing music. Viewers can also see writing and something similar to advertising on the mural, which were meant to capture the “logos of popular culture” that could be seen in the neighborhood in the late 1970’s[6], when this piece was commissioned. Another main feature of this mural are the superimposed Puerto Rican flags, which play with the red color of the brick buildings, the blue skies, and other white details in the piece.
Prussing meant for the backwards writing to be a “mirror image of the community”, alluding that this piece was to directly reflect what the population living in this space was experiencing[7]. Although some of the scenes may not quite fit anymore, such as the one of the men playing dominoes, there are quintessential features that remain in the neighborhood today. Not only are there the traditional bodegas and neighborhood playgrounds, but essential features of what identifies East Harlem as an immigrant community are still there, and are still key. The national and cultural identification make this neighborhood come alive in its own distinctive way – the Puerto Rican and Dominican flags are seen in nearly every corner varying in size and medium, and signs that beam “comidas”, “libre” (possibly alluding to a “Cuba Libre”, and “salsa con ritmo”, are just a few of the elements that manifest the past and present identity of the community.
The nostalgia that overrides East Harlem is also present in the several memorial murals scattered throughout the neighborhood. There are murals and mosaics that pay homage to key figures in the community, such as Julia de Burgos or Pedro Pietri, both well-known poets who lived in East Harlem. Other murals call back the memories of the young men who have lost their lives to different forms of violence, and rarely invoke the typical nationalist or particularly cultural tone. For example, an unnamed piece on 105th and 1st Avenue depicting a young Hispanic man has become a sort of shrine in his memory. The young man is standing in the middle of the mural, sporting a New York Yankees cap and hoodie, and a gentle smile on his face. On the left, the wall is painted to appear broken, and the phrase “Stop the Violence” appears underneath. On the right, a banner saying “In Loving Memory of” floats above groovy bubble letters displaying his affectionate nickname: Booga. This mural is in prime condition, and though Booga appears to have died in 2012, the mural in his memory does not have a date as to when it was completed. Candles are placed on the sidewalk in front of Booga’s image, reinforcing the idea that these murals are spaces of remembrance and carry an air of holiness to them as well. Nostalgia, then, is present not for the memories of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but also for those that the community has lost over the years, be they famous or not.
An essential element of the art in East Harlem is that what one finds there is site specific and culturally relevant to that particular neighborhood. If we were to take The Spirit of East Harlem, or Booga’s memorial into a gallery or museum in, say, London, the lack of context would make it hard to convey the nostalgia and memory that is intrinsic to the pieces. This is not to say that these pieces do not have the technical quality expected of “art” – in fact, they are both very elaborate pieces – but their message and importance only come through in situ. In contrast, much of the art in Chelsea has taken a turn towards the commercial, and can be considered art within any context. As aforementioned though, Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways was very much done with its location in mind and would also have a different meaning if it were taken away from The High Line.
East Harlem, commonly referred to by its residents as El Barrio, has a rich cultural history. From the first wave of Italian immigrants in the 1890s to the wealth of musical legends that came about from the “mambo era,” East Harlem has been a stage for arts and culture for over 100 years. The neighborhood was once known as “Little Italy” or “Italian Harlem” as it contained the largest Italian population in New York City for a time. Although there are still traces of that heritage, notably, Patsy’s Pizzeria on 1st avenue, which was famously “endorsed” by Frank Sinatra, and has been an Italian landmark since 1933, East Harlem is now most commonly referred to as, “El Barrio,” and has been since the 1930s with the influx of the Puerto Rican community. Latin music legends such as Tito Puente, Ray Baretto, and Charlie Palmieri were local heroes and some streets, such as 110th st./ Tito Puente Way, have been named after these musical greats and their pictures can still be seen hanging behind counters and over tables of their old neighborhood hang outs. Other notable cultural figures of East Harlem include musicians Marc Anthony and Ronnie Spector of the Ronnettes, rappers, Frankie Cutlass, Cam’ron, and A$AP Rocky, actor Al Pacino, and visual artist, Soraida Martinez, known for creating the Verdadism movement, a form of abstraction that is accompanied by a written social commentary. Additionally, the Puerto Rican poet Julia De Burgos, after whom the Julia De Burgos Latino Cultural Center was named, once called East Harlem home. The neighborhood also contains a number of cultural and historical institutions such as the Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and The Graffiti Hall of Fame, which is located in the playground of the Jackie Robinson Educational Complex on East 106th Street. Street art is still very much alive throughout all of East Harlem. It seems the neighborhood has a taste for message through mural, illustrated by the colorful, larger-than-life mosaics by James De La Vega that are sprinkled around East Harlem such as, “The Spirit of East Harlem,” which has graced the wall on the southeast corner of East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue for more than 30 years.[8]
In fact, street art, murals, and illicit Graffiti seem to be welcomed by the community. As the Gothamist’s interactive 311 graffiti map suggests, the number of complaint calls about street art in the community is incredibly low compared to the number made in other neighborhoods. However, the majority of the street art observed in our beat, licit or not, was either cultural or memorial and there was a profound lack of large “vandalized” tag-based pieces. As the demographics of this neighborhood might imply (61% Hispanic, 19% white, 20.5% black, and 6.4% Asian)[9], the cultural pieces center on Puerto Rican cultural imagery primarily, and would likely not be reported for removal as they illustrate the neighborhood’s pride for its most prevalent minority. However, this pride may contain extremities. A mural honoring political prisoners Oscar Lopez Rivera and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio can be found on Third Avenue and East 107th Street. Since the mural was painted, Avelino has been pardoned. But Rivera, now age 72, is still incarcerated. The Mural, which has succumbed to vandalism, will be restored this month in time for the 34th anniversary of his incarceration and a march and rally scheduled for May 30th which will be held on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. However, The residents of the block containing this piece may not support their neighborhood community this time. One (white) resident explained to me that the men depicted in this mural were “terrorists” who were being “wrongly praised,” and that he and other residents of the block planned to take steps toward its removal. Avelino Gonzalez-Claudio and Oscar Lopez Rivera were allegedly members of a clandestine Puerto Rican terrorist group, The Boricua People’s Army, which has claimed responsibility for the 1978 bombing of a small power station in the San Juan area, the 1979 retaliation attacks against the United States Armed Forces personnel, the 1981 attacks on a Puerto Rico Air National Guard aircraft, and a 1983 Wells Fargo bank robbery The sentences received by Lopez Rivera and the other Nationalists were judged to be “out of proportion to the nationalists’ offenses.” Statistics showed their sentences were almost 20 times greater than sentences for similar offenses by the American population at large. For many years, numerous national and international organizations criticized Lopez Rivera’ incarceration categorizing it as political imprisonment. In 1999, then president Bill Clinton offered clemency to eleven Puerto Rican political prisoners and a reduced sentence to Oscar. He refused the offer because in part of the agreement Rivera would have had to renounce armed struggle as a legitimate form of gaining independence for Puerto Rico.[10]
Other non-cultural pieces in the neighborhood often have to do with the memorialization of a former community member, or a common message in low-income areas: stop the violence. In fact, posters containing those exact words have been pasted all over the neighborhood, the authors of which remain unknown. One poster in particular obscures an illustrated version of the famous image of Muhammad Ali after he had just knocked out Sonny Liston, which is perhaps intended to send a message that may cease the glorification of minority individuals who are outspokenly violent in a contemporary society that elevates Rap music, a genre latent with misogyny and violence, to top 40 status. Coupled with the memorial murals that are sprinkled throughout East Harlem, these neighborhood political pieces also convey a sentiment of community involvement and care. Local figures that were victims of street violence still remain on the walls of buildings in locations where they were once often found, and serve as a reminder that taking matters into one’s own hands can greatly impact an individual’s family, but their “extended family” as well, their neighborhood.
However, artwork as culturally and site specific as this may run the risk of being forgotten or removed by the steady stream of “gentrifiers” moving into the neighborhood. Since 2000, there has been a 171% average increase of whites in the neighborhood[11], and if a significant portion of those individuals agree with the unhappy white resident of the block containing the “Free Oscar & Avelino” piece, the exterior walls of East Harlem may eventually become quite literally whitewashed as the cultural landscape of East Harlem rapid changes. However, while Puerto Ricans have lived and thrived in East Harlem since the 1940s, the neighborhood was almost entirely Italian before then, a community who were then pushed out by this influx, and whose legacy there hardly remains. Today, the public art of the neighborhood basically reflects only one culture, which doesn’t exactly encourage diversity, exposing a fine line between pride and exclusion. Now, the Hispanic population of East Harlem is at risk of being displaced as the neighborhood gentrifies, raising questions about the metropolitan significance of a neighborhood’s cultural history. One might argue that, in 60 years, if the Hispanic community of East Harlem is no the dominant culture, “The Spirit of East Harlem” may not need to continue to be restored. Who determines which past gets publicly memorialized and which doesn’t if not the community that currently resides in a neighborhood?
Rapid Changes Afoot
“This is now the third, and longest, art market cycle that I’ve known. Of course it will eventually burst… Then people will get cautious, some galleries will close, and rents will go down. But then it’ll all go up again,”[12] Miles Manning, “one of New York’s most experienced gallerists,” told The Villager back in 2007. “There aren’t the crowds of boutiques here that Soho had, partly because in Soho it was easy to get there by subway. Anyway, where else would we galleries all go? Other places in Manhattan like the L.E.S. don’t have the available inventory of suitable buildings, and we’re not all going to New Jersey or Queens or the Bronx — the people wouldn’t go there. It’s beautiful here. I look out of my window, and I can see the Gehry building. At night it’s lit up and really nice as the colors change.” And yet, it is a concern that the Lower East Side will begin to replace some of the galleries in Chelsea as the art market shifts away from luxury and high-rent costs.
The last time the shift happened, gallerist fled to Chelsea from SoHo, looking for more space without the price tag of a trendy area. As galleries have taken over Chelsea, however, the cost of space is due to the cost of location. Chelsea is an interesting area of the city as it is not necessarily an artist’s safe-haven as it is more of a commercial gathering hole. In the early 2000s, “the city deliberately retained the original manufacturing zoning for what it saw as the core of the gallery section — Tenth to Eleventh Avenues, from W. 24th to 27th Streets and W. 20th to 22nd Streets — with the intention of protecting the galleries from the commercial pressures that would be unleashed should their landlords have the option of building residential high-rises on their sites.”6 The buildings and land that are used for galleries are zoned in a walking friendly section of the neighborhood. The galleries are littered up and down streets that were previously used for auto shops, some of which are still struggling to remain.
The Conversation Between Illicit and Gallery
On the outside of the gallery bull ring are luxury designer clothing brands, trendy clubs and restaurants, and car dealerships. Chelsea is becoming a one-stop shop for the top earners and in response, it’s not shocking to see the illicit street artists in conversation on the walls that surround the multi-million dollar galleries. As Chelsea is traditionally home to garages and factories, there are a high number of gates that are available to cover with stencils, wheatpaste posters, and tags. Wheatpaste posters seem to be the medium of choice in Chelsea, at least nearby the galleries. As a medium, it’s hard to remove from the gate walls on which it resides. The subject matter varies significantly even on the same doorways, covering everything from pop culture references to information on Chilean garbage dispensers.
As an area dominated by art galleries, it is shocking to discover the lack of licit public art in the area–as if to suggest that in order to experience “art” in Chelsea, you have to be prepared to step inside a gallery and open your checkbook. In response to the lack of art outside, as well as the gallery buildings cookiecutter modern and white designs, street art reigns supreme–the artists own the empty wall spaces. While Chelsea isn’t really inspiring modern artists who command high prices, it is influencing the street artists who might want to gain access to the gallery marketplace. The empty walls become prime real estate for those who want to catch the eye of a tourist or even gallerist who might be walking by on their way to work. Next to social media spread, having one’s art up on a wall in Chelsea is the best way to be noticed as the typical passersby are already open to seeing and experience art.
Public art in Chelsea has the potential of creating something unlike anywhere else in the city as it is an established hub of art and commerce colliding. Street artists flock to Chelsea not only to gain publicity but also, to engage in a conversation with the neighborhood’s mentality. Striking pieces of street art are ones that call out the commerce aspect of the area or allow us to reconsider what “art” is, as an anonymous artist did across the street from a famous public work by Joseph Beuys. The licit piece, a part of the Dia Museum, has been around since the 1980s. Weathered overtime by the elements, the stone columns do not stand out unless you are consciously looking out for art. “Not Art” on the other hand, the stencil that the illicit artist put on a rotting cement block across the street, calls a direct attention to the block as the words create a cognitive dissonance for the area.
Connecting the Dots
As Chelsea’s open lots develop into more and more gallery and business spaces, the residential life will continue to grow alongside of it–and as will the cost of living there. As rents for gallery spaces go up and up, artists and gallery owners alike will have to source out new locations to have their collections on display. Museums, like the Whitney, are already noticing the trend towards Chelsea and away from the upper half of Manhattan. As the commercial art market moves downtown, it wouldn’t be hard to see the arts community shifting back uptown.
For the time being, open walls and gates are ideal for street artists, but as more and more galleries move into the area, it might become increasingly difficult to find a place to post up on without fear of it getting whitewashed the next day. East Harlem, as an embracer of licit art particularly in the form of murals, could serve as inspiration for the street artists who work in Chelsea to reach out to the local government for some wall spaces for public use. As Chelsea has flourished as a place for artist to display their work, the neighborhood needs to re-examine how it can let voices of all backgrounds exhibit their point of views and not be muffled by the overbearing weight of commercialism.
Footnotes
[1] Christopher Gray, “From Oreos and Mallomars to Today’s Chelsea Market,” The New York Times, 7 Aug. 2005/17 May 2015, www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/realestate/07scap.html?pagewanted-all.
[2] Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean, “Mapping America: Every City, Every Block,” The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2010/4 Mar. 2015.
[3] “The NYC Election Atlas,” Center for Urban Research / City University of New York, 25 Mar. 2015, www.nycelectionatlas.com.
[4] “About Chelsea Market,” Chelsea Market, 25 Mar. 2015, www.chelseamarket.com.
[5] “High Line Art,” Friends of the High Line, 3 May 2015, www.HLA.com.
[6] “Spirit of East Harlem,” El Museo del Barrio, n.d. Web. 16 May 2015.
[7] Idem.
[8] Information gathered from http://www.elmuseo.org
[9] http://maps.nyc.gov/census/
[10] Information gathered from http://boricuahumanrights.org
[11] http://maps.nyc.gov/census/
[12] Halle, David, and Elisabeth Tiso. “Chelsea Still Center of Art World, but L.E.S. Beckons.” The Villager 77.30 (2007). Web.