BPA -- Brooklyn Public Artworks

BPACreating One Brooklyn through the Creative Arts!

BROOKLYN PUBLIC ARTWORKSproposed by Savona Bailey-McClain & Scherezade Garcia 

The Borough of Brooklyn is in a unique position to leverage its existing open spaces, parks and rooftops into public art districts. According to the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn is home to sixteen featured parks (Adam Yauch Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Canarsie Park, Commodore Barry Park, Coney Island Beach & Boardwalk, Fort Greene Park, Herbert Von King Park, Kaiser Park, Maria Hernandez Park, Marine Park, McCarren Park, Owl’s Head Park, Prospect Park, Red Hook Recreation Area, Sunset Park, Wingate Park). Scattered across the borough, these sites are great breeding grounds for public artist. Also advantageous, are the ten art districts that are located in the neighborhoods of Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bedford-Styuvesant, Red Hook, DUMBO and Downtown, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Gowanus and Sunset Park which already houses galleries, arts organizations and interior designers. When coupled with nearby business improvement districts, various restaurants, cafes, and retail, Brooklyn can explode economically even more. Food businesses have transformed Brooklyn and brought meaningful jobs and lifestyles to many who already live here. Most Americans, still believe that the “arts” are still for the rich and not a necessity of everyday life for average people which is so wrong. If the City of New York can make streets pedestrian friendly with bicycles, imagine what public art can do to inspire families wanting a better life. The possibilities are endless. Innovation will occur.

What will it take to realize this initiative?

• Increasing capacity for small to mid-size arts group

• Negotiate with real estate developers for affordable live/work spaces and for office spaces.

• Assisting artists with comprehensive general liability insurance for public works whether visual or performance

• Assisting artists and groups with engineering services or infrastructure surveys

• Marketing support and collaborative campaigns with NYC & Co.

SAVONA BAILEY-McCLAIN currently lives and works in New York City. She is an independent curator, producer and preservation advocate. The range of McClain’s practice has included sculpture, drawings, performance, sound, and mixed media. McClain is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for The West Harlem Art Fund, Inc. a sixteen year old public art organization serving neighborhoods around the City. Her public art installations have been seen in the New York Times, Art Daily, Artnet Magazine, Los Angeles Times, DNAinfo and Huffington Post among others. McClain strives for a soulful, meaningful connection with the public and the “arts”. It simply has to be approachable as far as she is concerned. McClain has installed at Times Square, DUMBO, Soho, NoLita, Williamsburg, Governors Island, Queens, Harlem (East, Central & West), Chelsea, the Bronx and East Harlem this past fall. McClain has a liberal arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh. 

SCHEREZADE GARCIA was born in the Dominican Republic (Oct 1966) and has lived in New York since she arrived to study in 1986. Her work frequently evokes memories of faraway home and the hopes and dreams that accompany planting roots in a new land. Her solo exhibitions include “Paradise redefined” at Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY; Island of many Gods at the Salena Gallery, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY; Souvenir at The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ; Stories of Fallen Angels, museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, DR; Mary Anthony Gallery and Leonora Vega Gallery, NYC. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art”, Smithsonian American Art Museum , “This Side of Paradise-No Longer Empty“, Bronx, NY, This Skin I’m in; Contemporary Dominican Art from El Museo del Barrio’s permanent collection and Merengue! Visual Rhythms also at El Museo del Barrio, NY, NY; The Caribbean Abroad; Contemporary Arts and Latino Migration, Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ. Scherezade lives with her husband, NYC photographer William Vazquez, and her two budding artist daughters, Gabrielle and Montserrat in Brooklyn, NY, where she also has her studio.

Lead Curators

Case Study 

History 

The cornerstone and catalyst for creative vitality in the region, the Arts District is home to the city’s leading visual and performing arts institutions, whose range and depth make Dallas a destination for the arts that is unique in our country. Starting as early as the 1970s the city hired a series of consultants to determine how and where to house its arts and cultural institutions.  In 1978, Boston consultants Carr-Lynch recommended that Dallas relocate its major arts institutions from different parts of the city to the northeast corner of downtown. This location would allow for easy access through a vast network of freeways, as well as local streets, and leading into an area that would become a lively mix of cultural and commercial destinations, further defined by a mix of contemporary and historic architecture. The city progressed to define the boundaries and design guidelines with the assistance of  Sasaki Associates. With the adoption of the Sasaki Plan, developed by Sasaki Associates, and the opening of the Dallas Museum of Art, designed by Edward Larabee Barnes (1984), the formation of the Arts District was underway. Throughout the next 20 years, the development of the Arts District continued with the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect I.M. Pei (1989); the Crow Collection of Asian Art in the existing Trammell Crow Center (1998); the Nasher Sculpture Center, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano (2003) and the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, recently opening a new addition designed by Brad Cloepfil (2008).    In 2009, with the opening of the AT & T Performing Arts Center, the planned relocation of many of the major cultural institutions was complete. With the openings of Dallas City Performance Hall, Klyde Warren Park and The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in 2012, the cultural build-out of the district was complete.

Proverbby Mark di Suvero; located on the northwest side of the Meyerson.Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

De Musicaby Eduardo Chillida; located in the Betty B. Marcus Park on the west side of the Meyerson, commissioned and donated by Frank Ribelin. Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

Les Onidesby Henri Laurens (1922); located in the Betty B. Marcus Park at the Meyerson, on long term loan by Gwen Weiner. Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

Irises and Tulips I and IIby David Bates; located in the Hart Symphony Suites at the Meyerson.Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

Blue Green Black Red: The Dallas Panelsby Ellsworth Kelly; located on then north wall of the main lobby, near the entrance to the Green Room at the Meyerson, commissioned and owned by City of Dallas Public Art Collection. Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

Dallas Center for the The Old Violina chromo-lithograph by William Harnett, in the Music Director’s Suite; at the Meyerson, given by the City of Dallas Public Art Collection. Photo courtesy of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

Public Art

How to enliven a district even further ….

Food, performance and shops

History

We were startups before startups were cool.

It all started in 1999, when Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid decided the city needed an incubator that could help stimulate the local economy but also further the region’s economic diversification efforts by initially serving technology-based businesses, including those spun out of the university.

To get the ball rolling, he negotiated partnership agreements with General Motors and Henry Ford Health System. Start-up funding came from a public, private coalition of local and national sources, with investment totaling approximately $35 million.

As part of its involvement, GM contributed its approximately 140,000-square-foot facility at 440 Burroughs Street. The structure, designed by famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn in 1927, was first a service department for Pontiac then later became the Chevrolet Creative Services building. The Corvette was designed on the building’s third floor, and auto show displays were built here as well.

TechTown incorporated in 2000 and we officially opened our doors to a renovated facility in 2004. Today our work supports industry verticals that are specific to the region’s inherent assets and address the city’s identified needs, supporting not only tech businesses but also retail and wholesale enterprises for a more holistic approach to economic development.

Case Study

We couldn’t do all this work alone. TechTown has a vast network of complementary partner organizations to help us achieve our mission – creating companies, creating jobs. There’s too many to name, but they range from community and economic development corporations, funding and investing firms, partner service providers, universities and more. Here’s quick list of some of our most leaned-on and trusted partners:

Business Accelerator Network for Southeast Michigan Partners:Ann Arbor SPARK Automation AlleyMacomb-OU INCubator

A small sample of key partners:BizdomBBC Entrepreneurial Training & ConsultingChallenge DetroitCity of DetroitDetroit Creative Corridor CenterDetroit Economic Growth CorporationDetroit Micro-enterprise FundDetroit Venture PartnersHatch DetroitIntern in MichiganInvest DetroitMichigan SBTDCMichigan Venture Capital AssociationMichigan Women’s FoundationMidtown Detroit, Inc.Small Business AdministrationUS Department of StateWayne County EDGEWayne State University

Orlando Towers (Pty) Ltd was established in 2007 by Skyriders (Pty) Ltd, with the concept of developing the disused Orlando cooling towers in Soweto into a vertical adventure facility and tourist attraction for Soweto. Aimed at drawing local Gauteng adventure enthusiasts as well as adventure tourists to the site of the Orlando Towers, it also feeds a large number of people into Soweto, which is now becoming one of South Africa's most popular tourist attractions.

Inspiration

The Orlando Towers vertical adventure facility was the brainchild of Bob Woods back in 2001. Bob, a Skyriders director and rope access specialist for many years, was contracted to provide the rope access technicians for maintenance operations on the disused towers, and was awe-struck by their power and magnificence - enough to want to share the "almost religious" experience of viewing Soweto from the top of the towers with the world at large. His idea was to build the first ever vertical adventure center in a cooling tower, offering swinging, bungee jumping, climbing, abseiling, rap jumping, a zip line and more.

Development approvals

The Orlando Towers vertical adventure site is the fruition of many years of negotiation with the local municipality, engineers and bridge builders, and the people of Soweto themselves.

You can just imagine it.... "You want to do WHAT Bob?"

Case Study

South

Africa

Bob worked together with the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) until the plans for the Orlando Ekhaya Precinct were launched in 2005. Detailed plans for the Orlando Towers vertical adventure centre were finally approved late in 2007, and a lease agreement was finally signed in November 2007 for the use of the towers as a vertical adventure facility.

Construction

Ground was broken in January 2008. The lift up the side of the left tower was completed in mid-March, and the stairs and platform installed by the end of July, in time for the official opening on Saturday 12 July 2008.

The Bungee Bridge

The suspension bridge spanning the two towers was subject to stringent engineering standards and testing procedures. On completion, it was hoisted into position 100m above the ground by means of a sophisticated hoisting system, purpose designed for the unique bridge.

The bridge spanning the two towers was completed in August 2009, and the World's First Bungee Jump between 2 Cooling Towers was performed on 5 September 2009, by Bob Woods himself.

Importance of Creative Districts

Dedicated Spaces Where the Arts Thrive

A cultural district, or an arts and entertainment district, is a well-recognized, labeled, mixed-use area of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities serves as the anchor of attraction and robust economic activity. More than 500 communities in the United States have designated cultural districts.

While there are numerous types of cultural districts—some organic and others carefully maintained by local government—they all share these core characteristics.

Cultural districts: Are unique to the character, community, and resources available locally. Have a significant economic impact on cities—attracting businesses, tourists, and local residents to a central part of the city. Can help revitalize neighborhoods and increase the quality of life for its residents. Act as a vehicle to assist in the support and marketing of local nonprofit cultural organizations. Serve as a focal point to brand a city’s unique cultural identity and embrace its historic significance. Courtesy of Americans for the Arts

Brooklyn Possibilities

There are 58 communities in Brooklyn with approximately twenty communities that are seriously distressed economically. Capital investments in those neighborhoods are not plentiful but with art, talks could be had about streetscaping and land use planning. The most pressing needs for artists regardless of color is: affordable housing, living wage, available workspace, reaching a broad audience). The entire borough could be transformed. The curators would like to develop these districts under the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President as consultants or special advisors to work on this initiative for the next three years with pilot projects to bring about IMMEDIATE RESULTS. When economic development and tourism is tied to the “arts” jobs can be created.

Leverage New Partnerships/Working with seasoned events