Art at the Limits: City Gallery of New York

By City Limits.

Published April 25, 2018

As part of our Art at the Limits focus on the intersection of art and policy in New York City, we’ve invited readers to share their art with us—photos, other visual art, music, drama and more.

We aren’t collecting arts listings here. (Those can be submitted to our Events calendar.) We want to see and show the art itself.

If you’ve something to share, upload it here.
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Luke T. O'Brien

This is the former NY State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The bright yellow paint job is the result of volunteering by a Painter’s Union.

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Mike Cherry

Brooklyn Bridge Park facing lower Manhattan. Basketball hoops and the Freedom Tower, two integral parts of NYC life.

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Adi Talwar

Halloween in the Norwood section of the Bronx.

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Luke T. O'Brien

We were walking in Greenpoint near Kingsland Avenue when we came across this interesting graffiti.

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Luke T. O'Brien

The location, landscaping, and exhibits at the Cloisters Museum transport a visitor to Medieval Europe. This is the “Chapter Room”.

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Luke T. O'Brien

This statue of the biblical figure Job is situated near the Overlook in Forest Park Queens. It was created by Natan J. Rapoport in honor of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Israel. The sculptor was a native of Germany who escaped the Nazis and eventually settled in New York. The juxtaposition of a sculpture whose theme is human suffering and faith with the pastoral setting of the Park is striking.

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Adi Talwar

The sun had just set and the overall light was gorgeous. Basically, the photograph was SCREAMING to be made. I had no choice, I had to make the photograph.

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Our 2017 show reel features clips from various projects and installations we completed this year. Our mission is to create transportive experiences that anyone can access. Our work’s more about visceral sensation and emotion rather than hidden meaning. Part of that sensation comes from interacting with the work. And, like lead artist Jacob Fisher says, “the work’s not complete until people are in it.”

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Luke T. O'Brien

This is the Kingsland Wildflower Roof. It is located in Greenpoint Brooklyn atop a building owned by Broadway Stages performance art studio. It is a flourishing example of ecological restoration.

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Robin Michals

“The first half of the new Kosciuszko Bridge opened in April. There is a great view of the bridge from the parking lot of Restaurant Depot. This restaurant supply is built where Phelps Dodge Refining Corporation once was. From 1920-1983, copper was smelted and pesticides were made here – 21,000 tons of contaminated soil were removed as part of the site remediation.”

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Johanna Kletter

Clear repair directions at 182nd-183rd Street D Train Station

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Mike Cherry

47-50 Streets- Rockefeller Center ~ NY Attitude

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Luke T O'brien

At the summer solstice, Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria held an event that we attended. We were very impressed with this merging of parks and art. The picture is of two of the exhibits. The park is a great asset for the community.

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Sandi Newmark

A patriotic spot right near Port Authority Bus Terminal, first thing I spotted as I entered the city

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Sandi Newmark

A true New Yorker: concentrating comfortably on a book in the midst of Times Square hubbub!

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John A. Dryzga

“A very early morning photograph of midtown Manhattan taken from Boulevard East in Weehawken NJ.”

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henry cohen

“I’m a native New Yorker, Bronx born & bred. On 9/11/2001 I was working in Westchester. I went home & watched TV till 5 am. I was Mesmerized by the visions I was seeing on TV. I had to see for myself that this was not a dream. I got 1 block away from ground zero. As close as I could get, the smell of the concrete & asbestos was overwhelming. Every surface was covered with soot. It was a horrendous sight. But from that debris and ashes has emerged a beautiful new building. A strong vital neighborhood. With a memorial that is a constant reminder of what was. And what should never ever happen again.”

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Robin Michal

“Buel Ave. This is what climate change looks like. This spot, hit hard by Sandy,5 years later, is now largely empty. The state has bought back a number of the homes and demolished them. A few other homes, like this one, are being raised with funding from NYC Build It Back.”

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Allie Weintraub

Slight of hand has its own language at the oldest operating magic shop in the city. Opened in 1925, Tannen’s has become a popular spot for working magicians, amateurs and enthusiasts. In a 2008 TED Talk, filmmaker JJ Abrams revealed a “magic mystery box” he purchased at the shop, but never opened, became the inspiration behind his approach to storytelling. “It represents infinite possibility,” Abrams said. “It represents hope. It represents potential. What I love about this box — and what I realized I sort of do, in whatever it is that I do — is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential. And I realize that mystery is the catalyst for imagination.”

Luisa Baptista

I’ve been following this artist for a bit now. It was so cool to find one of her works just walking around. I guess that’s her point though.

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Vivian Mandala

My girls were so excited to be off the stuffy subway and to be able to run as wildly as they wanted. That’s real freedom. I looked up beyond them and saw the Freedom Tower and laughed, then snapped the picture. Funny how life sets moments up for you and all you have to do is enjoy them.

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Luke T. O'Brien

We were strolling through Washington Square Park when we noticed a mime who had taken a break from performing. It seemed like a quintessential New York moment.

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Jay Shuffield

Even on a rainy day, the magnetic pull of the Unisphere is so great it draws small children into its orbit.

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Vikii Wong

Crowds from the subway combine with crowds at The Cage (West 4th St. Courts) into one mass on a hot summer afternoon as a dried urine scent wafted in the air. The entrance across 6th Ave. was closed, adding to massive congestion at the W4th entrance. The tall guy in the yellow shirt directed traffic. #citylimitsnews #fridayphoto

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Maria Gallardo

“Wisdom and Knowledge Shall be the Stability of Thy Times.” Something for all to think about. (Taken at Rockefeller Center, NY).

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Maria Gallardo / Mary G Photography

This is a photo of the Empire State building in New York, through a pedestrians eye.

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Maria Gallardo

Riverbank Park, New York Mural… Save Harlem – Clean Air, Urban Development Campaign.

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Linda Lautrec

I was walking down the street when I saw this driver give the horse a bucket of water and then climb back into the carriage. There was something about this image as being both old New York and today that struck me as timeless.

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Kathaleen Linares

This is a favorite view from the N train of the Manhattan skyline from Long Island City Queens.

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Bonita Y. Lei

An anti-war moment at an ultra pro-war setting. “Woman Frightened by 21 Guns Salute: Bay Ridge Memorial Day Parade, 29 May 2017 Brooklyn NYC.”

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HART

This particular piece- Trojan Horse in East Harlem – is the focal point of a series on No Rezoning, No Displacement, No Gentrification artworks. It was compiled by HART and featured at the Guerrilla Gallery located at East 116th Street between Third and Second Avenues in El Barrio. It is based on the metaphor of the City Limits published article “East Harlem Trojan Horse” written by Roger Hernandez, Jr.

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Elisabeth von Uhl

We got lost on the way to lunch and my son and his friend decided a dip in the fountain in Washington Square Park was needed. The friend’s mother told me she would never have let her daughter go in the fountain if it wasn’t for my bad influence. On the other hand, the children (along with others in the fountain) exuded pure bliss and innocence in our park that has seen NYC change rapidly.

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Vikii Wong

From the street art/vandalism on the garage door’s “No Parking” sign down to the black outfit, this is typical New York City.

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Roger Hernandez

Louis is an outstanding East River fisherman who spends most days along the waterfront with his son. On this occasion, he hooked a massive 40 lb Atlantic Striped Bass in East Harlem, with 20 lb test line. This one stands as a record of the largest fish I have ever seen caught along the East River Estuary.

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Henry Cohen

“I was up on the second floor of Time Warner Center & I looked out and saw this beautiful vista on Columbus Circle and 57 St, framed by the interior walls of the building.T he individual panes of glass & the grill work of the glass support, looked like individual photos combined to make one giant picture.”

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Maggie Guardino

This picture was taken in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was a rainy foggy night. The NYC skyline looked mysterious cloaked in the fog.

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Ree-J

Parachute Drop and Thunderbolt in Coney Island

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Hope Kaye

I was walking in Ft. Washington Park and saw the mist rising from the Hudson, enshrouding the GW Bridge. It was a hauntingly beautiful sight.

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Hope Kaye

Bennett Park in Washington Heights, during the huge blizzard of 2015. The landscape with the cannon looked like a painting from Colonial times. I needed to capture it.

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K Linares

A Rose, is a Rose, is a Rose

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Linda Lautrec

I take a lot of photos of people sleeping on the subway, but I liked this one because the guy was obviously protective of his “girl” and she was completely trusting of him. She surrendered to sleep knowing he was there. That sort of trust says something.

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Normandeau Newswire

A happier hippo

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I was at the Ramones Exhibition at the Queens Museum and saw this girl standing there by herself. I thought it was interesting — that wall could have fit in anywhere in the city — it didn’t have to be an exhibition. It just reminded me of how visually interesting NYC is.

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Erica Jackson

I took the photo when the pope came to the city two years ago. It was my first big photo assignment, as a journalism student. I was leaning over the gate in all these poses to get good pictures, and I’d never worked that hard. I’d never moved around so much in a sea of people.

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Chauncey Alcorn

I was wandering around Riverside drive near 150th Street in Manhattan when I noticed this unusual art installation. It’s called “Invisible Man,” a memorial to the late author Ralph Ellison, who wrote the book– which was published in 1952 — chronicling the black male experience in America. This art was significant to me because I viewed New York and Harlem as the most progressive of places — a symbol of Afro American progress and home. Yet what I surprisingly found, like Ellison, was that many of the race-related problems plaguing the rest of the U.S. today and back then – police brutality, poverty, gentrification, etc – still plagues the “progressive” city of New York today.

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Christopher L. Inoa

Even during a downpour and a few minutes before a screening of this movie you’re dying to see is sold out, you should stop for a moment and capture something you probably won’t get another chance in getting. And, if you capture the moment and still catch the screening, then it’s win-win.

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Chauncey Alcorn

This was part of the mural created in March near park space on Broadway around 37th Street to honor the life of Timothy Caughman, an elderly black man who was randomly stabbed and killed by a self-avowed white supremacist. His death is part of a long U.S. legacy of racism, hatred and persecution based solely on ignorance and fear.

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Pat Donachie

Right before the sun drops behind the buildings for the day, Central Park Reservoir.

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Nelson Santiago

I slept, ate, thought of only graffiti. I couldn’t wait to sneak out of my house and hook up with my friends to go write graffiti. I loved the missions we did going around the city. Sometimes we would start in the morning and come back home at night from writing in different boroughs.

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Fran Kilinski

This is a photo of the “Post-it Note Protest” in Union Square taken just after the election, on November 10th. The post-it notes have since been removed, but were preserved by the New-York Historical Society. According to the Washington Post, the notes will join other artifacts the society has retired from “spontaneous moments of crisis or exhilaration,” like the September 11th attacks.

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Suman Bhattacharyya

I love plants of all kinds — so there is nothing I like more than running in Central Park during redbud season. It only flowers for a week so it’s always important to take time to see it.

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Neil Bhatiya

It’s amazing what you’ll see when you just take some time and wander around the city. Especially when you’re feeling a bit down, you’ll run into something which will make you smile and remember good times and good people in your life.

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Clarissa Sosin

I’ve been trying to photograph as many protests and marches as my schedule will allow since the night after the election. This one is one of my favorites from the Day Without Women rally turned march on International Women’s Day. Everyone took to the streets after the rally in Washington Square Park and I found myself in a open space ahead of the women marching with this banner. The woman in the center in the sunglasses is my favorite. A couple of frames later she took off her sunglasses and it just wasn’t the same.

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“Litter Monsters” was created by 5th grade students from PS/MS 34 M, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a NYC public school located in Alphabet City. The animation and live action creation was part of Cafeteria Culture’s interdisciplinary environmental education program, Youth Media for Trash Free Waters, which was generously funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2, Sustainable Materials Management Section, CASD. * * * *

Heather Anne Chamberlain

This photo was taken while waiting outside the old Manhattan Repertory Theatre doors located on the sixth floor of the tiny but tall building next to Walgreens on the corner 42nd street and 8th ave….when I took this shot, I was about to go into the rehearsal of my first NYC Off Off play that I was directing and self-producing. I was in awe at the universe for putting me there. I was so nervous that my stomach hurt. I was so grateful for spending even those few moments in the greatest city in the world, my childhood dream came true, in this moment. And this picture captured that for moment forever for me.

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Karen Savage

I’d gone to Washington Square Park to shoot some pictures for a class when these incredible acrobats showed up and put on one of the best street shows I’ve ever seen. Folks in the park just gravitated towards them and pretty soon we were all smiling and laughing together. To me, that’s part of what makes New York so special – more than 8 million of us live here, but there are these spontaneous moments when even strangers can feel like old friends.

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Nick Perez

It was taken at a protest about a month ago. They were protesting about Trump’s immigration plans. This man dressed up as Trump

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Caitlin Shann

Over the last couple of years I’ve developed an appreciation for pigeons. They are incredible: they’re intelligent, hardy, and just beautiful. And they’re everywhere – when you live pigeons, you have a friend wherever you go. I took this picture in Greeley Square in midtown where I worked for a few years. Even in the most stressful spots in this city, sometimes you get lucky enough to look up and see pigeons conducting an orchestra in the sky…

* * * *“Paradice” by Roo Zine. Produced at Brooklyn Noyze Lab in Greenpoint.

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http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.de/2008/04/spring-fever-love-is-in-air-again-at.html

I am a life-long artist and art educator and I have lived in Brooklyn my entire adult life. One day in May 2007 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, where I live, I was launched into artist activism (thus “socially engaged” art work) rapidly and spontaneously. A serious land-use and zoning issue arose in my beloved community and like others I had no idea what to do. I was angry but felt quite powerless. My neighbors felt the same way; a few of us decided to co-found an all-volunteer community coalition entitled: CG CORD/Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development with ART as its primary communication vehicle. I was an artist and normally I flew solo. However my love for my community and the looming issues facing us moved my artistic and creative passions. Thus, I created my first art activist mural for our local F Train station outdoors in the plaza.

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Angely Mercado

This photo was taken on one of the last days that Pope Francis was making appearances in NYC during the fall of 2015. The cops were celebrating that things had actually gone smoothly by Madison Square Garden and took a celebratory group photo together while another cop ran up and took a selfie with the group. The organized chaos and hectic joyfulness of it all really symbolized NYC for me.

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Triada Samaras

I found a little girl’s pink tricycle left out in the cold tonight by a blinking bodega in Brooklyn. It was shivering next to the hydrant. I can only wonder why this tiny vehicle was left behind and by whom? Did the rider grow too large for the seat? Did the city swallow her somehow? I hope this story has a happy ending but I can not be sure…

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Angelica Aquino

May you feel peace when you look at this picture. May peace part of your daily existence.

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George Torres Jr..@gt_graffixx

Live painting honoring Bob Marley Spray paint and acrylics….done at collagenyc…every Tuesday night 7-1am

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This was shot on 35mm one week after the recent inauguration. Many people were considering where to go; this elder had a map on the downtown local.

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Adi Talwar

Sunrise over the Norwood section of the Bronx, February 3 2017.

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Nelson Host Santiago

This picture is based on my childhood. I grew up on 174^th and Southern Blvd -right in the middle of the Bronx burning. My building was the only one standing. The others were either abandoned or burnt to the ground. Kids in the area played in the rubble. So many buildings were gone that you could see to Manhattan and see the skyline..

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Nelson Host Santiago

The relationship between young people, politics and social media.

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Triada Samaras

Once upon a time there was an American dream…I will never forget seeing the Empire State Building for the first time. I was five or six years old and sitting in the backseat of a sedan with my sister and when I first glimpsed this stunning building with the “needle” on top. I grabbed her arm and exclaimed, “LOOK!!!” She was even younger than me and did not seem very impressed. But I felt this building to be my blood relative almost instantly. I vowed right then and there I would move to New York City as soon as I was older. My parents chuckled. But while I was from a small New England town with quaint white homes and red bars, I knew in that moment I would have to follow the skyscrapers in my life. And later, I did just that. And I am still here.

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Triada Samaras

A car in Brownstone Brooklyn under a fake electric moon looks like a mysterious and even menacing machine capable of starting up its engine quietly and driving away on its own into the snowy darkness. No?

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Triada Samaras

I was visiting a Brooklyn handball court on 4th Avenue when I took this cell phone photo. At the fence , I looked down and there I saw the stark and beautiful contrast between black and white in the shoes and in the fence and in the game. The yin and yang of it I mean. The day and night of it. Now the the viewer can see this too and make whatever they like of it.

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Triada Samaras

This is one of my first cell phone photos taken a few years ago. I remember I was on the NYC subway nervously trying to figure out “what I was doing.” I finally snapped the button and saw this image. In an instant I realized I did not care “what I was doing” anymore. Because I just wanted to be doing it. A lot of my art life has been that way in fact.

* * * * An audio mosaic of protests against president-elect Trump

Audio by Victoria Edwards

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