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Walk the streets of Dumbo in Brooklyn and you get a feel for the kind of ambiance that SoHo had twenty years ago, after the first waves of gentrification had wrapped up but before the entire area became a giant outdoor shopping mall with brand names everywhere. In Dumbo (theContinue Reading

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This example of paste-up street art on Ludlow St. in the Lower East Side of New York forces the viewer to consider the issue with the image of a child victim of violence. The piece is a drawing of a little girl’s disembodied head, her right eye blackened and herContinue Reading

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In: Art, Graffiti Art, Urban Life

Graffiti taggers and artists have been putting Krylon to all sorts of vehicles all over New York City for years. But for some reason these ubiquitous delivery trucks in Chinatown seem to get “bombed” the most. This vehicle, parked on the Bowery near East Broadway, sports a large, colorful “throw-up”Continue Reading

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To many New Yorkers, an NYPD patrol car is a sign of security, holding the line against crime and keeping the streets safe. To others, the arrival of a police cruiser in their community is a sign of racism, corruption and oppression. Whatever the point of view, the police areContinue Reading

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Last week, Bloomingdales, the grand, old New York City department store, went downtown–way downtown–to lower Broadway in SoHo, where it opened a second Manhattan store in a cast-iron, loft-style building. The decor of the new retail-fashion palace is a mix of Bloomingdales’s dependable uptown restraint and high-style downtown chic. OneContinue Reading

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This is the work of the New York-based artist Swoon, whose street art can be found plastered on buildings throughout downtown Manhattan neighborhoods like SoHo, Chinatown, TriBeCa and the Lower East Side. Usually Swoon’s images depict people engaged in some street-level activity. Here a man is riding a bicycle. TheContinue Reading

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Some street art on Ludlow Street just south of Delancey on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. These paintings are terribly weathered but the worse-for-wear condition only enhances the overall beauty of the portraits, which are of actual Chinese and Puerto Rican immigrants who live(d) in the neighbohood. Below theContinue Reading

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Absolut has always melded art-world savvy with clever and iconic advertising campaigns. This billboard on Lafayette St. at Bleeker St. is a literal play on the expression “out of the closet,” touching on the gay theme with a certain New York irony–the building behind the sign is a large, well-knownContinue Reading