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. The pictures are typicaly drawn and painted over old newsprint, usually local Chinese newspapers, and then plastered onto some exterior surface. Another one of Swoon’s famous images shows a guy sitting on a milk crate.
Ivan Corsa Photo
Took this photo at the beautifully-designed Brown Cafe on Hester Street in Chinatown’s eastern-most fringe in Lower East Side, in New York. This small cafe has seating in its large display (bay) windows. The cafe is a great place to watch all kinds of local people walking by–Chinese immigrants, Orthodox Jewish rabbis, and artists and hipsters of all races and ages. (And it’s a great place to take pictures, too.)
Ivan Corsa Photo
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 the pictures are transcripts of brief interviews with each of the subjects depicted in the paintings.
Ivan Corsa Photo
This row of French-looking shops is actually one business, a French restaurant and bar called Epicerie Charbon on Orchard Street just south of Stanton. The kitschy faux French street-scape is an acrhitectural and decorative bit of whimsy from the Disneyland playbook.
Ivan Corsa Photo
This large banner was hanging from an apartment building on 6th Ave., a block or so south of Houston St. in SoHo. It’s a very public statement of praise or an artistic work or both.
Ivan Corsa Photo
