Events NYC | Dedication of Frederick Douglass Memorial

"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."  are the important words from Frederic Douglass (1818-1895), the American social reformer,  writer and statesman, who after escaping from slavery became a leader of the abolitionist movement.

 Douglass was celebrated with a memorial —a public art work  in the traffic circle at Central Park West and 110th Street.  The memorial includes a bronze portrait of a Douglass, inspired by nineteenth-century photographs, crafted by Hungarian-born sculptor Gabriel Koren and an environmental art work by Harlem-based artist Algernon Miller.

 

Miller's site specific artwork merges with the landscape and civil design of this major urban traffic intersection, to include granite seating and paving patterns based on traditional African-American quilt motifs, as well as a bronze perimeter fence with a wagon wheel motif. I found most compelling the bronze water wall depicting the Big Dipper constellation that guided the slaves to freedom on the “underground railroad.”

camminando | NYC Uptown: Public Art and the Art of Trees

A rainy unlikely spring evening yet offers opportunities for a celebration of the poetry of NYC streets. My walkabouts took me to a deserved visit to uptown urban / landscaped beauties, including an encounter with an important work of public art, by my friend artist Al Miller.
Paying my usual photo homages...

A view from above: Morningside Park

An unlikely almost deserted Malcolm X Boulevard

Public Art: Frederick Douglass Circle

Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project

“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"