Photo by PaulSteinJC, courtesy of Flickr Commons

Olek strikes again! Polish-born crochet artist Agata Oleksiak added some color to Lower East Siders’ commute this morning by hanging two pairs of pink camouflage yarn-covered sneakers alongside the many old shoes dangling from wires above the intersection of Broome and Eldridge Streets.

Olek’s knitted street art is a downtown staple by now. In the past two years, the New York transplant has fully adorned shopping carts to cars with her elaborate crocheted designs. The public displays often promote her larger scale gallery projects – such as her an entire apartment covered in crochet patterns, furniture, appliances and all  – but they have also occasionally become large scale projects of their own: in January 2011 she covered Wall Street’s massive Charging Bull sculpture, and in October 2011 she crochet-bombed the Astor Place Cube.

Olek in her crocheted apartment. Photo by HAPPYFAMOUSARTISTS, courtesy of Flickr Commons.

Olek’s street pieces usually don’t stick around for long, so take the time to enjoy them when they pop up. And don’t worry that you’ve missed your chance, because today’s colorful hanging shoes hint that another spree of public works might be on the way this summer to generate hype for her upcoming exhibit at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. Check out the chronological list below of where her work has appeared on the city’s streets and what it has covered in the past few years, and see if you can find out where and what she will strike next!

OLEK’S CROCHET BOMBS

2010

• Intersection of Suffolk and Rivington Streets: bicycle, locked to a post –
  

  Photo by easy mo drew, courtesy of Flickr Commons

  Olek’s crochet street art debut! Later moved to the entrance of Essex Street Market, where the artist had an exhibit.

• Elizabeth Street: car and another bicycle, both parked outside the Christopher Henry Gallery.

• Intersection of Bowery and Delancey Street: children’s bicycle, chained to a street sign.

• Wall Street : Charging Bull Sculpture.

2011

• Stanton Street: bicycle, across from Olek’s exhibit at the NY Studio Gallery.

• 358 Broome Street: image on the side of the building of a girl holding balloons, a tribute to iconic street artist Bansky.

• Northwest corner of Chrystie and Delancey Streets: another girl with balloons image on the side of the building.

• Petrosino Square just off Lafayette Street: children’s tricycle locked to a post.

• Tompkins Square Park: sculpture of a life-sized “walk” crosswalk signal
  

  Olek likes to cover people, too. Photo by See-ming Li, courtesy of Flickr Commons.

  man, created by Scott Taylor.

• Astor Place: “The Alamo,” the Astor Place Cube.

• Rivington and Suffolk Streets: shopping cart, chained to scaffolding at the Clemente Soto Velez Center.

• 147 Orchard Street: another shopping cart, chained to the Volang boutique.

• East First Street and the Bowery: a third shopping cart, chained to a tree.

2012

• Jersey Street between Lafayette and Crosby Streets: four strollers locked to street signs with the combined message “Love and stop lights can be cruel.”

• Broome and Eldridge Streets: two pairs of shoes hanging from the wires over the intersection.

– Paul Bisceglio

Our resident nightlife contributor The Visceralist travels downtown and reviews Dixon Place

161 Chrystie (btw Delancey & Rivington)

NYC, NY 10002

(212) 219-0736

While the West Side has the High Line, the East Side could get the LowLine

Over 80 years ago, Dan Barasch’s grandparents on both sides ended up in the Lower East Side after emigrating from Italy and Russia. While his family eventually set up stakes in other neighborhoods and he settled in the East Village—which was at one point considered the Lower East Side—the area still holds special significance for Barasch.

“My grandmother saw this neighborhood change to what it is today,” he said. “It’s an exciting neighborhood and it belongs to a lot of different people.”

It most likely would have seemed improbable to Barasch’s ancestors that he and James Ramsey would set out on what promises to be a long journey to create New York City’s first underground park, which the duo hopes to construct in an abandoned trolley terminal underneath Delancey Street. The idea has been in development since last year, and they have presented their proposal throughout the neighborhood, from the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street to the public school Essex Street Academy, and to city officials.

Photo courtesy of raad studio.

For Barasch and Ramsey, the proposal, officially called Delancey Underground but nicknamed The LowLine after the famous High Line park on the West Side, is chiefly about serving the Lower East Side and surrounding community. Ramsey, a NASA engineer turned architect, is the founder and owner of Raad Studio on Chrystie Street, while Barasch previously promoted social innovations with companies and organizations like Google and the 9/11 Survivors’ Fund.

Both men pointed to a lack of green space in the neighborhood. “The more we looked into it, the more we saw how the Lower East Side has been historically underserved,” said Ramsey. “It just happened that this space was here. It works in a number of ways and struck us as very strong from a community point of view.”

Ramsey went on to point out that community reaction to the proposal has been overwhelmingly positive and it has drawn praise from both the Lower East Side BID and City Council Member Margaret Chin.

Growing support for the project is evidenced by their recent Kickstarter campaign. Although the Internet drive, which kicked off in late February, was to raise $100,000 by April 6, 2,517 backers have already pledged $134,040 (as of press time). As Barasch and Ramsey point out on their Kickstarter site, this initial round of funding will allow the pair to build a full-scale installation—a “mini LowLine”—at the Essex Street Market in September. The demo will not only help them to perfect the solar technology that will be used to naturally illuminate the park, but convince potential funders, the city and the MTA, which owns the property, that the idea is feasible.

For the first phase of the project, Ramsey and Barasch hope to raise $500,000, which would be used not only the demonstration but also for a feasibility study. Barasch noted that they are often asked how much the project will cost, but without an initial study, it is difficult to arrive at a realistic number.

“We haven’t done constructability reviews, we haven’t paid land use experts,” Barasch explained, adding that a study would require coordination with roughly a dozen city agencies.

While the MTA has yet to sign off on the project, representatives from the authority have met with Barasch and Ramsey and escorted them on their first tour of the site last March. Ramsey points out that the space is slightly visible from the Brooklyn-bound side of the J/Z platform at the Essex Street Subway station.

“I am the kind of person, like a lot of New Yorkers, who loves to find secret spaces, abandoned lots and plots up for renewal…When we were underground, it was sort of like exploring a hidden gem,” Barasch recalled. “The sheer scale of it—we aren’t used to seeing that much unused real estate, and there were all of these architectural details, like cobblestones and crisscrossing rail lines. These exciting elements bring you back to a different era.”

According to Barasch and Ramsey, the space is around 60,000 square feet, nearly the size of Gramercy Park. It was constructed as a trolley terminal in 1903, the same year the Williamsburg Bridge was opened. At the time, streetcars were used to shuttle people back and forth from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side. Use of the trolleys and thus the terminal was discontinued in 1948. Ramsey and Barasch remain enamored of the unique historic aspects of the space, like the 20-foot vaulted ceilings and steel columns, but plan to incorporate cutting-edge technology that rivals science fiction.

“The space is so compelling from a historical and aesthetic standpoint, I very much would love to preserve, juxtapose and compliment it using technology,” Ramsey noted. As the pair explains on their Kickstarter page, the technology they hope to employ includes “a system of optics to gather sunlight, concentrate it and reflect it below ground, where it is dispersed by a solar distributor dish embedded in the ceiling. The light irrigated underground will carry the necessary wavelengths to support photosynthesis—meaning we can grow plants, trees and grasses underground.”

In addition to planning the demo and study, Barasch said they hope to continue meeting with members of the community to learn what they would like for the site. “We want to talk to as many residents as we can,” he said. “We would like to build something beautiful that is inclusive of everyone.”

To learn more about the Delancey Underground project, visit delanceyunderground.org.

By Lillian Rizzo and Marissa Maier, with additional reporting by Andrew Rice

A few months ago, a NYPD officer stood in the middle of the intersection of Delancey and Essex streets, out of breath and sweating. Occasionally, a driver would roll down his window to shout at him.

“Tell this guy to move up already!” said an angry blonde woman in a green Jeep. In the middle of the intersection, with three honking cars behind her, she was attempting to turn toward the Williamsburg Bridge before the light changed. This isn’t just typical for a Saturday afternoon—it is typical for any time at this intersection just before the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Currently labeled one of the deadliest thoroughfares in the city, Delancey Street cuts through the Lower East Side. It is known for a recent string of fatalities and over 500 car accidents in the last 12 years. The chaos, which usually ensues on weekends and at rush hour, has built up over the years as more people populate the Lower East Side and more cyclists use the bridge.

The most recent accident to occur on Delancey Street claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl. The NYPD reported that Dashane Santana was killed Friday, Jan. 13, after being hit by a minivan. Police say the girl was crossing the street with a group of friends near the intersection of Delancey and Clinton streets, close to where the road feeds into the Williamsburg Bridge, when a 2006 Toyota minivan struck her.

Gothamist interviewed one witness who was with the girl, who reported that the group was crossing the street when the light changed quickly and Santana tripped.

NYPD officer Michael DeBonis revealed that Santana attended M.S. 345 CASTLE Middle School, located on nearby Henry Street, but was said to have had dreams of applying to the Juilliard School. She reportedly lived in the East Village’s Jacob Riis II Houses.

The driver of the vehicle, DeBonis continued, was a 58-year-old Asian man who remained on the scene after the accident. While the investigation is ongoing, police at this point are saying they don’t suspect criminal charges will be issued.
The 911 call came in at around 2:36 p.m., but FDNY representative Jim Long said Santana was already in cardiac arrest and wasn’t breathing by the time medical personnel arrived at the scene. She was rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Working on Solutions
“Today, an unspeakable tragedy happened on Delancey Street. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the young victim. We must continue to work together as a community to make Delancey Street safer for everyone,” said New York State Sen. Dan Squadron in a statement Friday, Jan 13.

Santana’s death joins a string of other recent fatalities. In May 2011, a female pedestrian was crushed to death by a private sanitation truck in the crosswalk at Delancey and Essex streets. Months later, in August, a bicyclist was hit and killed by a semi-trailer at Delancey and Chrystie streets. The previous year, a pedestrian and a cyclist were both killed in vehicular accidents on the thoroughfare.

These fatalities spurred local politicians, Community Board 3, the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the NYPD to put together the Delancey Street Safety Working Group in September of last year.

“I believe it is one of the more dangerous streets in the five boroughs,” said Squadron at the time.

According to numbers obtained from the DOT, from 2005 to 2009 there were an average of nine pedestrian injuries per year just at the intersection of Essex and Delancey streets. Between 2005 and 2010, there were two deaths at the intersection.

Following the death in August, the DOT added countdown signals for the crosswalks. Barricades at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge have also been added to guide cyclists away from traffic and toward the divider, where they can cross to a side street.

“The crosswalk [signals] aren’t that long,” said Michelle Brick, 32, a volunteer for CreativeTime, who stood near Essex Street handing out fliers last fall. “When I was crossing, it wasn’t enough time.”

The countdown clocks allow pedestrians roughly 30 seconds to cross before the light turns red, which doesn’t give most people enough time to walk across. Many people stop at the median traffic island.

Lengthening crossing times and medians is one issue the Working Group hopes to tackle in the near future, reported Squadron’s office, which has been organizing the meetings. The group met in September, October and November of last year and will meet again in the coming weeks to discuss creating turning restrictions, implementing stop lines and configuring a new solution for bike traffic.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who also sits on the group, outlined a few recommendations in a recent letter to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan: “The Department of Transportation should undertake a comprehensive safety study and recommend improvements that would enhance protections for pedestrians at several intersections. In the meantime…I am asking that the DOT post pedestrian managers at the most dangerous intersections of Delancey.

“At the very least, managers should be required during school hours and other peak periods,” the letter continued. “In addition to pedestrian managers, I ask that the green light for pedestrians be extended so that people have more time to safely cross.”

For their part, DOT spokesman Scott Gastel mentioned in an email that in addition to the countdown signals, the DOT has increased pedestrian crossing times at four intersections and is working on a project to extend the median areas at two intersections. He added that the DOT will continue to address issues at this corridor.

Kelly Magee, communications director for City Council Member Margaret Chin, said the issue of safety on Delancey Street highlights a broader issue of pedestrian use outpacing changes to the layout of the street. She noted that heavy traffic can be found on both sides of Downtown Manhattan at key times near the Holland Tunnel and the Williamsburg Bridge. She added that there is also parking on Delancey Street, which hinders visibility when turning onto the thoroughfare.

For some locals, improvements to Delancey Street can’t come soon enough. R. Hughes, a 21-year resident of Clinton Street and mother of three, witnessed a fatality last year.

“The lights here are too short. Even now, after getting halfway across the street, we only have three seconds left,” said Hughes while crossing Delancey.

Waitress Cindy Chung, who has worked at the Olympic Restaurant, at 115 Delancey St., for 35 years, calls the stretch of road between Essex Street and the Williamsburg Bridge a “death street.”

While the NYPD hasn’t disclosed the exact cause of the accident that killed Santan, Sal Medina, 54, who has lived in the Lower East Side for over 40 years and owns the Medina Newsstand at the corner of Clinton and Delancey streets, blames the fast traffic and the short pedestrian crossing lights for the fatal accident. He recounted a heartbreaking scene from Friday afternoon. “I heard this loud crack as the minivan hit her,” he said. “And then I saw her lying unconscious with her shoes knocked off in the street.”

Parts of this article are taken from a previous Our Town Downtown piece, “Working Group Formed to Find Safety Measures for Delancey “, also by Lillian Rizzo.

Police Officer Hyder stood, out of breath and sweating, in the middle of the intersection at Delancey and Essex Streets. Occasionally a driver would roll down her window and shout at him.

“Tell this guy to move up already!” said an angry blonde woman in a green jeep. In the middle of the intersection with three honking cars behind her, she was attempting to turn towards the Williamsburg Bridge before the light changed.

This isn’t just typical for a Saturday afternoon—it is typical for this intersection, which is right before the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Currently labeled one of the “deadliest” streets in the city, Delancey Street is a thoroughfare that cuts through the lower East Side and is now known for recent fatalities and over 500 car accidents in the last 12 years. The chaos, which usually ensues on weekends and rush hours, has built up over the years as more people populate the lower East Side and more cyclists use the bridge.

This May a pedestrian was crushed to death by a private sanitation truck at the crosswalk of Delancey and Essex Streets. Months later in August, a bicyclist was hit and killed by a semi-tractor trailer at Delancey and Chrystie Streets.

These fatalities spurred local politicians, Community Board 3, the Department of Transportation and the Police Department to put together the Delancey Street Safety Working Group.

“I believe it is one of the more dangerous streets in the five boroughs,” said Senator Daniel Squadron.

According to numbers obtained from the DOT, from 2005 to 2009 there was an average of nine pedestrian injuries per year just at the intersection of Essex and Delancey. From 2005 to 2010 there were two deaths at the intersection.

Squadron and Council Member Margaret Chin are two politicians leading the safety group, which is scheduled to meet once a month to create solutions for Delancey. So far they’ve met once in early September.

The lower East Side Business Improvement District joined the safety group after merchants felt the dangerous Delancey was hurting business. The biggest complaint for merchants is the lack of foot traffic Delancey’s congestion causes, said Tim Laughlin, the director of policy, planning and operations.

“Delancey represents a crossing between two halves of our community,” said Laughlin. Due to the heavy traffic patrons are less likely to cross the street and end up sticking to one side of the neighborhood.

Following the last death the DOT added countdown signals for the crosswalks. Barricades at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge have also been added to guide cyclists away from traffic and towards the divider where they can cross to a side street.

“The crosswalk [signals] aren’t that long,” said Michelle Brick, 32, a volunteer for CreativeTime, standing near Essex Street handing out fliers. “When I was crossing it wasn’t enough time.”

The countdown clocks allow 30 seconds to cross before the light turns red but it doesn’t give most people enough time to walk across. Many people stop at the median traffic island.

“They are fairly new, I think it’s great but I don’t know if it has any adverse effect,” said head traffic Police Officer Wong of the 7 Precinct, which monitors the intersections at Essex and Allen Streets. “We would like to think it’s helping and it should.”

But pedestrians aren’t the only people faced with a problem at Delancey; cyclists are among the concerns for the safety group. Currently there are barricades that enclose the bike path from the Williamsburg Bridge, but once cyclists want to enter Delancey they are hit with the same problem.

“There’s a light here and I just go in with the traffic,” said Erik Bergrin, 28, a costume designer from Williamsburg. Bergrin rides his bike into the lower East Side daily. He says he has no problem coming off the bridge through the barricades but once he hits the light he doesn’t veer off to a side street, he stays on Delancey.

“I used to not wait for the light and go through traffic. Then I got hit by a [side view] mirror,” said Bergrin. “I was fine but it shocked me into submission. I don’t do that anymore.”

The safety group is meant to bring together all parts of the community in hopes of figuring out the best solution to make Delancey safer in the long term—countdown clocks and barricades are noted by all parties as a “short term solution.”

“There’s no bike lane here either. But bike lanes in New York only help some of the time,” said Bergrin as he pulled on a hat before peddling over the bridge. “There’s always cars parked in them or people hanging out there.”