The area between East 4th street and the East village, slightly touching the southern part of Canal Street and China Town is called the Bowery neighborhood. Back in the day, when New York was a huge piece of farmland and with not much habitant, Dutch moved to the area called Bowery. Which we understand that it is not a coincidence that the place is named Bowery because, in Dutch ‘bouwerij’ means farm. However, it was not a very pleasant area with the undeveloped communities and with the slavery.
Around 1800’s, with the rising population of Manhattan, Bowery was no longer a place where farming was the primary labor. The streets, shops and social gatherings were starting to occur with elegance and was a hot spot for a lot of famous people. However, with the affects of Civil War, the area lost its prestige and became a place for the street gangs to hang around. The rise of the area was around 1970’s, so not that long ago. With art museums, modern residence buildings and popular commerce the place once again had its popularity back.
I have chosen this site because of the mixture of old and new, the combination of history and modern trends and of course because of its hidden artistic character. While I was venturing out in the streets of Bower and Lower East Side, the unique combination of old and new architecture captured my eye. The smooth transitioning between them and the over all cohesive atmospheres were simply magical. Further down the road when China Town got closer, more industrial and construction sites started to appear. However, it all played an important role for my complete experience in Bowery. From street to street scenes changed and it was almost like reading a pop up book with not knowing what to expect. One corner had a building from the 1800’s, which was next to a newly constructed high tech apartment.
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In my posters, I wanted to make a contrast between the old and the ‘new’ Bowery by focusing on the architecture. The media that I used for the first poster was watercolor and ballpoint, which gave a rustic but clean finish to symbolize the rise of the area around the 1800’s. I have added the lyrics of Kevin Baker’s On The Bowery song to also give a sense of the era and the artistic interpretations.
The other poster companied it by going to the very opposite side and including recent articles and news about Bowery which I tore in to pieces and arranged them in no order at all which gave a messy and overwhelming feel to the audience, which was the feeling I had while exploring the area. Lastly, when I completed the assignment and had an overview of the piece, I found out that somehow I have represented my style and the way I think about art. The going back and forth to modern and traditional based media and styles play a huge role in my way of representing my self do overall the piece not only gave an idea of Bowery, but also had hidden information about my character as well.
