A new opportunity to place your art in a high visibility plaza in the Lower East Side of NYC - $5000 commission

The Lower East Side Business Improvement District will be unrolling creative programming in the newly opened pedestrian plazas located at the mouth of the Williamsburg Bridge on Clinton and Delancey Streets. The LES BID also operates the two square parking lots that border the southern section of these plazas with each having an approximate width of 200’. The LES BID is inviting proposals from local, national, or international artists and artist teams that would like to devise a creative use of this space via a wrap of fence sections that harks to the storied history of the Lower East Side.

SPACE AVAILABILITY

This is an outdoor public space that is open to the public. Installation for the project will be able to commence as soon as a proposal has been selected and materials have been procured. The installation will be semi-permanent. The LES BID is in contract to program the space for five years with the option to renew with one year extension increments.

LOCATION SPECS

Each side of the fence that will be wrapped is approximately 200’ long, therefore the expected length of this project should span approximately 400’. These fences are located at one of the busiest traffic corridors in all of Manhattan, along the Williamsburg Bridge entrance where nearly 111,000 vehicles and over 200,000 sets of eyes drive by daily. The fences are chain link and approximately 8’ high.

GUIDELINES / RESTRICTIONS

The installation should be designed to highlight and pay homage to the cultural and creative institutions that are home to the Lower East Side (for example, landmarks such as The Eldridge Street Museum). Proposals should be approached in one of two ways. Proposals can include ways to highlight the neighborhood’s cultural institutions through placement of graphics or illustrations combined with an exploration of a creative way to engage the space. Alternatively, proposals can simply explore a singular exploration of art without the inclusion of these actual graphics that pay homage to the cultural institutions. However, this second type of proposal would have to consider space adequate enough to allow for display of these forthcoming cultural institution graphics or illustrations.

The installation should be a visually pleasing and creative and constructive way to create a barrier between a parking lot and the wide-open space of the plaza that is book-ended by the traffic flow. Proposals should take into consideration these plazas are brand new and serve as a mellow juxtaposition for the never-ending flow of traffic that is constantly moving through this area.

Drawing on concepts such as stagnation vs movement or calm vs crazy should be considered. Also, inspiration from the idea of exiting and moving on can also be considered since this area is the last location that people will lay their eyes on before exiting Manhattan.
BUDGET / STIPEND

Approximately $5,000

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

This is an extremely high traffic and high visibility space. Also, there are many new changes and development projects that will be taking place in the Lower East Side. Getting involved on the ground floor via a project of this sort in such an already culturally diverse, dynamic neighborhood has the potential to open many additional doors.

In conjunction with this artwork piece, we are also in the process of recruiting companies to program the plaza during weekends of the warmer summer months. Over the next year, this space will dramatically change as the vehicular traffic is matched by an increase in foot traffic to this area and the plaza will be comprised of weekend vendors.
The space is a combination of two sides of two parking lots that are situated next to each other on Delancey Street. The interiors of each of these fences contain parking lots and the exterior is a pedestrian plaza that is approximately 9,000 square feet. See attached Delancy Plaza schematic.

FURTHER INFORMATION

We are in the process of appointing our board of judges who will help with the selection process. The board will consist of reps from the arts as well as community stakeholders.
Final decisions on the winning application will be announced two weeks after the submission deadline. Winners will be notified via phone call.

Apply on-line at : newyorkcity.ArtHERE.org