Public Art > Curb Patches

2011; gaffers tape on concrete and metal

I created this piece around the triangular green space formed by

Broome, Watts, and Thompson streets in the

SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan.

The green space is a small, shady oasis amid bustling shoppers

and tourists and speeding cars on their way to the Holland Tunnel.

I laid patches of bright-blue gaffers tape on places

where the curb was broken or not level

(including corner easements).

This piece is a kind of drawing in which the patches highlight

peripheral irregularities of the streetscape

that indicate the slowly shifting and organic nature

of urban infrastructure.

The piece was primarily meant to be seen by someone standing

within the green space,

whose peripheral view (if not blocked by cars)

would take in an intermittent pattern of blue patches that drew

a perimeter, like a trickling stream surrounding the island

of the green space.

Pedestrians in the immediate area may have discovered the

patches along the curbs on Broome and Watts and followed them,

like crumbs on a trail, to the blue-highlighted easements

on the corners opposite the entrances to the green space.

The piece was executed on a Sunday morning in May 2011.

Some patches were removed almost immediately

(such as the one on the corner of Thompson and Broome).

At least one patch remained until the spring of 2014.