Cultural Ride in the Bronx

Longwood Art Gallery

Living in New York City, there are often people and places I stumble across and think to myself “only in New York.” After a night of gallery hopping via the Bronx Cultural Trolley, I now find myself thinking, “only in the Bronx.”

The Bronx Cultural Trolley rides the first Wednesday of every month to different neighborhoods throughout the borough.

For this frigid February night, the trolley began from outside the Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos Community College and traveled around the “South Bronx Corridor.” But like the most interesting rides, the night was less about the trolley and more about the places along the way.

To hear sounds from the Bronx Culture Trolley listen to tour director Ellen Pollan below.

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TROLLEY STOP #1 Bronx Blue Bedroom Project

At the first trolley stop local artist and educator Blanka Amezkua welcomed complete strangers into her bedroom.

In an intimate square room off to the side of her railroad style apartment Amezkua allows an artist to show their mixed media work, for one month, rent-free.

She only asks that the artist cook one meal or hold a workshop and leave enough space among the installation for her to pull down a Murphy bed to sleep at night.

“I always wanted to open my own gallery space. When I realized I would never have the public space to do with what I wanted, I decided to invite people into my own private home,” said Amezkua.

Amezkua greeted her guests with a hug and directed everyone to a table with a punch bowl of guava juice, wine, crackers, and crème puffs. In addition to the featured artist’s work in the bedroom, an abstract sculpture made out of colorful pipe cleaners hangs on the back wall of the apartment next to a work table cluttered with tiny knick-knacks, buttons, rulers, yarn, and thread.

Watch the video below to hear French artist, Fannie Allie, explain what’s in Amezkua’s bedroom this month.

STOP #2 LDR Studio Gallery

After losing the trolley and climbing five flights of stairs in a residential building, the next stop is less apartment-like and more gallery.

Curator, Vittorio Ottaviani, immediately grabbed the group’s attention and gave a fast-talking tour of the different paintings, wall etchings, and photographs. He asked as many questions as he answered, especially, “what are you writing?”

Originally from Italy, Ottaviani, told the story behind his “business cards,” a pile of fliers lying on a windowsill that ask, “Need To Whack Somebody”? He distributed the fliers all over the city except SoHo, Chelsea, and Williamsburg, Ottaviana said with a smile.

Ottaviani referred to the current work at the gallery as The Anti So Bro Art Show. Its his statement against the growing marketing trend of calling the Mott Haven area of the South Bronx; So Bro.

NEXT STOP #3, Haven Arts Gallery 

The most massive of all the spaces, Haven Arts embodies a warehouse with cold concrete floors and splashes of colorful graffiti-like artwork arranged on the pristine walls. Marijuana perfumed the air with hip-hop beats in the background. Various crew members – sculptors, graphic designers, and artists posed like rock stars for photographs during the nights closing exhibit.

Mark Gonsalves, 17, found himself returning to the same exact spot five or six times throughout the night, a series called the Five Boroughs by Meres.

“I am looking at it and I am amazed by the intricacies of it,” Gonsalves said. “He has these out of this world characters and designs. Every time I look, I see something else.”

Meres the curator of the exhibit said he got his start as an aerosol artist through tagging and eventually moved to more elaborate pieces and murals. He organizes 5 Pointz, an outdoor gallery and building covered with graffiti in Long Island City, Queens.

Catch a glimpse of “The Deadly 4mula” by clicking the slideshow below.

With the trolley still nowhere to be found, a short walk to the next destination lead to a great view of Upper Manhattan across the Harlem River.

The night ended under the Bruckner Expressway with fried calamari and beers at a converted warehouse turned part restaurant and part gallery. Behind a black curtain in the back room patrons sang karaoke to Milli Vanilli’s infamous classic, Girl You Know its True . . . and next to the bar in a glass case was a T-shirt that simply read BRONX.