"Real City" Celebrates Lesser Known Locals
- Jen Carlson for Gothamist March 2nd, 2011
- Source: http://gothamist.com/2011/03/02/real_city_celebrates_lesser_known_l.php
A temporary installation has lit up the Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge, courtesy of Carl Skelton, NYU-Poly’s Brooklyn Experimental Media Center director and assistant professor of digital media. He's projecting the name, date of birth and birthplace of some of the everyday people who helped shape New York City. According to the project's website, Ultratope 1: Real City "will make the most of the colonnade’s architectural quality and character, as a marker for the initiative and sacrifice of so many who have come from all over the world to stake their future on New York City, and in particular on the districts adjacent to the bridge itself: from Broadway in the west to the East River, and from Houston street down to Battery Park."
Real City will run from dawn to dusk until March 31st, turning the colonnade into a “recovered monument” to every man, not just the founders and leaders who have gone recognized time and again. The roster was "derived from a combination of traditional research, web browsing, and indirect personal inquiries through local community organizations." To learn more, head to the Tenement Museum tomorrow night for a reception and talk about the project.
