Talk Bronx New York

Bronx Hospitality, Unnoticed by the Tourist Guides

The folks who published AAA’s 2008 New York tour book had a hard time recommending any hotels in the Bronx. They could only find one, in fact, a rather bland-looking building a mile north of Yankee Stadium by a service road to the Major Deegan Expressway

Hey, the hotel fared better than restaurants, since the automobile club’s guide does not list a single place to eat in the Bronx. As far as the guide goes, Arthur Avenue, Morris Park Avenue or City Island do not exist.

This 45-room Howard Johnson is the only hotel listed for the Bronx in AAA’s 2008 New York tour book.

It is an odd distinction for that lone hotel, a Howard Johnson of no particular architectural distinction. And given the borough’s long battles against hot sheet motels that rent rooms by the hour, a casual observer might assume this place was no different.

But it is a real hotel catering to real tourists. One day last week, the parking lot was filled with cars from out of state, most belonging to guests who had come to see the Yankees play Cleveland. Retirees from Oklahoma and families from upstate New York eagerly hauled suitcases upstairs as they prepared to change into baseball jerseys and take in a game.

Chadd Morris and Brandon Bebout had driven eight hours from Cleveland to score game tickets. They asked a local police officer for the nearest hotel and were directed to the HoJo.

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The Bronx Museum of Art

The Bronx Museum of Art, at 165th Street and the Grand Concourse, holds a “First Friday” celebration the first Friday of every month from 6pm to 10pm.

On May 2, the Museum will be presenting Urban Noise: Rockers, Punks and Beyond. Admission is free and The Bangers and The Dragons of Zynth will be performing. Make sure to come out and support the Bronx Museum!

SOURCE: Serrano Website

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Turning Stereotypes Into Artistic Strengths 

“More, please” has been the critical response to “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” the survey of pioneering feminist art currently installed at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. The Bronx Museum of the Arts anticipated the demand with “Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art and Community,” which focuses on the groups and collectives that linked feminist art to a larger social context.

Organized by the critic Carey Lovelace, “Making It Together” occupies part of the lobby and a small adjacent gallery. Conventional art objects are few and far between: pink-painted walls display archival photographs, manifestoes and other ephemera. The show is much smaller than “WACK!” but includes a wealth of historical material, much of which would be better served by a book or documentary film.

The theme is timely, at least; the current Whitney Biennial is rife with collaborative projects. For female artists of the ’70s and ’80s, collective practice had several advantages. In keeping with the anti-authoritarian spirit of the times, it played down the roles of the individual artist and the marketable artwork. It also turned the stereotype of women as inherently conciliatory and cooperative into a source of strength.

The consciousness-raising session generated ideas for artworks like the “Womanhouse” (1972), an installation created in a rundown Hollywood mansion by students of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro at California Institute of the Arts. Documentation of the “Womanhouse” in “Making It Together” includes a photograph of Faith Wilding’s wall of crocheted spider webs (a recreated version can be seen in “WACK!”).

Art, especially performance art, was inseparable from activism. Leslie Labowitz and Suzanne Lacy’s “Three Weeks in May” (1977), a series of events including self-defense workshops and a performance on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, raised awareness of sexual violence. “Making It Together” includes an installation documenting Ms. Labowitz and Ms. Lacy’s project, in which the word “RAPE,” stenciled in bold red letters, figures prominently.

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