Skip to main content

Featured Post

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

Two ironies in the pop-up Guggenheim gallery coming to MetroTech: filling Sid's space, offering respite some AY footprint residents might have wanted

Aren't there a few ironies regarding the Guggenheim Museum's upcoming temporary exhibit in a storefront space in Forest City Ratner's Metrotech?

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, in a 5/17/11 article headlined ‘The Gugg’ Comes to Downtown, played it straight, explaining that Tim King of CPEX Real Estate and FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin helped provide a free venue for the exhibit in the former home of Sid’s Hardware at 345 Jay Street.

What happened to Sid's?

Unmentioned in the Eagle article: about 15 months ago, as the Brooklyn Paper reported, family-owned Sid's, the first local retailer to transfer to MetroTech after the project changed Downtown Brooklyn, was moving to Hamilton Avenue.

That was, less than a year after a store representative testified before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that the arena project would bring new customers and other benefits to Sid's and its neighbors.

Belated respite

The second irony involves the “Stillspotting NYC” exhibit, which in its first incarnation will feature Pedro Reyes’ "Sanatorium."

As described by the museum:
While the vitality and stimulation of the urban environment can be pleasant, those living in or visiting densely populated areas, such as New York, can have wildly different experiences. The ever-present cacophony of traffic, construction, and commerce; the struggle for mental and physical space; and the anxious need for constant communication in person or via technology are relentless assaults on the senses. One wonders how locals and visitors can escape, find respite, and make peace with their space in this “city that never sleeps.”

The Guggenheim Museum responds with stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the museum’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the streets of the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. Every three to five months, “stillspots” are identified, created, or transformed by architects, artists, designers, composers, and philosophers into public tours, events, or installations.
Um, perhaps some of the Atlantic Yards footprint residents who had to endure enormous disruption during construction activities in 2008 could have used such repose.

“Sanatorium” will be open June 2 to 5 and 9 to 12, with advance registration required and tickets $15 for adults, $10 for museum members.

Comments