• This website includes dozens of videos, hundreds of essays, and thousands of drawings created over the past twenty years. Search to learn more about the history of buildings, places, prisons, Newark, New York City, and my PhD research on spatial inequality.

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South Bronx

View more artwork like this about my experiences walking in New York City.

Strolling in the Bronx, I am arrested by the inner-city grid that stretches mile after mile. Block after block, street after street, a never ending treadmill of bodegas, tenements, hair salons, C-TOWN supermarkets, strip malls, and laundries. In the treadmill of the city grid, I become an explorer lost wandering. I retrace my footsteps.
And then, there is the ceaseless cacophony of Spanish speakers, buses, and car. The chaotic maze of streets leads me to fantasize walking through one of M.C. Escher’s drawings of a geometric maze. The blaring signage for SHOES, SHIRTS, PIZZA, and ICE CREAM hints at shabby decadence. The never-too-distant fast-food joint hints at obesity in a relative food desert. The din of distant cars on the Cross Bronx or Major Deegan hint at the childhood asthma that I, too, had. I immerse myself in the urban grid.
After many hours, I spy an elevated subway stop in the distance. I take the next southbound train back to Manhattan. I must return to the Bronx soon. The outer boroughs beckon.

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Film featuring a few of my art projects

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Visiting China in 2011, I was shocked by the reach of globalization. On the train, I witnessed an endless treadmill of mile after mile of identical crops, villages, and cities. The polluted skies and downcast weather hinted at the consequence of growth. Returning home, I earned greater appreciation for my own artistic creations. They seemed so much more innocent – a naïve refuge from reality.

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Scenes filmed from Levittown, Pennsylvania are paired with the corniest rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I could find.

Panoramic artwork of the New York City skyline

When I gaze across the Hudson River from New Jersey, the soaring towers, glassy behemoths, and dark canyons of Manhattan instill me with awe. The broad expanse of the city juts out of the water with crenelated and jagged skyscrapers as if proclaiming: “I am here to stay. Come sun, wind, or water, I will remain. I will grow.”

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 New York CityManhattan from Hoboken

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IMG_6256Misty Manhattan Morning

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Madison SquareMadison Square Park

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George Washington BridgeGeorge Washington Bridge from Riverside State Park

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George Washington Bridge PanoramicGeorge Washington Bridge from Riverside State Park

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New York HarborManhattan from Brooklyn Heights