In the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, a group of teenagers is transforming a drab, cinder block wall into a three-story mural to memorialize three children killed on dangerous Third Avenue and to remind motorists to drive safely. The mural is being organized by Transportation Alternatives and Groundswell Community Mural Project and painted under the guidance of acclaimed social activist artists Christopher Cardinale and Nicole Schulman.
The mural is located just a block away from where 4-year-old James Rice was run over and killed in February by Ken Williams, the driver of a General Motors Hummer. Rice was killed while crossing the street in the crosswalk, with the light, holding the hand of his 18-year-old aunt. Williams, like most killer drivers who don't happen to be drunk, was let go by police with nothing more than a "failure to yield" summons. After the deaths of two young boys at Third Avenue and 9th Street in 2004, the Dept. of Transportation promised $4 million worth of pedestrian safety fixes for Third Avenue. Those improvements never materialized.
The unveiling of the mural will coincide with an on-street guerilla traffic-calming project being organized by Visual Resistance, the makers of New York City's "ghost bikes."
This evening, T.A. is hosting a sneak preview and fundraiser for the mural project. Here are the details:
6-8pm, Monday, August 13th
6pm: Mural preview at the corner of 3rd Ave & Butler St
7pm: Refreshments at Sheep Station, 4th Ave & Douglass St
Brooklyn, New York
Suggested donation: $50.
Please RSVP to Brooke DuBose at ped [at] transalt [dot] org.
Artist and youth organizer Christopher Cardinale takes a look at the Third Ave. mural design.
"People have always lived on streets. They have been the places where children first learned about the world, where neighbors met, the social centers of towns and cities, the rallying points for revolts, the scenes of repression... The street has always been the scene of this conflict, between living and access, between resident and traveler, between street life and the threat of death." --Donald Appleyard
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.
Sixty people died in the first three months of the year, 50 percent more than the first quarter of 2018, which was the safest opening three months of any Vision Zero year.