Art Installation: NYC's Voice Tunnel

A new audio/visual art installation debuted on Saturday in the eight-block long Park Avenue tunnel. My Modern Met provides a description:

Open to pedestrians for the first time in history, the Park Avenue Tunnel welcomes visitors to experience an interactive light and sound installation like no other. Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has transformed the 1,400 foot long tunnel with 300 theatrical spotlights that create shimmering archways along the tunnel's walls and ceilings. It is called Voice Tunnel.

At the tunnel's center, participants speak into a special intercom that records their voices and then loops them. The louder, both in pitch and volume, the participants' voices are, the more intense the light beams become. On 150 loudspeakers that are spread throughout the tunnel, trailing voices of the past 90 participants can be heard by the pedestrians who are walking through. "So it's not a cacophony," Lozano-Hemmer tells WNYC, "the voices are quiet. They're more like little memories of the tunnel."

Voice Tunnel runs again on the next two Saturdays during Summer Streets, when Park Avenue is closed to vehicles through much of Manhattan.

Afternoon View - East River Bike Path

Today was the final Summer Streets for the year and Farmboy C and I biked from the Upper East Side to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, then toured through Chinatown to the Bowery for brunch. We cut through the East Village on the way home, stopping for Mermaid cones at Big Gay Ice Cream before pausing to watch some Fringe Festival socialist street theater near Thompkins Square Park. Then it was back uptown via the bike path that hugs the East River. The weather was cool and perfect despite a dark drizzly start.

Summer Streets NYC Via Helmet-Cam

Here's a lovely video of Saturday's Summer Streets event from the helmet-cam of a gay Irish ex-pat. I really dig the soundtrack by British electronica duo Mount Kimbie. The final Summer Streets for the year is this Saturday. Highly recommended just for the cityscapes usually viewed from the windows of a taxi.

(Via JMG reader Michael)

Afternoon View - Park & 42nd

TOMORROW: Summer Streets NYC

On three Saturdays every August, New York City closes Park Avenue from the Upper East Side to the Brooklyn Bridge for the exclusive enjoyment of bicyclists, joggers, and pedestrians. There are hundreds of vendors on the side streets, free bike repair stations, promotional giveaways, and live music all along the route. Later in the day there will be free concerts at Central Park's Summer Stage. Summer Streets runs from 7am until 1pm and we've learned that the return trip can be arduous if you don't finish before the streets have reopened. Highly recommended. It's like Critical Mass minus the assholes.

David Byrne's Bike Racks

Art rocker David Byrne has designed nine temporary bike racks which have been installed around town as part of the Summer Streets program I've been raving about. The dollar sign is naturally on Wall Street, the high heel is in front of Bergdorf's, and the reclining woman is in Times Square, although today's tourists may not get the reference. The lonely man (bottom center) is, sadly, in Chelsea. The racks will be in place for a year, then Byrne gets to sell them as works of art.

Summer Streets, Week Two

Seven of us did another all day (seven hours!) bike ride yesterday, enjoying the second week of Manhattan's fantastic Summer Streets program. Above are Craig, Farmboy C, Little David, Chris, Dr. Jeff, and Father Tony posing on the pier at Brooklyn Bridge Park. We started up at East 69th where we found the downtown route on Park Avenue at least three or four times more crowded than last week. Word has definitely gotten out. There were so many people on the Brooklyn Bridge, biking was impossible and we had to walk most of the way across.From the Brooklyn Bridge, our route took us through Fulton Ferry, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, the Brooklyn Navy Yards/Fort Greene, Hassidic Williamsburg, hipster Williamsburg, Greenpointe, over the Pulaski Bridge into Queens (across the New Town Creek, America's most polluted waterway), Hunters Point, Long Island City, then back into Manhattan via the Queensborough Bridge. Gmaps says we went 18 miles door-to-door, but our plotted route doesn't include numerous detours and wrong turns.

Below are some perfectly embiggenable pics from our perfect day. (Which resulted in seven perfect farmer tans.) Next Saturday is the final day for Summer Streets.

Summer Streets Of Manhattan

Yesterday was the first of three consecutive Saturdays in Manhattan's new Summer Streets program in which roads are closed to cars in a route from the Brooklyn Bridge up to Park Avenue at 72nd Street. It was like Critical Mass, only without the assholes. (Above: Farmboy C at Park & 60th.)The Farmboyz and I turned the day into one of our epic day-long bike rides, starting up by my place on the UES, then down the ghostly and beautifully empty Park Avenue, where we were allowed the unprecedented pleasure of biking the Helmsley tunnel and the ramps around Grand Central (above) and then into the Murray Hill Tunnel (below). Way cool.Next stop was down in the Bowery at our favorite brunch place, Great Jones. After that we headed into the Village to search for Log Cabin Republicans at their supposed street fair, where we found nuttin' but the usual tube socks, pashminas, and counterfeit sunglasses. Not one Cabinette in sight.We rewarded ourselves for enduring the fair by taking a break at the gay beach on the Christopher Street Pier (above) where the Farmboyz had an uncomfortable looking nap in the shade (below).Next we headed up the Hudson River Park and toured most of the piers along the way. At Pier 64 we discovered a funky two-tiered open air pub (below), but it was pretty much frat boy central, so we didn't stay for a drink.Across from the new Chinese Consulate at 44th Street we ran into the usual Tibetan protesters (below), ten of whom were arrested there on Friday.After a couple of frozen drinks at a pal's new place in Midtown, we detoured into Lincoln Center where we ran into a free concert by Dulsori, the Korean "wild beat" percussion group. Delightfully strange.About nine hours door-to-door, it was pretty much the perfect Manhattan day. Along the route, we were interviewed by a TV crew documenting Summer Streets, where we offered our thanks to Mayor Bloomberg for the event. Summer Streets continues its trial run over the next two Saturdays. Check it out yourselves and maybe we can get this thing turned into a Saturday standard.