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<\/p>\nUPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) — A $335 million renovation is underway to make sure the entire Lincoln Center community feels welcome, especially the neighbors right across the street.<\/p>\n
The entrance to Lincoln Center, with its iconic fountain, greets the Upper West Side like a warm embrace, but the back of the building, with its giant wall dividing the neighborhood, has a long history of making the residents on the other side in NYCHA’s Amsterdam Houses, feel excluded.<\/p>\n
But Lincoln Center wants to change that image with a $335 million renovation project. It will tear down the wall and create an open community park and theater space.<\/p>\n
Construction will begin this spring, but it will take two years to complete. So, in the meantime, a giant mural is about to go up along a fence.<\/p>\n
“Empower the community. Give a voice to the community and to the people who really make this area,” said commissioned artist Vanessa Alvarez.<\/p>\n
Alvarez, and assistant artist Derval Fairweather, led a workshop Thursday night at Lincoln Center for community members who are painting that mural.<\/p>\n
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The goal, like the renovation, is to use art to invite the community in and be a part of it. That’s why the mural includes self-portraits and historical figures from San Juan Hill.<\/p>\n
A neighborhood which was home to many low-income Black and Latino residents, was razed to make way for the center’s construction in 1959.<\/p>\n
Assistant artist Derval Fairweather grew up in the Amsterdam Houses.<\/p>\n
“You feel like you’re on the outside,” Fairweather said. “Everyone has a story to tell. And I think when we as artists can now help them tell that story in an artistic form it’s a beauty.”<\/p>\n
The mural is being painted in pieces.<\/p>\n
When it’s finished and put together, it will span 6,000 square feet.<\/p>\n
The artists behind it, young and old, are now part of one big family.<\/p>\n
“He’s at an age where he’s just learning what the world is so if he can come to understand the diversity and the breathe of human experience, that will serve him well in life,” said community member Tibita Kaneene.<\/p>\n
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