At the Harlem River Houses, a public-housing complex in northern Manhattan, Sheryl Jones grimaced lightly as she watched a puppy relieve itself on a flagpole. \u201cNow, that\u2019s just disrespectful,\u201d Jones, a sixty-one-year-old teacher who has lived in the complex for more than three decades, said. Next to her, Kim Dacres, a thirty-nine-year-old sculptor, scoffed. \u201cIf Winky was here,\u201d she said, referring to her French bulldog, \u201che\u2019d be tearing these skinny dogs up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dacres, a Bronx native, had come to the houses to check in on her latest project, four abstract bronze busts\u2014each five feet tall, depicting a Black woman\u2014which were being installed around a central wading pool. ArtBridge, a local nonprofit, had tapped her for the project, and she planned around exhibitions in Paris and at Art Basel Miami Beach to take on the job.<\/p>\n
These sculptures had been a long time coming. When the Harlem River Houses, an early Public Works Administration project, were built, in the nineteen-thirties, this magazine\u2019s architecture critic, Lewis Mumford, travelled up to 151st Street to write about them. He singled out \u201cthe trees set about the ample open spaces in the fashion of the Luxembourg Gardens; and the handsome sculpture by Heinz Warneke, the penguins round about the central wading pool.\u201d He added that the sculptures \u201cwill be improved in finish by being handled and climbed over by children.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the late seventies, however, the penguins had all but disappeared: one had been beheaded; another two, stolen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took them away, and said, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re going to bring them back\u2014we have to restore them,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd they brought back these hollow terra-cotta versions\u2014the spirit was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dacres, who had on a white hoodie and a black beret, nodded. \u201cThe new animals were being used for more nefarious activities, in terms of storage of \u2018goods,\u2019\u00a0\u201d she said, with a knowing look. (Frank Lucas, a local drug kingpin, was known for using the neighborhood\u2019s nooks and crannies to hide stashes.) No one seemed to know what happened to Warneke\u2019s wrestling-bear statues, which had also adorned the public space.<\/p>\n
When Jones was growing up, in Brooklyn, she spent summers at the Harlem River Houses with her father and her siblings. Pointing toward a playground, she said, \u201cMy dad used to play basketball there with Lew Alcindor,\u201d referring to the N.B.A. star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. \u201cLew was real tall, but he wasn\u2019t a great basketball player, so my dad and his friends taught him the hook shot. That ended up being his signature move.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jabbar and other local legends are depicted in a new mural by the southwestern entrance. Jones\u2019s son William, who grew up playing tennis at the complex\u2019s court, is in there, too. \u201cThe all-Black American Tennis Association used to hold matches just down the street,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
The pair walked toward the wading pool, which was dry and empty. \u201cThe penguin statues used to be right here,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWhen I was growing up, all the grandparents would sit outside with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a big part of my vision for the sculptures,\u201d Dacres said, of her stately busts. \u201cThe four of them are kind of the keepers of the playground. I could almost hear people saying to their kids, \u2018Oh, as long as you can see these sculptures, I can see you.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
Dacres had made prototypes out of strips of bicycle tires; these were cast in bronze to create the final installation. \u201cI\u2019ve been collecting them every Tuesday since 2017\u2014Tire Tuesdays,\u201d she said. \u201cI pick them up off the street, or from bicycle shops in Harlem, and now I have hundreds in my studio.\u201d<\/p>\n
The busts Dacres created represent two women, whom she calls Ariel and Marci Marie. \u201cAriel has this Bantu-knot hair style,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to pay homage to communities that I can\u2019t name but that I know I come from. And Marci Marie is named after my mom.\u201d She added, \u201cThat\u2019s why she has rollers in her hair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new designs weren\u2019t immediately popular with the Harlem River Houses community. An original plan to make them fountains was struck down. \u201cWe were, like, \u2018We don\u2019t want our children playing in the water coming out of these heads!\u2019\u00a0\u201d Jones said, laughing. \u201c\u00a0\u2018You know that looks like vomit, right?\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
With time, however, the residents have come around. For one thing, Dacres visits frequently; her studio is ten minutes away. \u201cSometimes you see sculptures and you\u2019re, like, \u2018How did they get the money for this?\u2019\u00a0\u201d Jones asked. \u201cBut these feel special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like Erykah Badu said,\u201d Dacres replied. \u201c\u00a0\u2018Keep in mind that I\u2019m an artist\u2014and I\u2019m sensitive about my shit!\u2019\u00a0\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Harlem River Houses, a public-housing complex in northern Manhattan, Sheryl Jones grimaced lightly as she watched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1472,9,11,10,49,51,50,24306,11004],"class_list":{"0":"post-42264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-magazine","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-state","13":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-state-news","15":"tag-public-art-dept","16":"tag-splitscreenimageleftinset"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}