Art and plantings guide residents to Hunts Point waterfront

By Stephanie Gooch
sgooch825@yahoo.com

By next spring, the Bronx River will meander along the walls of a grim industrial site on Edgewater Road, beside Hunts Point Riverside Park.

Painted by artists commissioned by The Point CDC, the river will be rendered in a mural that traces its course from Westchester to Hunts Point. It will be the second in a series called “Village of Murals,” conceived by Carey Clark, the director of arts education at The Point.

The goal of the murals is to create attractive pathways from the residential portion of Hunts Point, through the industrial zone, to the Bronx and East rivers and the South Bronx Greenway.

Like the first set of murals on Longfellow Avenue, the artists “canvas” will be the property of Sims Metal Management, the multinational recycling company which has been working with local environmental organizations to limit pollution from its scrap yard next to the park.

Among the artists are some of those who worked on the earlier murals at the Sims subsidiary New York Recycling Ventures, including Freddy Sepuveda, Luis Nieves, Alejandra Delfin, Kathleena Howie Garcia, Mark Whalen, and Nelson Rivas. Their work will depict Woodlawn, the New York Botanical Garden, Hunts Point industry and the South Bronx Greenway on sheets of corrugated metal that will be attached to the chain-link fences at the Sims scrap yard. Flowers set to bloom in spring will climb the walls, interwining with the fence.

In September, representatives of The Point, Smart Roofs LLC, Sustainable South Bronx, City Matters and Sims unveiled a similar group of plantings at the Longfellow Avenue site, celebrating the completion of Phase 1 of the Village of Murals with a ribbon-cutting for what they dubbed a “green wall.”

Sims is trying to be a good corporate citizen said executives of the company, which reported revenue of a billion dollars for the quarter ending September 30.

The goal of the plantings goes beyond beautifying and adding shade to a barren, industrial area, explained Andrea Schaffer, who heads CityMatters LLC, an environmental consulting firm. At both sites, the plantings will also improve water quality by absorbing rain water before it can run into the river, carrying with it litter and the oil and antifreeze from the trucks, cars and fork-lifts that clog Hunts Point’s industrial streets, said Schaffer, who managed the green wall project.

SmartRoofs LLC chose the wisteria and honeysuckle vines that clamber up the walls of the Longfellow Avenue building. SmartRoofs, a subsidiary of Sustainable South Bronx that installs and maintains green roofs in Hunts Point and elsewhere in the metropolitan area, will maintain the plantings, Schaffer said. The trees came from Million TreesNYC, which is partnering with the city to reach Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s goal of planting a million news trees citywide.

Like most of Industrial Hunts Point, Longfellow Avenue is bleak. Trucks roar past the wrecked cars that are the stock in trade of the many auto repair shops. Broken glass litters the street. But it’s hard to miss the burst of color that greets pedestrians walking towards Viele Avenue on the way to Barretto Point Park.

The murals and plantings “caught and soothed my eyes,” said Ray Nunez, a construction worker. He contrasted the view to the old neighborhood, which “used to be stolen cars, junk yards, and prostitutes,” he said.

It’s a different Hunts Point than I’m used to, exclaimed Nunez, who plans to bring his kids to the park. “It gives the community spirit; I see what’s going on in the community. I see the industry and community coming together,” he said.

A version of this story appeared in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of The Hunts Point Express.