

East Village development briefly offers perfect projection wall.

Was a time when artists squatted in abandoned East Village tenements, huddled around a single candle with nothing but a broken mandolin and a cup of warm bathtub grog for entertainment. But as Bob Dylan once said, "times they are a-changin'," and boy was that guy right. His everlasting message of metamorphosis still rings true today, which brings us to Edward Chimney, resident of East Village 2015, and this emblematic projection that appeared on an East 10th Street apartment building last night.



Photo by Edward Chimney

Chimney emailed us these photos of what he calls "a super awesome Mario Kart set-up," which was made possible by the demolition of another building that will likely regenerate as luxury condos. The projection wasn't for art, or protest, there was no underlying message intended, it was just for some Sunday night fun atop an East 10th Street apartment building. He tells us, "My neighbors were projecting it when I got home. There was some sort of Mario Kart tournament going on, maybe 10 people switching on and off with the controllers."

As Allen Ginsberg once declared, "I really would like to stop working forever... and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends and play MarioKart on that wall over there, by Burroughs's old pad."



Photo by Edward Chimney

Fine, this seems fun. Maybe on Monday nights they can do a slideshow of images from the Tompkins Square Riots, before hitting up the Blind Barber for craft cocktails and a shave? Gentrification!