Bullet Space

Hoop Fest

This is a fun filled weekend with a little something for the entire family 
including inflatables & games, local food trucks, live DJ, vendor tables 
and an opportunity to meet the Long Island Nets Mascot!

 
Hoop Fest 
3x3 Tournament Weekend 
August 25-26 @ NYB LIVE 

Check here for sneaker vendor registration

The ABCs of Style

October has some real gems waiting for us! First the Contact High Project 
will finally release their beautiful book, I already pre-ordered, now Testify 
Books follows with The ABCs of Style, a Graffiti Alphabet!

Filled with 26 colorful marker drawings contributed by some of graffiti 
art's ultimate style masters, The ABCs of Style is part children's book, 
part adult art primer, tracking the evolution of graffiti letterforms. 
Each letter of the alphabet has been rendered by a different artist, with 
work from renowned writers Blade, Lee, Daze, Fuzz One, Haze, Jester, 
Doc, Ces, Cey, Trike, Part, Reas, Wane, SP, Keo, Queen Andrea and many 
others. 
Their styles range from early Bubble and Stick styles all the way to Wild 
style and beyond. But despite all these previously unseen original works, 
this book is not only for graffiti aficionados and art lovers. Both kids and 
parents can appreciate the book's rhythmic, happy verse that concludes 
with a gentle exhortation to rest. As appropriate on a coffee table as on 
a bunk bed, The ABCs of Style is truly art for everyone.

Hell On Wheels

In 1979, there were 250 serious crimes reported in the New York subway 

system – per week. There were six murders in the first two months alone. 

 No other subway in the world was more crime-ridden and infamous.

“Hell On Wheels” is a joyous and soulful trip in the bygone era of the New 
York subway system in the years between 1977-1984. 
Swiss photographer Willy Spiller, living in New York at the time, documented 
his underground travels with the curiosity of a foreigner, fascinated by the 
rush and the madness of its time. It’s the period of the first rap music, 
graffiti, The Warriors in the cinema, Guardian Angels on the trains and Ed 
Koch in charge of a broke and crime-riddled city. 
Willy Spiller’s images are as much a visual document of this incomparable 
realm as they are a syncopated, colorful poem to the city of New York and 
its people.

The New York Graffiti Experience ©1976

So much flava!


Read an interview of the filmmaker Via

Los Sures

Director Diego Echeverria has been working tirelessly trying to uncover and 
showcase the small, vibrant and wild side of south Williamsburg in his breakout
documentary "Los Sures." Filmed in 1984 on dingy 16mm film, the eye-opening
documentary exposes the small-knit and vivacious Puerto Rican and Dominican
neighborhood of south Williamsburg before the streets were clean, safe and 
crowded.
After being rediscovered in 2007, the film has been worked on extensively by 
the people at Union Docs, who have also launched a memory project entitled 
 "Living Los Sures," where individuals can come and share their stories, pictures 
and other tidbits they might have about the neighborhood.

I can't wait for this!

Dapper Dan @ Vanity Fair

Sometimes, the most important fashion show isn’t on the runway. 
Take Dapper Dan, whose eponymous Harlem boutique provided gangsters, 
hip-hop moguls, athletes (Mike Tyson was an infamous customer), and New 
York’s wanna-be hustlers with a sense of identity irreverently constructed 
from leather garments screen-printed with luxury logos and tricked out 
with fur. 
Throughout the 80s and 90s, Dap’s store was a fashion capital unto itself, 
open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until the luxury companies caught 
up with him and a raid (led by future Supreme Court Justice Sonia 
Sotomayor) ended the store’s reign.

Last year, Dap, along with author Emily Spivack, chef Marcus Samuelsson, 
and Orange Is the New Black author Piper Kerman, celebrated the Spivack’s 
released book Worn Stories, a collection of first-person essays about the 
memories behind our clothing, at Ginny’s Supper Club in Samuelsson’s Red
Rooster Harlem. 
Vanity Fair spoke to Dap about the 2015 fashion week, dressing for the 
occasion, and the first thing he notices about a person’s outfit. 

VF Daily: Do you follow New York Fashion Week?
Dapper Dan: When you’ve been excluded from the class, and they’re going 
on a trip, you usually don’t follow along on the trip. So I never really kept up 
with what transpires there.
In fact, my whole thing in fashion was that the runways and shows are never 
allowed to inspire me. . . . [I would] go to all the major trade shows that had 
all the latest [screen-printing and leather treatment] technology and see how 
I would take it and do it as opposed to runway shows. I was open 24 hours a 
day for nine years straight. So my constant exposure to living this day in and 
day out allowed me to isolate everything else and just think about what I can 
do, how I can change this?
I was catering to gangsters, and gangsters have these huge, huge egos. So one 
gangster crew would come in and order X amount. There’s 12 of them. So the 
other crew would come in and say, “What did they get? How much did they 
spend?” So now I have to be more creative, you know. 
So that’s why eventually I say, “You know what? I did his motorcycle, you want 
me to do your car?” “Well, he got a Louis Vuitton jacket, but I’m gonna make 
you a Louis Vuitton jacket that reverses, so you can wear the Louis side one 
time and then reverse it while you’re in the party and really floss and wear 
the mink side. So I needed desperately to know new frontiers, all the time, all 
the time.

Are there neighborhoods you enjoy going to in New York to study the style?
I like to go to clubs where a particular type of people go. I like to go to a club 
that’s designated the gay club, see what they’re wearing. I go to a hip-hop 
club, see what they wearing. Because I know in those locations, people are who 
they really wanna be, and how they really wanna look. I go to a neighborhood; 
they might be dressed for work. But when they go to that club, that’s who they 
are.

What article of clothing on a person do you look at first?
With a female: shoes. With a male, a black male, uptown: jacket. With a white 
male or an uppity black male: tie and shirt. The tie and shirt tell me if they 
want to be in tune with the times.
Uptown, the guys are really into jackets. Sneakers count a lot, but the jacket
—if they’re really into fashion, that jacket’s gonna match the sneakers. 
[A customer] comes to your table and says, “Oh, man, that’s hot! Let me go see 
if I can get some sneakers to match.” If you can’t get no sneakers to match, it’s 
a dead sale.
The market follows the color scheme of Jordans. Look: all you got to do is know 
what color Jordan is coming out with, which sneaker is gonna be hot, and you 
make a jacket to go with that. The sneaker sells the jacket.
I know women are fetishistic about shoes. Looking at a woman’s shoes is like 
being a palm reader.

What are you wearing tonight?
I dress for the occasion. I don’t really get to do Dapper Dan because I play the 
crowd. I have a basic, generic suit because I knew I was gonna run into a basic, 
generic crowd.

What does it mean to “do” Dapper Dan?
To do Dapper Dan means to be, “Goddamn, how he did that?” If you don’t say 
that, I was not there.

Do you think fashion is a means to permeate a subculture? In other words, 
can you dress yourself into a certain culture? 
I think fashion can escape a subculture. It’s that thriving, that beat within you 
to say, “I feel trapped. I gotta do this, I gotta be outside of this.” That’s what 
fashion is to me. It’s a manipulative thing, too, because to me, there is no right 
or wrong in fashion. It’s just weak and strong. If an artist is great, that’s 
strength, and you can use his power.

What draws you to a particular logo over another?
I’m heavily into symbolism. When I first started doing Louis Vuitton, the first 
thing I did was look up the symbol. I saw that the symbols were a manifestation 
of symbols that came out of the east, which was a variation on the cross. 
And I like to play with things. That’s why my most inspiring designer is Versace. 
He did it: with the Greek key and the Medusa head, which he didn’t own but he 
just made that so powerful, so symbolic. I like that! Originally I play around 
with Louis ’cause there was a lot of things involved . . . but none of that touches 
Versace. So much there. He did it all: the colors, the time period things he used.

What’s the hardest thing about being a man?
Understanding the nature of pain. You gotta know what pain is. If you’re a man, 
you gotta know what pain is. The process of taking care of your family is to keep 
them free of pain, whatever that means to them. The height of masculinity is to 
be able to take pain, even if it’s vicarious.

Today is adidas Tracksuit Day

Show off your clasic with the #adidastracksuithashtag

Jacob Riis' New York

MOMA has a nice little Jacob Riis collection.

In 1870, when 21-year-old Jacob August Riis immigrated to America from 

Denmark on the steamship Iowa, he rode in steerage with nothing but the 

clothes on his back, 40 borrowed dollars in his pocket, and a locket 

containing a single hair from the girl he loved.

Unable to find a steady job, he worked as a farmhand, ironworker, brick-

layer, carpenter, and salesman, and experienced the worst aspects of 

American urbanism--crime, sickness, squalor--in the low-rent tenements 

and lodging houses that would eventually inspire the young Danish 

immigrant to dedicate himself to improving living conditions for the city’s 

lower-class.

Riis wanted to show the the world the dehumanizing dangers of the 

immigrant neighborhoods he knew all too well. He taught himself 

photography and began taking a camera with him on his nightly rounds 

through the slums of New York. The recent invention of flash photography 

made it possible to document the dark, over-crowded tenements, grim 

saloons and dangerous slums. Riis’s pioneering use of flash photography 

brought to light even the darkest parts of the city. Used in articles, books, 

and lectures, his striking compositions became powerful tools for social 

reform.

This Saturday

Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer

After 13 years of work, Charlie Aheardn is finally releasing his documentary 
about Jamel Shabazz.

Mi Gente

 


Photographed entirely in NYC’s famed El Barrio, Spanish Harlem 
from 1985-1990 this marks the first time Joseph Rodriguez has 
exhibited these works in his beloved community. With this deeply 
moving series of photographs he forces us to remember a time 
before today's newfound gentrification, a time before cafes and 
artistic bohemia, a time where poverty, high crime, drugs and a 
fledgling AIDS crisis held a community hostage. 
Rodriguez who beautifully captures the humanity, joy and love of 
his subjects by embedding himself intimately within many families' 
lives and the community affords us an honest testimony of what it 
was like for those who lived through such perilous times.

Curated by Carlos Mare  

The opening of the exhibition will be September 24th 
from 6-9PM at 
Hi-ARTS Gallery space 
located at 304 East 100th st. (6 Train to 96th ). 

Gallery Hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays 1 - 6PM 
The Show will run through November 11th. 
For special viewings please email or call gallery: info@hiarts.org 
(718)-497-4282  For more information call at 718-407-4282 or 
email at info@hi-artsnyc.org

Sunday Goodie: Matt Weber's Subway photography

Matt Weber has a wonderful Blog, he continously feeds with pictures 
from now and then. Check out the category 'Subway' for some great 
motives and stories!

KIDS

In hommage to Martha Cooper and her perfect 70's photo series Street Play, 
John Ahearn is presenting Walton Avenue Kids. In the 80's, Ahearn, in 
collaboration with Rigoberto Torres regularly used the sidewalk in front of 
his building as a life casting studio and a display of all the neighborhood 
portraits. 
This was especially exciting during summer Block Parties with DJs and 
crowds of people. Unlike most parts of NYC, many neighborhoods in the 
Bronx now have the same families as they did thirty years ago. In 2008, 
Walton had a reunion Block Party. John Ahearn set up casts from the 80's and 
life cast the cousin of his old friend Raymond Garcia. Martha Cooper was 
present to beautifully capture the mood. 
For the installation Walton Avenue Kids, all the 80's casts of kids (seen in 
context in Martha Cooper's photos) will be arranged at the 

Dorian Grey Gallery
437 East 9th Street @ Avenue A 
Manhattan, New York

Os Gemeos on TImes Square

Os Gemeos take over #timesquare from 11:57 to 12 midnight every night of 
August to promote their next show in NYC. 

Via

25 Years ago, Today

When in NYC

Out of the Box

From their modest origins in the mid-nineteenth century to high-end 
sneakers created in the past decade, sneakers have become a global 
obsession.  
The Rise of Sneaker Culture is the first exhibition to explore the 
complex social history and cultural significance of the footwear now 
worn by billions of people throughout the world.
The exhibition, which includes approximately 150 pairs of sneakers, 
looks at the evolution of the sneaker from its beginnings to its current 
role as status symbol and urban icon. Included are works from the 
archives of manufacturers such as Adidas, Converse, Nike, Puma, and 
Reebok as well as private collectors such as hip-hop legend Darryl 
“DMC” McDaniels, sneaker guru Bobbito Garcia, and Dee Wells of 
Obsessive Sneaker Disorder. Also featured are sneakers by Prada and 
other major fashion design houses and designers, as well as those 
made in collaboration with artists including Damien Hirst and Shantell 
Martin. 
 Film footage, interactive media, photographic images, and design 
drawings contextualize the sneakers and explore the social history, 
technical innovations, fashion trends, and marketing campaigns that 
have shaped sneaker culture over the past two centuries.
The Rise of Sneaker Culture is organized by the American Federation 
of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto. It is curated by Elizabeth 
Semmelhack, Senior Curator, Bata Shoe Museum.
The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Lisa Small, Curator of 
Exhibitions, Brooklyn Museum. 
A fully illustrated catalogue, co-published by the AFA in partnership 
with the Bata Shoe Museum and Rizzoli, accompanies the exhibition.

July 10 - October 4, 2015 
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238–6052  

Rubble Kings is out

I posted some pictures about this movie last year, after I went to the 
premiere in NY. As a kind of TBT act I am posting some more, because
this movie is a gem amongst so many documentaries about NY in 70's.
Now Rubble Kings released on iTunes - support and check it out!