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Street Light Banners Offer Visual Evidence of Harlem's Musical Past

By DNAinfo Staff on June 10, 2010 9:46pm

These four banners will be strung from street lights along 125th Street later this month. Community groups hope that the effort will reassert Harlem's reputation as a top destination for culture.
These four banners will be strung from street lights along 125th Street later this month. Community groups hope that the effort will reassert Harlem's reputation as a top destination for culture.
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DNAinfo/Simone Sebastian

By Simone Sebastian

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HARLEM — Artistic banners displaying musical images from Harlem's past will wave from street lamps along 125th Street this month as Harlem works to reestablish its waning reputation as a cultural powerhouse.

The 125th Street Business Improvement District revealed the four winners of a contest for the banners' designs on Thursday. 

Michael Unthank, executive director of the Harlem Arts Alliance, which partnered with the BID on the banner project, said it is part of an effort to make 125th Street Harlem's cultural center again.

"I think it has been seen as being run down," Unthank said of the storied street. "This is just a small step in the larger process to rebuild 125th Street to make it a stronger and more vibrant corridor."

One of the banners focuses on hip hop, another shows a blues singer and the other two incorporate images of jazz musicians.

"I wanted to represent every little part of Harlem, the things that make up the soul of Harlem," said Nicole Brown, 27, a Bronx-based artist who crafted one of the banner designs.

Her design features the silhouette of a saxophone player against a backdrop of ubiquitous Harlem images, including the Apollo Theater and the M60 bus.

Harlem is "like nowhere else in New York. The spirit of it is surely alive," said Brown. "It is so diverse. It has so much history. And it has it's own culture."

Laura Gadson, a Harlem quilt and fiber artist, created one of the other winning banners. The other two were both done by Beatrice Lebreton, a France-born artist who has lived in New York City since 2008.

All four banners are scheduled to be raised the last week of June and will remain on display for a year, said Barbara Askins, president of the 125th Street BID. She said there were 20 submissions.

This is the second year that the BID and the Harlem Arts Alliance have held the banner competition, which was only open to the 700 visual artist members of the Harlem Arts Alliance.