Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Pier 45 Arts Events Could Calm Local Tensions, CB2 Says

By Andrea Swalec | October 26, 2011 7:32am
The American Tap Dance Foundation, which has studios on Christopher Street, close to Pier 45, could potentially host performances and classes there.
The American Tap Dance Foundation, which has studios on Christopher Street, close to Pier 45, could potentially host performances and classes there.
View Full Caption
American Tap Dance Foundation

WEST VILLAGE — Could longstanding tensions between West Village residents and youth who spend time on Pier 45 be washed away by a river of opera singers, Joffrey ballet dancers and Czech marionettes?

The waterfront committee of Community Board 2 considered that question Monday night when it heard more than a dozen proposals for free performances and art exhibitions intended to draw a more generationally diverse crowd to the West Village pier and engage the LGBT youth who hang out there.

Committee head Arthur Schwartz said they invited arts organizations to submit proposals for  Saturday and Sunday night events on Pier 45, which is located just north of Christopher Street along the Hudson River, in order "to set a different tone on the pier."

Village residents have often complained that youth on Pier 45, which has been an LGBT hangout for decades, create noise and other quality-of-life issues on the pier and surrounding streets. Youth who spend time in the area have claimed that police sometimes target them unfairly.

"If we create a different atmosphere on the pier that would involve the young people out there and bring other people out as well, it might be constructive," Schwartz said at Housing Works' health center on West 13th Street.

The Joffrey Ballet, which has a 45-member company in the city, suggested performances and classes.

The American Tap Dance Foundation, which has studios on Christopher Street, close to the pier, could also host performances and classes, Director of Operations Hjørdis Linn-Blanford said.

"We are excited to potentially be part of a plan to bridge the static between the LBGT users and the community users of Pier 45," she said.

Opera OGGI New York singer Sonya Rice suggested an all-female performance of Jules Massenet's opera "Sapho."

"It would be a celebration of the lesbian lifestyle," she said.

Vit Horejs of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater pitched puppet performances for all ages.

And Melissa Riker, artistic director of Kinesis Project Dance Theater, suggested a performance series called "Women in Motion."

"The kids [on the pier] would get a chance to see what else is out there, not just what's in front of them," she said.

Groups that put on additional programming for Pier 45, which is managed by the Hudson River Park Trust, would likely need to provide their own funding, community board members and HRPT executive vice president Noreen Doyle said.

Doyle told board members that performers and the HRPT would also need to suss out issues of available dates, assembly permits, insurance, staffing and the impact of events on the pier's lawn.

"There are a lot of ... issues that would need to be figured out from a property perspective," Doyle said.

Russell Morse of the Hudson Square youth nonprofit The Door spoke in favor of additional arts programming for Pier 45.

"This would be one way to engage youth on the pier," he said.

The committee's previous ideas for creative solutions to disorder problems on Pier 45 have included joint patrols between LGBT youth and Parks Enforcement Officers, and sensitivity training for police.

Committee member Alexander Meadows expressed concern that additional events on the pier might not solve any noise or disorder problems there.

"This doesn't seem to address the underlying issue," he said. "What are we going to do about these kids? This seems like something to push the problem down the shoot."

The process by which events will be selected will continue to be discussed by the waterfront committee and the HRPT, the groups said.