“The Holocaust haunted my childhood. I identified with the victims and fantasized about what would have happened if I had lived during World War II in the countries of Eastern Europe where my grandparents were born,” says Bassis of her time growing up as a young girl in the Bronx. “Whenever I visited Europe, I wondered about the lost histories, looking at streets where Jews once lived, the faces of old people who lived through World War II. I wanted to make art about this tragedy, and also bring something fresh to a topic that is so familiar to most people without being hackneyed and predictable.”

For nearly a decade, Bassis has been working on series of handmade books, called The Holocaust Books, which confront the tragic legacy of the European Jews. Manhattan’s Center for Book Arts is currently displaying some of them as part of the group exhibition Un[framed] Photograph, and Bassis will be participating in a panel discussion at the center next Wednesday, July 27 at 6:30 pm.

We recently caught up with Bassis to discuss her current exhibition, and the role of social activism in art.

BASSIS’ WORK:

You were born and raised in New York City. What brought you to Jersey City?

I moved to the New Jersey suburbs for all the obvious reasons; schools, community activities, safe quiet streets and backyards, a world that wasn’t my experience growing up in the Bronx. My children finished college and, around the same time, I found that I didn’t need my darkroom anymore. I always felt out of place in the suburbs: most people there don’t really understand artists and why we put so much energy into something that often has little financial reward. I had a piece at the Jersey City Museum, and at the opening, surrounded by all that artistic community and creative energy, I felt that Jersey City was a place where I would really enjoy living. My husband and I went walking around during Studio Tour and decided to start to look for a place to live.

Can you talk a little bit about what the Jersey City arts community means to you? Has Jersey City influenced your studio practice in any shape, manner, or form?

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the many artists here, networking, making friends. Jersey City’s wonderfully diverse population has inspired some of my work about the urban experience.

We know that you have a keen interest in the Holocaust; how did the idea of doing the books come about?

In 2002, I was at a printmaking residency in Belgium. I took photos in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp, where a lot of Orthodox Jews still live. I took photos in the former prison building in the city of Mechelen, where people were held before being transported by train to concentration camps. It still didn’t seem like enough material. About a year later, I was in Vienna for a vacation and traveled to the nearby Mauthausen camp. After spending a day there and taking photos, I felt I had enough visual material.

I asked a friend for a Yiddish text and he supplied a children’s story from the 1930s. The following summer, I was going on another artist residency. I had just started making altered books that spring and I had thrown a bag of old books in my car. The large prints that I had planned to make just didn’t work. I started distressing old books, inserting bits of transfer prints from my photos, adding wire, thread, modeling paste, paint. The books were perfect for me, working on so many levels: a reference to the “people of the book,” books and literacy are intrinsically important in Jewish religion, books were destroyed in The Holocaust, they are intimate, asking the viewer to enter into another world.

What do you hope the viewer takes away from the work?

We’re living in a time of unprecedented change with constant demands on people’s attention. I think any work of art that makes a viewer stop and think is very successful. I don’t want to make art that is easy and immediately transparent but rather, art that asks the viewer to think, to bring their experiences to the artwork, so the answer is “something much more open-ended.”

You conclude your Holocaust Books project description with the following statement: “The Holocaust is an interrupted — and unfinished — narrative.” What do you mean by that?

The Holocaust is an “interrupted” narrative in the sense that the story, the narrative, the culture, the life of the Jewish people in Europe was interrupted, destroyed, dispersed, and mostly ended. Many countries that once had large, thriving Jewish communities have just a shadow of these people left. It is an “unfinished” narrative in that sense, but also because the attitudes and behaviors that created that tragedy are still present in subsequent genocides, racial cleansing, warfare and political tensions exploiting racial, ethnic and religious divisions. Europe is feeling stress right now on the issue of national identity and integrating Muslim minorities. The question of what it means to be an American continues to be a polarizing issue here in the United States. This story isn’t finished.

You have a busy summer. You are also in an exhibition, Millennial Yell, in the Art for Change Gallery in New York City. The show opens August 5. What can you tell us about the exhibition?

I’m showing five pieces in this show. Two are from a group of digital photo collages about contemporary immigration. I asked a number of immigrants what they missed from their homeland and used their quotes in combination with street photos. I sewed the prints together to make larger composite images.

The other work in this show is very recent. I responded to a call for book artists to make work for a traveling show in response to the car bombing of a book store in Baghdad where artists and intellectuals gathered. One set of the books is going to a library in Iraq. This got me thinking about Muslim identity in America and there was a lot of sound and fury about the proposed mosque/cultural center in lower Manhattan. I interviewed and photographed several Muslim Americans and used their quotes and photos to make the work that’s going into the Millennial Yell show. I’m still working on the books pieces. The organization sponsoring the show sounds interesting to me and speaks to a lot of my interests in social justice and community. I thinks it’s important to get art out into the world and not have it sit around in drawers and boxes.

Another exhibition coming up that I’m excited about has been organized by Marilyn Fox at Penn State Berks. She’s put together four exhibits in different venues with 40 artists for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I’m going to the Freyberger Gallery at the Penn State Berks campus in late August to recreate part of an installation that was at the Ceres Project Room in NYC in 2002. My piece was called The Aftermath(9/11) and used transfer photo portraits of friends and neighbors and words made out of knotted and glued thread. It was about the emotional tides that swept over everyone around here after that tragedy. I’m recreating a 6’ x 6’ x 6’ section with the words “Scared” and “Guilty”.

There’s a strong sense of social criticism in your work, and I also detect a bit of anger. Can you talk about that, and where that comes from?

I don’t think of my work as angry; I think of it as engaged in the world and seeking to engage the viewer. In the late 1980s I lost a dear friend to AIDS and started making work about that disease and suddenly found myself categorized as making “political art.” I thought that I was making art about issues touching human life, not politics. I make art about things that I care about and I care about the world around me. The very nature of the subjects that I’ve chosen often link to social issues and are implicitly critical. I’m interested in content in art. In addition to the work I’ve discussed, I made a group of collages, books, and prints about the legacy of slavery in the United States, AIDS, dementia and aging, personal narratives of overlooked individuals, multiculturalism in Europe, Muslim identity in the United States and, most recently, I’ve been doing work about the nature of memory.

As an artist, how do you reconcile aesthetics and social activism in your work?

They are very tightly bound together. I’m interested in making art about subjects that I care about in a way that will hold the viewer’s attention. Some of my work expresses more personal concerns such as work that I made about my mother’s dementia but even that subject has larger social implications.

You are also a member of _gaia, the women’s artist collective in downtown Jersey City. Why did you become a member, and how does your membership in the collective influence your life inside and outside the studio?

I decided to get my own etching press a little over a year ago and I needed a home for it. I had met Doris Cacoilo (the director of _gaia) a few years before when she included my work in an exhibition. I thought that the studio would be a good place to work and the _gaia members are a varied group with similar interests in art, feminism, community and activism.

Any last words?

My work continues to grow, spreading out into new subjects and media. I used to wonder if I’d run out of ideas, but now I feel them lining up in my head like airplanes waiting for takeoff.

Sorrow over the void they say McFadden’s departure leaves in the continuing fight to strengthen public education in Jersey City, but joy in the knowledge that she willingly gave so much of her free time for that fight — with a presence and determination that made those she touched better persons for the shared experience.

McFadden, 64, who was president of Parents and Communities United for Education (PCUE), died May 28.

During her time, she was a leading advocate for the concept of “inclusion,” an effort to mainstream children judged to have learning problems, while finding their strengths and helping apply those strengths.

PCUE is affiliated with New Jersey’s Statewide Education Organizing Committee, a coalition of parents and community activists from urban districts committed to holding politicians’ feet to the fire on all things affecting public education. PCUE’s goals include guaranteeing equitable funding, promoting teacher quality and assuring safe and secure schools.

During Friday’s two-hour memorial service, mistress of ceremonies Roslyn Gibbs-Muse, while sharing in the audience’s sorrow, tried rallying the troops using some rousing and joyful prayers.

At times, the event took on the feeling of a pep rally, as Gibbs-Muse tried keeping McFadden’s compatriots focused on the challenges lying ahead.

“Come on!” the hostess implored. “Come on, just clap your hands!”

Gibbs-Muse reminded them that her friend, McFadden, would not want those now left behind to simply give up the fight. Further, she assured her spirit will live on in ways which should stir them — as it has her — to never relent in their cause.

“The privilege I had serving with Miss LueElla has been a major influence,” Gibbs-Muse said. “And being in the church, it was certainly an honor being associated with a person who offered so much.”

She described McFadden as “the purpose of our being and the love of our lives.”

Helping her conduct the proceedings were two of McFadden’s children, Wesley and Roxanne. They sat with other relatives at one table. Speakers were each given about two minutes to reflect on McFadden’s life, producing a mix of smiles, occasional tears and gentle sobs.

Wesley and Roxanne McFadden said they felt honored to have been able to share their mom, and her special gifts, with the rest of Jersey City.

“What I’ve seen is all the good she’s done for all of us,” a misty-eyed Roxanne said gently. “And she can see us now. So we have to keep ourselves together and make sure she’s proud, because she knows everything that’s going on.”

McFadden assumed PCUE’s leadership in 2008. Yet the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother fought in the trenches as a public education activist for 40 years.

The fight began, as so many do, as a personal one. While attending School 22, McFadden’s daughter was labeled as having difficultly learning, and was, in McFadden’s view, unfairly shoved aside.

“Instead of addressing the problem,” a biography provided by PCUE reads, “the teacher placed LueElla’s daughter at the back of the class and ignored her, despite LueElla’s many complaints and visits to the school.”

Eventually, McFadden compelled the district to bus her daughter to what previously was an all-white school in the Heights, which provided her better accommodations.

Later in life, McFadden waged another similar battle at School 22, this time on behalf of a granddaughter, and later for students labeled as “special ed” in Lincoln High School. At the time, they were placed in a special wing, which upset McFadden.

The Lincoln situation prompted her to hold meetings with parents after hours at her place of employment, Jersey City Medical Center. There, they plotted a strategy that finally brought her vision of “inclusion” to the forefront. A lobbying campaign ensued within the district and before the state legislature that paid off.

Eventually, McFadden “started to notice the spread of ‘inclusion’ classrooms,” her biography notes. The activist considered the policy as “one of her biggest victories in school reform,” yet the battles continued because McFadden viewed “special education labeling” as a persistent problem.

Deputy Mayor Kabili Tayari on Friday likened McFadden’s efforts in making sure each city student was treated with dignity to the struggles African-Americans faced during the civil rights movement, mentioning one giant in that movement in particular.

“When you think about Rosa Parks not sitting down in the back of the bus, working as a secretary for the NAACP and organizing for the NAACP, while facing danger — that’s LueElla McFadden,” Tayari said.

Yet PCUE’s Loyda Goldston stressed the commitment McFadden gave to the cause of public education blurred racial lines, insisting that “she was dedicated to improving the quality of education for all children throughout the state.”

And McFadden was fondly remembered for always applying a motherly touch, not only to family members, but to children of friends and neighbors needing help as well. City teacher Phyllis Gordon witnessed those traits up close.

“My daughter grew up knowing LueElla as a grandmother,” she recalled. “She was a caregiver. I can remember so many great things with LueElla, I can go on and on … LueElla, may you rest in peace.”

Sue Curry, a PCUE organizer, recalled many occasions working in the trenches with McFadden on critical issues. She hailed her for “serving as a mentor to me,” by offering lessons Curry promised never to forget.

“I and many others learned so much from LueElla, and the lessons she has left behind will help our organization carry on in fighting for her beliefs,” Curry said. “She taught parents persistence in trying to convey to them the power they possess.”

Photo courtesy of PCUE

As usual, the news media and authorities have described the victims, all in their 20s, as drug-addicted call girls trolling Craigslist for johns. Apart from their names, ages, and dates of disappearance, we know next to nothing about these women or the lives they led.

Since 2000, artist Norene Leddy (at right) has examined the lives of this marginalized, often vilified group. Leddy pinpoints Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty, as her inspiration. Recently, she has partnered with sex workers to design a wearable platform shoe which can be used for self-expression or protection. The shoe is outfitted with a small video screen, audio speaker, GPS receiver, and an emergency button.

We recently caught up with Leddy to discuss the sex trade, human sexuality and femininity, her upcoming show at the Longwood Art Gallery in the Bronx, and the cult of Aphrodite.

When did you begin to paint, draw or make art?

It was always just there. Even when I was really small, like 4 or 5, I would tell people I was going to be an artist and live in Paris or New York. At that time my obsessions were drawing women in Cinderella-esque gowns and making shoes you could wear out of paper and ribbons. They fell apart pretty quickly.

What brought you to Jersey City?

Some good friends of ours bought a place out here. We (me and my husband) came to visit and there was an open house up the street. We fell in love with it. I never thought living in Jersey City was an option, but it’s a way shorter commute to Manhattan than where we were looking in Brooklyn. And I love our house — it’s a brick rowhouse from the turn of the century.

You have shown your work at Jersey City Museum and The Distillery Gallery & Artspace in the Heights. What is your experience of Jersey City’s art scene?

Really interesting work and friendly, generous, people. But still serious about what they do.

Has living in Jersey City shaped your practice in any manner?

Not yet, but I’m working on it. I would love to do a piece about our neighborhood in the Heights, but I have yet to figure out exactly what that would be. I’m really into pigeons and there are a few lofts in our neighborhood, so that’s a distinct possibility.

That sounds great, very Jersey City. Did you happen to catch the TV show about Mike Tyson on Animal Planet? The show, Taking on Tyson, is about Iron Mike and racing pigeons. He has a two-story pigeon coop on top of the The Ringside Bar and Lounge on Tonnelle Avenue.

Not yet, but I’m on a lot of pigeon list-servs and it’s causing quite a stir. It’s on my list of things to watch this summer, I am very curious. There’s a great book on pigeons called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew Blechman; he talks a lot about Tyson.

In 2000 in Cyprus, you began a body of work that has come to be known as The Aphrodite Project. What is it, and why is it important to you?

It’s a series of new media artworks inspired by the cult of Aphrodite. It started in Cyprus, birthplace of Aphrodite, in 2000 as part of a Fulbright fellowship. Initially I set out to explore geographical phenomena related to Aphrodite, but the work ended up being more about the complexity of the mythology. She was an icon for femininity and sexuality but not in the way people think. It was more about fertility — the fertility of both land and people. You would make sacrifices to Aphrodite to get your crops to grow. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes. I loved the idea idea that she was simultaneously a powerful goddess, mother, and seductress. This was a completely different way of looking at sexuality and femininity that is an impossibility for most of us today.

What was your conception of sexuality and feminity before you discovered the cult of Aphrodite?

A feminist definitely, but a bit of a closed-minded one: there were certain things I was “never” going to do, like get married and have a kid, and I had no real understanding of sex work. It was very black and white. Now I’m much more interested in the gray areas, the unexpected, and things that don’t fit together.

You are participating in the group exhibition Born Again at Longwood Art Gallery in the Bronx. How did you get involved in project?

Nicolas Dumit Estevez, the curator, was really interested in the Platforms shoes and the workshops that we had done. He was looking for artists who worked actively with different communities. Sex work is a major factor in many people’s perception of the Bronx, so it made a lot of sense to include a project with actual sex workers. The piece is a collaboration with Melissa Gira Grant, an amazing artist, writer, former sex worker and rights advocate. She has also been the community adviser for The Aphrodite Project for several years. We are inviting sex workers and others who have experience with the sex trade to remap the Bronx.

Do you often collaborate with other artists? How did your partnership with Melissa affect your current project at Longwood Art Gallery?

At this point, all of my projects are collaborations. I have big ideas, and there’s no way the projects will get done without partnerships. It’s also really fulfilling to be part of someone else’s big project. Right now I’m collaborating with Liz Slagus on a project called SexEd whose goal is to create a collective, community-based sex education curriculum through a series of documented artist commissions and community collaborations. It’s going to take years to complete, but we keep each other going and excited about it.

The project at Longwood would not happen without Melissa. She gives the piece credibility and has a vast knowledge of the sex worker community and the history of sex work. We have a collective vision for the project, and make the content and design decisions together. It truly belongs to both of us.

According to the show’s exhibition statement, the purpose is to unearth the Bronx community’s collective perceptions and misconceptions that have shaped the identity of the borough since the 1960s. What were your perceptions of the Bronx before the project? Has your conception of borough changed as a result of your participation?

My perceptions of the Bronx were largely based on Hookers at the Point, an incredibly biased documentary by Brent Owens about street-based prostitution in Hunts Point in the late 1990’s. Even though I knew this was not the full story, it was amazing to go all over Hunts Point and not see a single woman working. There is this constant refrain of “day or night, they’re always out” — but that’s a gross exaggeration. The Point community center, whose mural was featured in the Hookers at the Point credit sequence, is an amazing place with classrooms, galleries, recording and photography studios. It was such an unfair comparison to have that mural next to sensational images of street-based sex workers. Riverdale also completely blew my mind. Who knew there were mansions and riding stables in the Bronx?!

For Born Again, you are showing Re/working the Map, the newest incarnation of The Aphrodite Project. It’s an interactive, site-specific project using mapping and digital images throughout the Bronx. For this project, you depended upon the cooperation of sex workers living in the Bronx. What is this project about, and why is it important to you?

The exhibition runs from June 1 to August 3. During that time we are inviting sex workers and anyone who has experience with the sex trade to tell us stories, text us stories, or send us photos to create an interactive map of the Bronx based on their experiences. Right now the map documents our trip from Riverdale to Hunts Point. After June 1 we will start adding any new data we get.

The project is important to us because people in the sex trade aren’t defined just by what they do to survive. They are closely intertwined with their neighborhoods and communities, excluded from and yet still contributing to the economic mainstream. From shopping in bodegas to attending college to taking children to day care, sex workers are part of the seen/unseen life in the Bronx.

Can you tell us about the sex workers in this project? Who were they? Where did they come from? When did they become involved in the industry, and how? What do they do? Were any of the participants familiar with contemporary art practices?

Melissa is leading the outreach; the stories and images will be gathered online and via outreach workers, in collaboration with trusted community-based list-servs and organizations. It’s not the kind of thing you can do alone, and protecting people’s privacy is crucial. Sex workers are everywhere. and from all kinds of backgrounds. If you’ve taken the subway in New York, you’ve been around sex workers. A lot of sex workers are also artists, designers, college students, writers … they are not all underage victims of sexual abuse or junkies. I’m not saying that never happens, just that it’s complicated and not necessarily the norm. Tracy Quan, Scarlot Harlot, Annie Sprinkle — all of these women are creative powerhouses as well as sex workers. Through my artwork I’ve met a lot of sex workers, male and female, from various backgrounds, and there is not one distinguishing characteristic or one way that they practice their profession. They are all individuals. This project is about preserving that humanity.

Who is your target audience for Re/working the Map, and what do you hope it takes away from the project?

When I’ve mentioned this project to people, often they can’t even imagine how or why anyone would do such a thing. It is impossible for them to see past the profession of sex worker and the stereotypes that has — but that’s why this project is so important. We are hoping it gets people to reconsider their own perceptions about sex work and sex workers. This is why in the map online as well as in the gallery installation we included media references to sex work next to actual images of the Bronx and input from sex workers. The media images are black and white, the others are color. The Bronx is a borough of paradoxes, it includes some of the poorest and some of the wealthiest communities. In our map, as in life, sex work ties them together. Hopefully people leave with some idea of the complexity of the situation.

As an artist, how do you reconcile issues of social justice, politics and visual aesthetics?

I think art has a role in social justice, otherwise I wouldn’t be making the work that I do. Sometimes it takes an artist to see things differently, to make the “crazy” object or visual that can create social change. In my case, a social worker could not spend three years making a GPS shoe with hidden compartments and a panic button, but an artist can. And once it’s made, it becomes a catalyst for people to discuss sex work and sex workers in a new way. When it goes online, it’s even more accessible. We also do workshops where we show people how to hack their shoes and make their own audible alarm systems.

How does Re/working the Map relate to earlier works in The Aphrodite Project?

All of the pieces work to expand our thinking about femininity and sexuality, with Aphrodite (the simultaneous goddess, mother, whore) as a backdrop. Formally each project has a logo and color scheme that fits with the rest. They are all branded, which makes sense to me aesthetically, and gives some of them the look and feel of actual products.

Do your projects like Platforms and Kestos Imas serve as actual consumer products to be worn or do they function solely as aesthetic objects?

Right now all of them are prototypes. They function as aesthetic objects as well as blueprints for manufacturing. They could be mass produced, but they would have to be remarketed for another audience — it’s illegal to help anyone to engage in prostitution. There are very vaguely written pandering laws that make it illegal for you to drop your sister/brother/friend off at a stroll to work, for example. They are designed to protect women from pimps, but it doesn’t really work that way. We also got letters from the company that owns the patent on GPS shoes, warning us about mass producing them. To get around this, we posted instructions to make your own GPS shoes and alarm systems online.

THE DETAILS

Born Again; Opening Reception Wednesday, June 1 from 5 to 9 pm; at Longwood Arts Project at Hostos Community College, 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx. The show will be up through August 3.

By now, most parents and residents have heard Jersey City Superintendent of Schools Dr. Charles Epps’ comments on the young female students in our public schools:

“Our worst enemy is the young ladies. The young girls are bad. I don’t know what they’re drinking today, but they’re bad.”

Dr. Epps apologized – as he should – but is it enough? Are these comments acceptable from the person tasked with the responsibility of educating our children and making sure they move on to become productive members of our society?

I don’t think anything short of resignation by Dr. Epps is enough.

Time and time again, elected officials are given a pass for their mediocrity and mishaps. It needs to end. We need to expect more from the elected officials and public officials in our community – especially from someone tasked with leading our public schools.

Education is the silver bullet to ending all of our social ills; poverty, crime, gangs, drugs, and senseless murders could all be minimized or totally tamped out if we could only keep our kids in school and give them the tools they need to move onto college. These egregious words Dr. Epps muttered matter. They send the wrong message to the young boys in Jersey City who hear and read his comments and think it is acceptable to talk about women this way. Worst of all, what kind of message are we sending as a community if we don’t demand his resignation?

Compliance on our part is a rubber stamp of his conduct – a rubber stamp I cannot accept.

Dr. Epps credibility to run our schools is lost. Too often in our city the balkanization of the various ethnic groups takes precedent over what is best for our community. I can state affirmatively that this is a not a black or white issue. As an African-American, I am appalled and shocked by his conduct. And I would be just as appalled and shocked if I were Asian-American, or Irish-American, or a person of any other race or religion.

Do not fall victim to the constant race baiting we see too often in our politics and public discourse. We need to start the process now of looking beyond race, and instead looking towards what is in the best interests of Jersey City and its children. We must do better for them, otherwise the circle of failure and underperformance will drag on. Our public schools are the frontlines, and we need leaders in place who think the children are the solution, not the enemy.

As a community, we are equipped with the power to put the right people in office for our school board. Leaders and educators who are passionate about cultivating the academic potential of our young people, optimizing our education system to encourage excellence, and fighting for the necessary changes to turn our public school system around. Whoever you supported in last week’s Board of Education races, make your voices heard – and keep those people accountable to the needs of our children. It is a disservice to yourself and our community to allow our elected officials to get away with lackluster representation.

Our worst enemy is silence. Whether it is silence at the ballot box, silence at City Council meetings, or silence when our public officials make offensive statements. We need to a make our voices heard or the status quo will continue indefinitely. Our children need to see this type of rhetoric is unacceptable.

Dr. Epps needs to resign. If he doesn’t, the community must demand it.

Photo: Steve Gold

“In 2002 and 2003, I participated in the Jersey City Artists Studio Tour and had a great time — but something was missing. That something was live bands playing outside the studio,” festival cofounder Mike McNamara says. “So in 2004, I applied for a street-closing permit, booked a few acts, my neighbor/co-founder/friend Joe Chirchirillo built a stage, and the rest just evolved.”

We recently sat down with McNamara, a photographer who has lived in Jersey City for about 10 years, to talk about this year’s event and the role it plays in the cultural landscape of Jersey City.

What is your role in the festival, and who else is involved in the organization of the event?

My role in the festival is to make sure everything that needs doing gets done. On the good days that means delegating those jobs to the crew, and sometimes it means spending hours making calls and running all over town. My partner, Marc Caterina, has the same role, and after three years of working together we’ve become pretty good at picking up each other’s slack when needed. Our repeating mantra is “just get it done.” Some aspects we hardly have to think about, like the stage and technical specs — this has all handled by Max Michaels since 2007. Anne McTernan and Sophie Penkrat are constantly working on fundraising and press for the next event.

This is the 7th annual festival. How will this one differ from the first, and what do you hope to accomplish?

The main difference between the 2010 and the 2004 festival will simply be the amount of people that come to enjoy it. I feel that the idea from the beginning was to: 1. rock out; 2. make art; and 3. bring people in the community together to celebrate, smile and dance. That is my hope for this year’s festival as well.

The festival has grown exponentially over the years, and people come to the festival in droves. All types of people too — 30-something denim demons with neck tattoos pushing baby carriages, old-timers in straw fedoras chomping on cigars, school kids drawing chalk tigers on the street with parents in tow, etc. Why does the festival have such a broad range of appeal, and what keeps the people coming back?

We really have tried to accommodate everyone. Our music lineup is well thought out and caters to a mellow and family friendly scene. At dusk things get a bit more high-energy and many of the local artists that were hosting their own open studios start showing up.

I have worked for several nonprofit organizations that organized large-scale events similar in nature to the 4th Street Art & Music Festival. These events required a tremendous amount of resources. They needed time, money, and manpower — a full-time staff had to generate revenue, find and coordinate talent, identify community partners to help build and sustain the event. 4th Street is not a professional organization. It’s a grassroots community with no full-time staff. How do you guys organize an event of this nature?

Everything you say is true: time, money and people power. The toughest one of those is time. As far as money goes there are many local businesses that have been sponsoring the festival for years, and if the budget grows we go out and get a few more [Editor’s note: The Independent has proudly been on that list for the past two years]. We also have a few fundraisers over the course of the year, and the local community always pitches in to make them a success.

Our crew is top of the line. We have a good system at this point; it allows everyone to work on some things and avoids having anyone working on everything. People find their niche or create their own position and as time allows they do their thing. It’s hardly a perfect system but in the end things definitely come together.

When do you start to plan the festival? Do you get paid for your efforts, and if you do not get paid, why volunteer the time and energy?

Planning begins as soon as the festival ends: What went great? What was not so great? We set the goals, make the wish lists, etc. We then take a break for a few months and pick it back up in the spring. In between we’ll be working on other 4th Street events. In December we will again host the 4th Street Ball at City Hall, and in February the second-annual Chili Cook-off. 4th Street is a completely volunteer organization. As I mentioned earlier I began the festival because of my craving for live music. At this point it’s now about community and bringing people together, but that’s the point of live music anyway — bringing people together for the shared experience.

In your opinion, what is 4th Street’s contribution to the neighborhood and to Jersey City as a whole?

The Village is an amazing place to live. I think about the stories a couple of Village old-timers have told me, about what it was like way back when — when Brunswick Street was full of open-air markets instead of full of chicken bones and potato chip bags. Maybe 4th Street can help change that “drop your garbage on the ground attitude” that plagues this city. In the spring we beautified an area at the end of the street that was being used as a dumping ground. We had a mural put on the wall by artist and crew member Norm Kirby, some great kids from the School #5 helped paint it, and we added a couple of seats, trees and a garden. Since then the dumping has decreased quite a bit.

It’s nice to know were not alone on this. One of our partners in awesomeness, the Village Neighborhood Association, has really grown over the last few years and the latest news from them is that the overgrown and abandoned 1st Street park will not be overgrown and abandoned for much longer. There’s amazing growth all around Jersey City. Beauty and pride spread quickly.

PHOTOS: 4th STREET ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL THROUGH THE YEARS

THE DETAILS
4th Street Art & Music Festival; Saturday, October 2 from noon to 10 pm; on 4th Street between Newark Avenue and Merseles Street. Get full details on the band lineup here on our Cultural Calendar, or here on Facebook.

All photos: Courtesy Mike McNamara

Want your event listed on our calendar? You can submit it yourself — just click here and follow the simple instructions.

TODAY

You might take parking spaces for granted, but today the Hudson County TMA is encouraging us to think a bit more about them with a local staging of Park(ing) Day, which converts metered parking spaces into a temporary public park. This year’s theme is “Shakespeare in the Park” — you can catch all the action today by the Pavonia/Newport PATH station, along Town Square Place and Washington Boulevard (10 am to 4 pm). Art House Productions will play host to The Laugh Tour comedy show, featuring the Tonight Show‘s Jessica Kirson and Rich Kiamco (8 pm, $15-20). And for all you spoken-word warriors, the JC Slam returns to the Grassroots Community Space after a little vacation (9 pm). If you’re searching for more continental fare, the Actors Shakespeare Company‘s production of The Kid From Paris continues its run this weekend at the West Side Theater, with shows on Saturday and Sunday as well (7:30 pm, $15-30).

SATURDAY

The Jersey City Free Public Library‘s third annual Tale of Our City Book Festival should be on your list; it’s a great chance to mix and mingle with some of Chilltown’s own best authors (10 am to 4 pm). Or if you’ve got ciclismo on your mind, head over to Lincoln Park and check out a free bicycle safety seminar, to be conducted en español for the Spanish-speaking community (11 am to 3 pm). Liberty Humane Society‘s two-day circus-themed pet adoption event, Cirque du Septembre, kicks off at noon and is open all day until 8 pm (Sunday noon to 5 pm). Up in the Heights, Washington Park celebrates its 100th birthday with a festival featuring live music, art exhibits, a chess workshop and concessions provided by Hudson County Community College‘s famous Culinary Division (noon to 5 pm).

In the evening, stop by LITM and lend a hand with Jersey City resident Brendan Doohan‘s effort to raise funds for Kenya’s Limuru Children’s Center — Doohan is fundraising for the charity as part of his participation in the New York City Marathon this fall. The Race for Kenya will feature live music from Bern & the Brights, Copesetic, The Micks and Gazelle (9 pm; $20). And you night owls can keep the party going strong at the Lamp Post, where you can catch a local punk lineup of Destitute NJ, Polyabuse and The Krays.

SUNDAY

With such a busy Friday and Saturday, you might not have had the chance to check out two great church festivals happening this weekend, but luckily they’ll still be happening on Sunday: the St. Paul of the Cross Heritage Festival in the Heights features a performance by Lip Service (2 pm to 11 pm); and Sunday is Filipino Night at the St. Joseph’s Parish Festival in the Hilltop neighborhood (4 pm to 9:30 pm). You could also swing by Made with Love for the latest installment of Ladies on the Mic, featuring a handful of writers, singers and performers (4 pm). Later on, kick back and check out the latest installment of Jersey City Art School’s Sunday Night Film Forum, with a screening and discussion of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (7:30 pm).

Photo: Steve Gold

At last night’s City Council meeting, just hours after Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy first declared that he would file as a legal intervenor on behalf of the city in an effort to fight Spectra Energy’s proposed natural gas pipeline extension, a group of Jersey City activists did the same.

Dale Hardman and neighbor Stephen Musgrave, who founded the NoGasPipeline.org group and website, both said last night that their group intends to file as an intervenor with the help of The Eastern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit public interest environmental law firm that will take the case on pro-bono.

Like Healy, Hardman and Musgrave are using last week’s pipeline disaster in California as a teaching moment of sorts, arguing that the risk of such devastation, or worse, happening here is too great.

“This pipeline is the same as San Bruno — 30 inch diameter and a Class IV,” Hardman says. “We’re saying, ‘No San Bruno in Jersey City.’”

Like the mayor, the activists will not be able to file for intervenor status until Spectra files its official plans with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC); company officials have said they expect to do so in December.

Intervenor status is a legal tactic by which an affected party becomes an official party to a FERC proceeding (more on this from FERC here). Under the commission’s rules, that status would give Jersey City several distinct advantages, including legal standing in federal court to appeal FERC’s final decision on the project and to participate in hearings with FERC administrative law judges.

After an initial goal of having Jersey City pledge to file as an intervenor, Hardman and Musgrave say they are now moving up the political chain to Trenton.

“[We] now ask Governor Christie to have our attorney general join us and become an intervenor,” Hardman says. “In 2007, Connecticut’s attorney general successfully sued in Federal Court to overturn a FERC ruling on a proposed pipeline’s route.”

The groups are holding a fundraising event Sunday in Journal Square, where they will be collecting monetary donations for victims, to be dispersed through Jersey City’s Association of Pakistani Americans For Community Organization (APACO) and Islamic Relief USA.

More than 20 million Pakistanis have been impacted by the floods, with many residents now homeless and much of the country is under water.

The fund drive is being put together by APACO’s Abdul Malik, the Jersey City Asian Merchant Association, Jersey City Peace Movement, Bakka Corp president Ahmad Shedeed, Rolando Lavarro, Dan Levin, Raju Patel, Azam Riaz and Esther Wintner.

They will be accepting checks only; no clothes, food or other items. If you can’t swing by Saturday’s event to donate, you can also donate to Islamic Relief USA online or send checks to APACO at 99 Manning Ave., Jersey City NJ 07304 (make the memo: For Pakistan Flood Victims 2010).

THE DETAILS
Fundraiser: Help Pakistani Flood Victims; Sunday, August 29 from noon to 4 pm; at the Journal Square fountain.

Having an event? You can submit it yourself — just click here and follow the simple instructions.

TODAY

On the music tip, contemporary gospel songwriter Carl Brister plays a free outdoor show at the MLK HUB (5 pm), and the Bryan Beninghove Trio brings the jazz to Casa Dante (7:30 pm). The Hudson Shakespeare Company puts on a free outdoor performance of The Tempest in Van Vorst Park (7 pm), and elsewhere, the Uptown Crew hosts an Uptown Jam open mic event, featuring DJ Gulleyjimson, at Raphs Plaza African Market and Internet Cafe (7:30 pm).

SATURDAY

The Puerto Rican Heritage Festival kicks off a two-day run at Exchange Place today (noon to 10 pm). If you are interested in urban agriculture and food access issues, you can join the Farms in the City workshop and discussion at Hudson County Community College’s Culinary Arts Institute/Conference Center (2 pm) — for more on the event, and the story behind it, check out our feature. Much later, Thomas Francis Takes His Chances, In Musth and Easter Vomit play a free show at the Lamp Post (10 pm).

SUNDAY

The Puerto Rican Heritage Parade will roll through town today, beginning at Lincoln Park at 1 pm and ending in front of City Hall, while the festival continues at Exchange Place (noon to 10 pm). At 2 pm, eight local bands will square off for the “Last Band Standing” battle — which doubles as a fundraiser for October’s 4th Street Arts & Music Festival — at Parlay Studios (for more, check out our preview here). Later, get your Pride Week pre-game on with a party at LITM, featuring live entertainment from Rich Kiamco, Tyler Alyxander & LALA (7 pm); a portion of your $10 suggested admission will go towards JCLGO‘s Pride Festival, which is next weekend.

In the months that have followed, the pipeline proposal has quickly grown into one of the biggest and most contentious issues of the year, as evidenced by the hundreds of people who turned out at the recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hearing. So the activists yesterday launched a standalone website, NoGasPipeline.org, in an effort “to stop Spectra Energy’s natural gas pipeline planned route through Jersey City.”

The site was created by Hardman and Jersey City web designer Stephen Musgrave, who first met at a Harsimus Cove Neighborhood Association meeting where the pipeline was being discussed.

“Dale and I agree on stopping this pipeline through Jersey City,” Musgrave says. “And since I build websites professionally I said let’s put our backgrounds together to do this for the benefit of us all in Jersey City.”

They say the group is seeking 501(c)3 nonprofit status, and, in addition to helping inform concerned residents, its main goal is pressing the city to officially take on legal intervener status, which they believe may be the only way to stop the pipeline.

“We must stop Spectra Energy from bringing their pipeline through Jersey City as the risks are too great, due to toxins that are released and become airborne, and pipeline explosions,” Hardman says. “I met Stephen and we decided to build a website integrated with Facebook, Twitter and other social media that will seek to galvanize residents, the mayor’s office and New Jersey state and regional agencies to seek formal intervener status which is the only legal basis this project can be stopped coming through Jersey City.”

In other pipeline news, today is the last official day to submit letters to FERC during its “Pre-Filing” scoping period, although FERC officials said at the August 4 meeting that they will continue to accept public comments until Spectra files its formal proposal, which is expected to happen in December. Then there will be another public comment period, on Spectra’s actual proposal.

To submit a letter, click here; you will have to reference Docket #PF10-17.

Photo: Steve Gold