Hundreds to Gather for Mott Haven Health, Education and Arts (H.E.ARTS) Street Festival
Event to Spotlight Community Efforts to Transform Abandoned, City-Owned Building into Dynamic Home for More than a Dozen Local H.E.ARTS Organizations
This Saturday, from 12-5 pm, hundreds of South Bronx residents, artists, musicians, grassroots organizations and businesses will gather at 349 East 140th Street for a street festival featuring 10 foot murals created by local artists, vendors selling arts, crafts and other apparel, health and education demonstrations, children's activities, cooking lessons, and a packed musical and dance performance line-up, including traditional plena, UpBeat NYC Latin Jazz Big Band, Ballet Folklore Muuchxiimbal, Faculty Latin Jazz Band and UpBeat NYC/Corona Youth Music Project Orchestras.
The event will take place in the heart of Mott Haven, outside an abandoned, 28,000 square foot, city-owned building shuttered for nearly five years that was once home to the Lincoln Detox Center, which sits on a dead-end street adjacent to a large community park.
The festival will highlight local organizations’ efforts to urge the city to transfer the abandoned building to the local community land trust, the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards, which aims to acquire and renovate the building into an anchor of permanent affordability for more than a dozen local organizations focusing on health, education and arts.
The festival follows three community envisioning sessions, a recent community report back showing renderings of the re-envisioned space, and newly acquired financial support from the New York Foundation to undertake a full feasibility study of the project.
