Place Markers

Beginning in September 2007, Your Guide to the Lower East Side presents the experiences of past and present Lower East Siders on twenty-eight signs at six separate sidewalk locations. With photographs and text in five languages, these "place markers" weave personal stories and cherished memories directly into the landscape, often right where the stories took place. The signs will be displayed from September 2007 through Februrary 2008, and perhaps beyond that time. 

See the signs at the Lower East Tenement Museum (91 Orchard); P.S. 42 (71 Hester); St. Teresa's Church (141 Henry); Seward Park and Straus Square (Essex & Canal); and St. Augustine's Church (290 Henry).

For your convenience, we have provided a map to help you locate the markers, click here to download pdf.

To see all 28 signs in Your Guide to the Lower East Side,  click here to download pdf. 

To receive a bound print catalog of the signs by mail, send a check for $6.00, payable to City Lore, to: Place Matters, c/o City Lore, 72 E. 1st St., NYC 10003.

This public history project celebrates people, places, and community life on the Lower East Side. The signs reveal the rich and diverse layers of human experience that make the neighborhood so distinctive. They transform the participants' stories of struggle and achievement into a legacy for all who pass by. We believe that this kind of place marking draws attention to our surroundings, and encourages people to recognize, protect, and care for the places that matter to them. We welcome inquiries about how to do similar projects in other places. Contact us.

Many thanks to the E.H.A. Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts for funding Your Guide to the Lower East Side and our earlier place-marking endeavors.

We also thank our other Place Matters funders, including the Altman Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York Community Trust, the New York Council for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Scherman Foundation.

Project Co-directors: Chris Neville and Marci Reaven
Graphic Designer: John Wong
Installation Designer: Marisa Yiu
Project Sponsor & Producer: Place Matters
Project co-sponsors: Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Lower East Side Preservation Coalition
Fabricator: New Creative Design
Installer: Bob Yucikas and Nat Collom
Translators:  Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, Louis Katz, Diana C. Lee, and Argentina Palacios

Our deep appreciation to the individuals and organizations who shared their stories,  hosted signs, and made this project possible: Afiya Diane Dawson and Frank Dawson; Bert Feinberg; Joan H. Geismar; Louis Katz; Reverend Bayer Lee; Rebecca Lepkoff; Lillian M. and Maria Rivera; Mrs. Bea Salwen; Liz Sevcenko; K.K. Wu; Wanda Evans and Betances Health Center; Hiroko Kazama, Elena Martínez, and the staff and board of City Lore; Fern Schwartz and the Educational Alliance; Boris Budiyanskiy, Chana Pollack, Alana Newhouse, and the Jewish Daily Forward; the late Hyman Genee, Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, Vincent Giordano, and Kehila Kedosha Janina; the participants of the Lower East Side Community Preservation Project, the staff of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum; Aaron Eng-Achson, May Wong Lee, Rosa Casiello O'Day, and the teachers and students of PS 42; The Rev. Dr. Errol Harvey, Rector, The Rev. Deacon Edgar W. Hopper, and St. Augustine's Church; Father Donald Baker, Father Chiang, Carol Cain, and St. Teresa's Church; Victor Papa and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council.

With many thanks to the City of New York / Parks and Recreation, particularly, Shanna Davis, Arielle Dorlester, Jonathan Kuhn, and Clare Weiss; to Manhattan Community Board 3 and District Manager Susan Stetzer; and to the Municipal Art Society Planning Center.

Past Place-Marking Initiatives
Come visit our feature on the Marking Places that Matter competition finalists.

Our Lower East Side pilot project builds on a place-marker project we initiated in 2002, aiming to crack the "silence" of many historical sites and promote the practice of place-marking as a way of making visible why places matter. Places nominated to the Census of Places that Matter are often of modest architectural distinction. They do not always reach out and grab the passerby's attention. Thus their stories--narratives that are rich in human experience and that go to the very heart of New York's historical and cultural identity--remain locked away out of sight, and all too often, out of mind.

In Spring 2002 we held a "Marking Places that Matter" ideas competition to solicit interesting concepts that could be turned into designs. The challenge was not to design art for a particular place or theme, but rather, to create simple, relatively low-cost strategies that would go beyond the traditional bronze plaque for marking and describing places around the city that are notable for their historic associations, traditional use, or role in community life. Winning entries would need to be visually exciting, rich in content, adaptable to diverse environments, and user-friendly.

A jury of professionals in the arts and humanities selected eight finalists from a pool of 100 entries. The finalists received an honorarium to develop their designs during the winter of 2002-03. Their designs were featured in an exhibition and series of public programs at the Urban Center gallery in Spring 2003. (Come visit our feature on the Marking Places that Matter competition finalists.) 

In 2004, Place Matters received a grant to develop a method for marking places with inexpensive and adaptable street signs. We tested the signs in an installation at the Tenement Museum in May and June, 2006, and installed the current demonstration project of 28 signs in August 2007.

Maps

Launch our Census of Places that Matter and choose the map feature from the main search panel. All places that have been nominated to the Census are included on borough maps of the city.

Place Matters also produces printed maps that explore particular themes: From Mambo to Hip Hop (2002) features a Latin music and hip hop trail in East Harlem and the South Bronx, and Rediscovering East Harlem (with the East Harlem Historical Society, 1997) features the neighborhood's historical and cultural sites.

To order copies of From Mambo to Hip Hop or Rediscovering East Harlem, please send a check for $3/copy, made payable to City Lore. Send to Hiroko Kazama, City Lore, 72 E. 1^st St, NY NY 10003. Include a note requesting the map by title and include your return address.

Currently we are producing a digital map of memorable sites on The Bowery as well as a map featuring special places of Jazz in Harlem, West 52^nd St, and Greenwich Village. We welcome feedback and information about these research projects. Contact us.

Cultural Tours

We all have the experience of being insiders in some settings and outsiders in others. When insiders develop cultural tours that highlight the "valuables" of the community they know best, marvelous opportunities open up for dialogue within the community and between community members and visitors.

When Place Matters and The Point Community Development Corporation collaborated on a three-year research project to uncover the under-recognized Latin music history of the South Bronx, a program of cultural tours was one important result. For more information about the tours, go to www.thepoint.org. To receive a copy of the From Mambo to Hip Hop map, see "Maps" directly above.

The Arts

Theatrical evenings, musical performances, film, radio programs, exhibits, and storytelling sessions are all ways to publicly convey information about our past and to feature people who have made history. In collaboration with groups like The Point Community Development Corporation, the YMCA, and the Labor History Association, Place Matters produces programs that use the arts to discover and promote the places that embody our histories and cultures.