Art Special
Walk this way
Four designs vie to rule New Rochelle foot-bridge
By L.J. BUTTERFIELD

Imagine a pedestrian bridge with electronic shoeprints bopping, hopping and urging you along, or the entire bridge as historical postcard.

Perhaps something in stained glass, that pulsates with light and sound. Or “geometric matrixes of light-emitting diodes” that can form any shape from fish to flames to Santa Claus.

Soon one of these four inspired ideas will be integrated into the design of the Trump Plaza Pedestrian Bridge Overpass connecting Trump Plaza to the New Roc City parking structure on Huguenot Street between Le Count Place and Harrison Street.

The bridge itself runs 23 feet above street level and spans 130 feet, a potential beacon to downtown shoppers.

The project, managed by JMC Art Partners on behalf of New Roc Parcel 1A L.L.C. has a budget of $200,000.

The following four artists showed their final submissions recently to a selection panel of representatives from the county Department of Economic Development, its Municipal Arts Commission and, an affiliate of Cappelli Enterprises, New Roc Parcel 1A L.L.C.

Happy Feet • New York City-based conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim’s proposal is for a sequence of white, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that flash across both sides of the pedestrian bridge as animated walking or jumping shoes. “Compared to things I usually propose, this is so simple,” said Oppenheim, whose past work has included concrete foundations, galvanized steel, transparent Venetian glass and even a self-inflicted sunburn and dead German Shepard as art.

Oppenheim has been a key figure in several major art movements since the 1960s and 1970s. Chief among his artistic contributions is a rejection of conventional gallery space and an impetus to locate large works in urban or rural landscapes.

“This long pathway (the bridge) gives us an opportunity to show a sequence,” said Oppenheim. “It’s a way of getting a lot of action with relatively little mass.”

Oppenheim envisions a seemingly endless routine of active feet, tapping their way into the imaginations of passersby.

“I’ll program it,” said Oppenheim. “So that over the course of half an hour nothing would repeat itself. I want a lot of variation, a lot of surprise. If one is captive to this for a long time they’ll see dynamic juxtaposition. It will be like a musical score,” he said.

 

If nothing else, he joked, “it will be great for shoe companies.”

 

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The Postcard • F.U.N. (Future Urban Network) offers a historic take based on the Queen City of the Sound’s waterfront. “The idea is to make a new post card for New Rochelle,” said Vel Riberto, one half of F.U.N. and a former consultant for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit program. The other half of F.U.N., Brian M. Mosbacher, is an architectural lighting designer with over 12 years experience in New York City.

In their proposal, F.U.N. would use a photographic image of Davenport Park on film that is laminated then sandwiched between glass.

“The pedestrian bridge provides the frame,” said Riberto. “The vertical parts of the glass are seamless so the whole bridge becomes a glass painting.”

 

The team used 100-year-old postcards for inspiration. “We were struck by the horizontality of the lines of the waterfront and how they related to the bridge,” said Mosbacher.

As pedestrians walk across the bridge their shadows will become part of the postcard and it will appear from the exterior that they are walking on the beach at Davenport Park.

From the inside, pedestrians would see a very crisp image.

“When people inhabit the space they will become part of the art piece,” said Riberto, adding that the image would change depending on time of day, weather and season. “A rainy day would influence the image. You’ll see sunrise and sunset. The lights change day to night and seasonally. It’s about bringing people and nature and the urban environment into one plain,” she said. “It’s a connection between urban and natural space.” The F.U.N. project would also utilize LED’s.

Said Riberto: “we wanted the project to be as green as it can be.”

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Wave of the future •”It was important to make the bridge a destination,” said Catherine Widgery of her proposal “Tidal Song”. Widgery’s design is for pulses of light and color to sweep across the bridge through stained glass for colorful, kinetic exterior views. From the inside, pedestrians would be treated to “an immersive experience” in light and sound.

“There will be eight motion detectors hidden in the ceiling,” said Widgery. “When someone enters the bridge, a series of light and sound events begin.

“Light moves from one end to the other,” she said. “You may hear sound right next to you or all the way down the bridge. When someone else enters, their own light and sound show begins in simple, harmonized tones that will complement each other. The idea would be people making connections to each other.”

 

Widgery, a sculptor and mixed-media artist, began her career with a B.A. from Yale University in 1975 and has been responsible for 30 public art projects since. Her work often uses light and wind to animate and transform the environment as the viewer moves through it.

For the New Rochelle project, Widgery based her inspiration on waves. “I like the idea of realizing the nearness of the sea,” she said. “But the wave is about more than just the sea, it’s about energy. It’s meant to be abstract.”

Throbbing light will illuminate the bridge and the glass that forms the wave.

 

Widgery would use antique, German stained glass made using water so that “it seems to capture water within itself” when viewed up-close.

“So we’re looking through to the world through this wavy, textured glass,” said Widgery. “The idea was to make it as rich from up close as from a distance.”

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Anything goes • Brower Hatcher’s proposal is for a series of light patterns created by “intelligent” LED fixtures that can act independently of one another. The LEDs would be attached to a framework that follows the architectural zigzag of the bridge’s beams.   “The potential for what these light patterns can be is very flexible,” said Candace Toth, Hatcher’s project manager for the bridge. “They would be capable of all colors in the color spectrum. Each panel could act independently. You could do color swirls, fish, Santa Claus, anything you wanted.”

Hatcher, who trained in industrial design at Pratt Institute in New York, works out of the historic Steel Yard in Providence, R.I. at his company, Mid-Ocean Studio Inc.

 

He is responsible for more than 30 public art projects nationally.

Hatcher plans to use a “powder-coated, stainless-steel, welded truss framework” to hold the LEDs.   The proposed light show would run continuously with preprogrammed, shifting patterns. But the use of motion sensors would add another dimension to the art experience, triggering further movements along the bridge framework and different patterns.   “I think the strongest part of this is the idea of interactivity,” said Toth. “It could interact with the viewers, which is something that public art has not done previously.”

 

 

 

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