Photo by Stacie Joy
Wedding day today at St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church on Seventh Street near Cooper Square...
A city tree must battle many urban hazards daily — from air pollution and bicycles to dogs and people. In addition to above-ground threats, tree roots also must contend with tough below-ground conditions. A tree pit or lawn strip provides limited space for these forest giants, and this soil is a tree's only source of nutrients. Because of this, it is essential to create as nurturing a tree pit as possible.
Van Dalen was born in Amstelveen, Holland, in 1938 to a conservative Calvinist family during World War II. He began rearing pigeons at 12, seeking solace in the companionship of a community outside the instability around him.Enraptured by the magic of their flight, van Dalen saw his own migration journey, from Holland to Canada and ultimately to the United States, reflected in the migratory nature of the birds.After arriving in New York's Lower East Side in 1966, before ultimately settling in the East Village, van Dalen served as witness, storyteller, and documentarian of the dramatic cultural shifts in the neighborhood.While active in the alternative art scene in the East Village during the 1980s, van Dalen began his career as a graphic designer. Working as a studio assistant to Saul Steinberg for over 30 years, van Dalen learned the stylization and design aesthetics that would ultimately ground the visual language he used to discuss the culture around him.Van Dalen became known for his Night Street Drawings (1975–77), a monochrome series of graphite drawings documenting the surrounding Lower East Side with tenderness and empathy, including vignettes of car wrecks, sex workers, crumbling buildings, and more.As poet and critic John Yau wrote, all of van Dalen's work arose "out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."
I consider myself a documentarian of the East Village, yet I am a participant and spectator to its evolution. Began documenting my street surroundings in 1975, urged on by wanting to note and remember these lives. Came to realize I had to embrace wholeheartedly, with pencil in hand, my streets with its raw emotions.
"Albanians in New York own a lot of the best restaurants in the city: steakhouses, Italian, Greek, French, you name it. But they never had the courage to open a place for their own culture, our own food — and it's very good. So that was the inspiration."