This is the first time that The Big Jackfruit Tree is taking part in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge. And the experience was awesome, to say the least. 

To start with, there was no question about the theme… it had to be about New York. After much thought, the criteria was decided… every day feature an attraction in the city (museum, monument, memorial, park, whatever) that is located within the five boroughs of NYC, entry is free during all open hours, and the location is reachable by public transit.

Here I’ve to express my thanks to my circle of friends for their suggestions and recommendations. There is no way I could have completed the list of without their help. So thank you! 

The next phase was the most interesting… visit each of the identified location and take photos. Happily, this was completed before winter and all I had to do was select the photos for use, adjust color, crop and resize, and add the copyright watermark. And of course, do the write-ups. What’s the hurry… the Challenge started only in April!

Whoever has participated in the Challenge knows the rest of the story… April rolls around, a-post-a-day is staring you in the face! And this was double trouble for me as our sister blog Pepper Route was also participating! For a month, life was on hold, fingers were on the keyboard, and eyes were going wonky. 

And at the end of it all when you have posted the Z… the immense joy, the satisfaction, the sense of achievement, makes it all worth the trouble. All I need now, is the T-shirt! 🙂

Somewhere around the letter M, I was thinking ‘never again’. At the end of the Challenge I’m already thinking of next year’s theme! 🙂

My only regret is that I could not return the visits and comments from many of my visitors. Lack of time is not an excuse, it is actually lack of planning, I know. All I can say is that I’ll do better next time around.

Hoping that the list of attractions will be useful to visitors to New York as well as to city dwellers, even though they might already be familiar with these, here I present you the list of April Blogging from A to Z Challenge posts.

a-is-for-american-folk-art – American Folk Art Museum 

b-is-for-bronx – The Bronx Museum of the Arts

c-is-for-castle – Castle Clinton National Monument

d-is-for-drawing – The Drawing Center

e-is-for-elevated – Elevated Acre… the Secret Garden!

f-is-for-federal – Federal Hall National Memorial

g-is-for-grant – General Grant National Memorial

h-is-for-hamilton – Hamilton Grange National Memorial

i-is-for-indigenous – National Museum of the American Indian 

j-is-for-jazz – The National Jazz Museum In Harlem

k-is-for-king – King Manor Museum

l-is-for-little – Little Island

m-is-for-maritime – Maritime Industry Museum

n-is-for-new-york – New York Public Library

o-is-for-old – The Old Stone House

p-is-for-park – Prospect Park

q-is-for-queens – Queens County Farm Museum

r-is-for-rockefeller – Rockefeller Center 

s-is-for-snug – Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden

t-is-for-theodore – Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace

u-is-for-union – Union Square Park

v-is-for-veterans – Vietnam Veterans Plaza

w-is-for-waterfront – Waterfront Museum

x-is-for-xception – Museum of Contemporary Art

y-is-for-yards – Hudson Yards

z-is-for-z-train – The Z Train

Thank you for your support, visits, and comments. See you all next year!

~Ria

The Bronx Museum of the Arts

The Bronx Museum of the Arts (The Bronx Museum) is a contemporary art museum. Often featuring historically underrepresented artists, the museum was founded on the belief that art is essential for the path to social justice.

Opened on 11 May 1971, the museum aimed to generate interest in the arts in the Bronx borough. The Bronx Museum has more than 800 paintings, photos, sculptures, and other works of art in its permanent collection. 

Though focused on contemporary and 20th century American artists, the museum has hosted special exhibits featuring international artists from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

The museum’s unique design element on the Grand Concourse side, a ‘pleated aluminum facade’ consists of seven irregularly-shaped vertical aluminum pieces connected by fritted glass, resembling an accordion or paper fan.

In October 2022, the museum adopted a new logo, replacing the old logo with an orange-highlighted ligature of an ‘X’ and an ‘M’. 

The museum described the new logo as ‘bold, distinct, and resilient so as to reflect the ethos of the Museum and its vital work at the intersection of art and social justice’. 

The Bronx Museum is fully accessible through the the museum’s galleries.

The Bronx Museum offers fellowship programs to emerging artists to prepare them for a fulfilling career in the art world. Details here: AIM Fellowship. 

The museum also holds family days to encourage creativity among children, film screenings and other community activities. A full list of activities is online. 

In 2013, the museum won a competition to represent the United States at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

When I visited last in September 2022, the ongoing exhibition was Jamel Shabazz: Eyes On The Street, an exhibition of photographs taken on the streets of the five boroughs of New York.

The photographs included in the exhibition were representative of his work over the past 40 years. The exhibition was part of Our Stories, Our Voices – a year-long series of exhibitions and public programs celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Bronx Museum.

Street photography is a unique art form where everyone is both part of the audience and on display at the same time. In these photographs, Shabazz’s focus is clear… the people – men, women, young, old, black, brown, white – going about their daily lives and enjoying or rueing the moments on New York streets. 

You get the feeling you are actually walking along one of the familiar streets of our city and seeing these people. The sense of sheer joy and innocence of the youth displayed in many of the photographs is so endearing. 

According to Shabazz, his goal is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture. He has held many solo exhibitions and also participated in many group showings.

Shabazz has published six books of photographs and has contributed to numerous others.

The sculpture garden at the rear of the structure on the second floor was closed for installation when I visited. Anyways, one more reason to go back.

Current Exhibitions

• Abigail DeVille: Bronx Heavens (Oct 12, 2022 – Jun 18, 2023) is a constellation of sculptures and installations by the artist utilizing found materials and objects as a way to unearth forgotten ancestral histories, both real and imagined. 
• Swagger And Tenderness: The South Bronx Portraits (Oct 26, 2022 – Apr 30, 2023) The show features over 60 portraits alongside archival materials from 1979 to the present, from the Bronx Museum Collection and other public and private collections.