Art brings a little life back to empty New York venues

What to do with the hundreds of stores that have been left empty in New York because of the pandemic? An idea: fill them with sculptures, paintings, concerts, dance and other forms of art, according to the project of a non-profit cultural organization linked to a real estate dynasty in the city.

“I have been in this for 27 years and when the pandemic began, we thought it was an important moment for us, to stimulate, because there were many empty premises at street level and many people were isolated,” explains the creator of ChaShaMa, Anita Durst, to the show two newly “revived” premises.

ChaShaMa collaborates with large landlords to offer the artistic community disused commercial spaces at affordable prices and, more recently, they are temporarily rented free to start-ups or start-ups in collaboration with the New York City Council, so that they gain visibility and traffic.

“Once New York opened, we put stores in our spaces to create activity, and we are doing it for businesses that are owned by minorities and women,” explains the businesswoman, who has reactivated sixty stores in eight months and is opening in downtown bus station.

The station, known as Port Authority, now features a theater where there used to be a cookie shop, by the hand of TheLoveShowNYC company, which will perform a “performance” called “Welcome Home” in which passers-by look out on a stage “ oneiric ”populated by interpreters, puppeteers and dancers.

Angela Harriell, its director and choreographer, is rehearsing before her first performance and is excited to remember her return to the shows a few months ago behind a ChaShaMa window. He considers this new project an “important step”: “I have always wanted to open my own theater, and this is a step”.

“We want to share our art with people and see what happens, put our hearts in and do our best. Since the pandemic it seems that there is nothing definitive, so I am taking this little by little, ”he says, happy to brighten the day of his new audience, generally workers who come and go to their work.

Durst, who defines herself as the daughter of some “hippie parents” without other details on her organization’s website, greets Harriell with a hug, takes off her shoes, stretches on the floor and speaks enthusiastically about requests for spirits. curious creatives, like some dancers using Star Wars-style lightsabers.

The Durst imprint

But her last name is illustrious in New York, as she is the daughter of real estate magnate Douglas Durst, heir and president of the Durst Organization empire, founded at the beginning of the 20th century, which has developed and owns numerous properties throughout the city, including some skyscrapers of the Times Square area.

What’s more: she has a passage in her name, Anita’s Way, in a central New York street, next to the Bank of America tower – headquarters of the Durst company – where artists perform daily under the famous National Debt Clock. invented by his grandfather, which hangs high above the place.

His artistic imprint stands out in this area where the threads of capitalism move. One block away is a ChaShaMa store where Italian artist Tomaso Albertini displays colorful portraits that capture the gaze of many employees in jackets, and all for a paltry rental price, he gestures.

And it is that Anita’s trajectory contrasts with that of all her family members, having chosen to dedicate herself to making spaces available to some 30,000 artists and small companies: “I started doing this at 19 years old, when someone asked me to find a place for them. make art where you don’t normally see it ”.

One of these businesses is Art To Ware, a store run by the African American Lesley Ware that exposes the products, mostly in fashion, from more than a dozen local designers and artists with the common denominator of being sustainable, handmade and “socially conscious, ”he says.

“It has been great to reopen with the city as an entrepreneur,” says Ware, who thanks to the “Storefront Startup” program has opened three stores and who believes that she is doing her bit to make retail and fashion more inclusive with her team of eight employees.