“Pond Island” Design By Kensington Artist Wins Avenue C Plaza Floor Contest And $2,000
A design by local “Anney Fresh” Ozar was awarded the $2,000 prize and the go-ahead from NYC DOT’s Urban Art Program to paint the resurfaced asphalt triangle at Avenue C and McDonald Avenue for the forthcoming plaza. Ozar is a professional puppet and costume designer and member of The Jim Hensen Company’s Sesame Street team.
“I’m thrilled to contribute my skills to help create this amazing new public space,” Ozar said when she heard she’d won. “I look forward to spending time there with my family, friends and neighbors.”
Naming her design “Pond Island,” her goal, she wrote in her application, was “to replace the dark and dirty with color and life! To create this urban oasis, I am inspired by Bangladesh’s national flower, the water lily.”
Ozar will have a $2,000 budget for supplies and other necessities and volunteers to assist her. They will work from stencils that Ozar will design and cut for their ease in transferring her four-color artwork to the asphalt plaza floor.
Ozar is a fairly recent Kensington/Windsor Terrace home owner and mom, as well as a member of the East Fourth Street Community Garden and a four-time Daytime Emmy award winner for her work on Sesame Street. She sees her winning design as:
a field of blue water, spotted with clusters of green lily pads and accented by beautiful white water lilies. Now add the energetic life force of golden koi fish. As symbols of perseverance in the face of adversity and a sign of good fortune, the koi fish represent us all as we just keep swimming to stay afloat in our demanding yet rewarding city lives.
Anney Fresh was among the 20 artists—several of whom were local—whose proposals were reviewed by the Avenue C/McDonald Plaza Art Committee in August. The Asphalt Floor art contest was announced in July and jointly coordinated by The Kensington Stewards, the Neighborhood Plaza Partnership, Councilman Brad Lander and NYC DOT, the city agency in charge of the NYC Plaza Program.
The Avenue C Plaza is just one of the 71 DOT plazas currently in the works. Kensington was represented on the art committee by Abdul Hannan for the Sandwip Society, USA, as well as Diana Sanzone and myself for The Kensington Stewards.
Although Ozar was not the only artist to take inspiration from flora and fauna and the blue/green of ocean, pond, sky or forest, Diana Sanzone, a member of the art committee, was struck by her design’s tranquility, simplicity of form, and invitation for plaza users to slip into a cool, refreshing pool. Indeed, that was Ozar’s intention for frogs (and, one assumes, future plaza denizens): “Lily pads are safe havens for creatures like frogs, who just want to sit in the sun!”
Before neighbors can expect chairs and tables, umbrellas and planters in the plaza to bask in, the asphalt site will require resurfacing, and Ozar must meet with DOT and submit her final design for the DOT’s approval before she can start the work of installing it.
Community Board 12 must also be notified of the design before installation of the painted floor can begin. As you can imagine, with so many details still to be nailed down, no target opening or completion date has been announced.
Neighbors are invited to a meeting to view Ozar’s winning design on Thursday, October 22, 6:30pm at PS 179, 202 Avenue C. Those living near the plaza site are especially encouraged to attend.
The public is also invited to a meeting on Wednesday, October 21 at 6:30pm at the PS 230 Lower School, located at 425 McDonald Avenue, where the DOT will discuss with The Kensington Stewards the latest updates on the plaza. For more information, email Dorothy Le at dle@thehort.org or call (212) 757-0915 x125.