FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA MURAL #3 – CUIDAD SIN SUEÑO/NOCTURNO DE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

2012
CAMILLE PERROTTET, designer/lead artist
JANE WEISSMAN, project coordinator/artist
Artists: Misa Dayson, Jules Hollander, Alison Kruvant
Young Artists: Maria, Vincent, Wilson 

Himrod Street at 408 Knickerbocker Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
8’ x 79’, acrylic on brick 

Photos © Jane Weissman, Camille Perrottet

The third of the four Federico García Lorca Murals, it is sited directly across Knickerbocker Avenue from Lorca Mural #2.  Begun in 2011, the three-year project celebrates the multiculturalism of the people of Bushwick, Brooklyn. The murals were inspired by the poem Sleepless City / Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne by Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca (1898-1936). Each mural includes a stanza from Lorca’s poem, in both Spanish and English translations, as well as a feature of the poet’s face — in this mural, his ear. 

Lorca lived in New York for nine months from June 1929 through March 1930, sharing the loneliness and alienation experienced by immigrants new to the city. These feelings are expressed in the poem written during this period. English and Spanish versions of the poem can be found at here and here.

Bushwick’s residents and workers determined a major design element in each mural. In Lorca Mural #3, a map of Puerto Rico shows the places of origin of Himrod Street’s mostly Puerto Rican population; the island was rendered very small on Lorca Mural #2’s map of the world.

Additional photographs and information about The Federico García Lorca Murals can be found here.