If you walk by the Tenement Museum today, you’ll notice some activity other than the usual tour groups gathering on the sidewalk. The Lower East Side Business Improvement District and local artist Kim Sillen have teamed up to transform the pedestrian area (known in city bureaucrat speak as a “neckdown”) on Orchard Street.
The new installation will depict silhouettes of immigrants who lived on the Lower East Side, most of them right on Orchard Street (see the rendering above). Last year, you might recall, Sillen painted a lively mosaic in the triangle at Division, Ludlow and Canal streets.
Tim Laughlin, the BID’s executive director told us this is just one of many improvements ahead for the streetscape meant to celebrate the neighborhood’s history while improving the overall appearance on the LES’s central shopping corridor.
Sillen, by the way, happens to be art director of The Lo-Down magazine.
