Is there art in DUMBO anymore? The once flourishing bohemian, now flourishing yuppie neighborhood just over the river in Brooklyn holds its 12th annual Arts Under the Bridge festival this weekend.
The festival has always been an elaborate affair. The whole neighborhood explodes in often large scale public installations, concerts, and performance art, and almost all the artists open their studios to the public to show and talk about their work. In past years. the festival has served as a focal community gathering and weekend-long party with a minority of tourists, but some would say the changing face of the neighborhood has pretty much conquered the old spirit.
“I don’t go out during that weekend anymore. I hide. It used to be mostly artists showing and selling their original work that was made upstairs. Now it’s sock stands for the tourists and the folks who used to bring their art from around the corner are bringing it from Bushwick and Bed-Stuy,” carps Jon Goldstein, owner of Vinegar Hill Studios, one of the oldest businesses in the neighborhood, and a long-time resident.
It’s true. The streets are more flooded with people carrying maps, wearing fannypacks and toting huge cameras. The exhibit on the walls of local watering hole 68 Jay Street is photos of artists in their studios, many of whom used to be DUMBO-based but now can’t afford to live or work here. The musical acts are also missing from this year’s festival, apparently the formerly local musicians who used to play for people they mostly knew for free aren’t into it anymore.
However pockets of the old times still remain, and the weekend-long party of this formerly small town type neighborhood is still going on, just a bit more indoors. And some oldtimers still keep the spirit alive. Artist Charlotte Gaspard keeps it real. “Hey, that’s what the arts fest is about, going around to the studios, seeing your friends, being in the neighborhood.”