This project features a portfolio gallery of my drawings, watercolors, paintings, and photographs of Manhattan island. The portfolio is divided into ten “walks” over the chapter structure of ten “days.” Each “day” features some of my artwork about a different neighborhood of Manhattan: Chinatown, SoHo, East Village, West Village, the High Line, Madison Square, Midtown, Central Park, Riverside Drive, Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Washington Heights. VIEW PROJECT >
In the summer of 2014, I built a model of New York City containing many of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, and a flock of subway cars. This creation measures a mere 28 by 36 inches (70 x 90 cm) and is made of wood, paper, and plastic. VIEW PROJECT >
Dedicated to Professor of Economics Brendan O’Flaherty for helping me apply to Columbia as an undergraduate.
The following video lecture contains paintings and photos I compiled while walking in New York. VIEW PROJECT >
Excerpt from the Common App essay I wrote in 2015. This essay on the experience and love of walking accompanied my successful undergraduate application to Columbia University. VIEW PROJECT >
In this visual essay of drawings, paintings, and photos I explore my walks in Manhattan Chinatown. Chinatown is both static and dynamic: Static in its resilience against gentrification, dynamic in its cultural interplay between past and present, immigrant and American. VIEW PROJECT >
Excerpt from the Common App essay I wrote in 2015. This essay on my childhood experiences and struggles of growing up in the majority-black, inner city of Newark, NJ accompanied my successful undergraduate application to Columbia University. VIEW PROJECT >
A visual essay of artwork and photos from my experience of walking in the South Bronx.
Strolling in the Bronx, I am arrested by the inner-city grid that stretches mile after mile. Block after block, street after street, a never ending treadmill of bodegas, tenements, hair salons, C-TOWN supermarkets, strip malls, and laundries. In the treadmill of the city grid, I become an explorer lost wandering. I retrace my footsteps. VIEW PROJECT >
Cities fold out from boxes. Let little wonder lands emerge. VIEW PROJECT >
In the New York City of my imagination, dinosaurs emerge from the Museum of Natural History to prowl “the city that never sleeps.” They roam the streets engaging in dinosaur-like activities: scaring people, stealing from butcher shops, and terrorizing the skyline. For one night, the city belongs to them.
The impressive range New York’s architecture, from the humblest home to the slenderest tower, is expressed through this model of my memories. With a base measuring 28 by 36 inches (70 x 90 cm), I built this model in middle school out of wood, paper, and plastic. It contains several dozen of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, people, lampposts, subway stations, and a bevy of operating subway cars. VIEW PROJECT >
These ink-on-paper panoramas show cities I visited. The tiny details on windows, roofs, and streets were all created from memory when I was in middle school. VIEW PROJECT >
A selection of some of my drawings, paintings, and pastel work about the architecture of Manhattan VIEW PROJECT >
When I gaze across the Hudson River from New Jersey, the soaring towers, glassy behemoths, and dark canyons of Manhattan instill me with awe. The broad expanse of the city juts out of the water with crenelated and jagged skyscrapers as if proclaiming: “I am here to stay. Come sun, wind, or water, I will remain. I will grow.” VIEW PROJECT >
View more artwork like this about my experiences walking in New York City.
Also featured in the Columbia Daily Spectator in September 2016
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine soars above the low-slung tenements and boxy towers that edge up against it. Unfinished it survives; funds have long since dried up in our era of secularism and consumerism. Yet powerful it stands; solid stone will outlive the concrete and glass city. The cathedral’s soaring jagged silhouette seems to proclaim against the soot that darkens its façade and the urban din that drowns out the sanctity of silence: Come weather, wind, or rain, I will stand.
