Walk atop a rainbow in Chinatown this summer…
The historic Doyers St. in Chinatown just got a vibrant makeover thanks to street artist Dasic Fernández!
Fernández — a Chiliean born street artist based in New York who is known for his colorful graffiti style and creating breathtaking public art all over the world — painted the street over this past weekend, part of the NYC DOT’s (Department of Transportation) “Asphalt Art Activations,” in which the department “partners with artists to paint large-scale murals onto repurposed asphalt that has been transformed into pedestrianized public spaces” their website shares.
Doyers St. has quite an interesting history — in the early 1900s it was known as “Murder Alley,” when gang wars often took place there. The sharp curve in the street earned the name “The Bloody Angle,” since gangsters would wait with hatchets on the other side and attack their victim as they blindly turned the corner, according to All That’s Interesting.
Now, it is a central part of Chinatown that houses many favorite businesses and sees lots of foot traffic (especially when it becomes a “seasonal street” in the summer months as it has done since 2017, open only to pedestrian traffic).
This isn’t the first time Doyers St. has gotten a makeover — back in 2018 Artist Chen Dongfan created another stunning display across 4,851 square feet of asphalt, called “The Song of Dragons and Flowers.”
The mural will be accessible to the public starting tomorrow, June 22. Doyers St. is also part of NYC’s Open Streets Program this year, and so it is fully closed to vehicular traffic from Bowery to Pell St. every day from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m.
featured image source: Instagram / @als_schots