New York’s Bushwick neighborhood has evolved over the past twelve years from a criminal industrial area to a creative arts space in North Brooklyn. Joe Ficalora tackled the depression of an entire neighborhood.
Ficalora grew up in New York’s most dangerous neighborhood. His father was robbed and killed, his mother died of cancer. But Joe Ficalora did not leave and did not resign himself. He lifted himself and his neighborhood out of the Depression, making Bushwick New York’s premier outdoor street art gallery.
“It’s like a huge coloring book. It’s an escape from reality. And if I can get someone to forget here for at least a second, stop in the moment, then that makes sense. Although initially I did it for myself, ”admits Fikalora.
The New York Times named it the “Accidental Curator” of the world’s largest outdoor street art gallery. The son of emigrants from Sicily, who has never held an aerosol can in his hands, painted all the walls of the former industrial zone of Brooklyn.
“Nobody cared about Bushwick when we grew up here, nobody cared about the needles on the streets, the prostitutes around the corner. It was my childhood environment,” Joe recalls.
He rarely gives interviews. When asked how it all started, it is very painful for him to answer. Joe lost his father at the age of 12 – he was killed during an attempted robbery. In one of the city’s most criminal neighborhoods, Joe’s mother raised Joe alone. Twelve years ago, he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor.
“I was with her in the hospital, translating, talking to the insurance company to pay for the drugs, the chemotherapy and the operations…And I’ve never felt so insignificant, small and bereft of all hope. Looking back, 12 years later, I understand the impact that loss had on me. And the pain that I endured… It is probably the most terrible thing in life, to see how the most loved person quickly dies in your arms and to understand that you cannot stop it with these same hands,” says Joe Fikalora.
To pull himself together, Joe decided to change neighborhoods. At least outwardly. He started knocking on other people’s doors. Even the neighbors did not recognize him: “They said, we remember you before, clean-shaven and in a tie, and now you are: well, how can I say it … bearded and in pants tracksuit … What happened to you? I replied that I had lost my mother and, it seems, my spirit too, and now I am trying to bring myself back to life. So, do you mind if I paint your walls? And they’re like – do whatever you want…”.
He just wanted to forget. Joe began looking for street artists and offering canvas murals in exchange for talent and paint. In New York, where graffiti is still considered damage to private property and punishable by at least a fine, this was an opportunity to make a statement. Now murals are specially commissioned to increase the price and demand of hopeless areas, street art as a drug for abandoned streets has become ubiquitous. And in the 2000s and 10s, this trend was just beginning. And @bushwickcollective became the first and remained a selfless hub of free artists.
“Street art brings back life itself – these are stories – layer by layer. It’s amazing to see how people come together in a completely selfless way, to see how art is born out of pain. I couldn’t imagine in my life that I would become something important for this culture of street art and graffiti”, admits Joe.
Thanks to Joe, Bushwick has become synonymous with street art. Tourists from all over the world come out of the same subway station where her father was killed, but see completely different images. It is now the “place of power” of all the street artists of the world and of Joe Ficalora personally, his eternal antidepressant.
