Church Street School for Music and Art
celebrates the return of Tribeca
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
While the streets steamed with
unseasonably brutal weather on
Sunday, June 6, the live blues
wafting in and around White Street drew
crowds closer. Abby Levine on drums and
Stacy Werdin on keyboard were hot, hot,
hot!
White Street’s closure provided plenty
of space for parents, children, neighbors,
musicians and artists to get inspired. The
Happening! of the Church Street School
for Music and Art (CSSMA) was defi nitely
happening!
Located in the former The Flea Theater,
CSSMA celebrated the rebirth of Tribeca
with an afternoon in the street devoted to
the arts— the core of this neighborhood
institution.
Unfazed by the heat, children engaged
in watercolors spraying, mixed
media weaving, botanical printing, and
hula hooping among the afternoon’s
activities with a backdrop of performed
live music.
Amir Diop, a member of Soho Art Renaissance
Factory, a group of artists who
met a year ago while painting the plywood
on storefront windows in Soho, oversaw
Adding more color to the plywood mural. (Two hands are better than one!)
children painting a mural-type work of art
on a huge sheet of plywood.
“I’m all about the community,” he said,
while prepping the wood under the noon
sweltering sun. Later that afternoon, children
clamored to contribute to the group
artistic endeavor.
First located 31 years ago on Church
Street, hence the name, the school later
moved to Warren St., and in 2018 to White
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Street, expanding with changes in the
neighborhood. Surviving 9-11, Sandy,
and the pandemic, it offers programming
in music and the arts for children from
16 months through senior high schoolers
and up. In a typical year, 1000 different
students might be availing themselves to
its programs.
“During the pandemic, all classes were
virtual,” reports Associate Director Betsy
Kerlin. Eighty percent of their students
continued on Zoom. During last summer,
their seasonal enrollment was higher than
usual since even from afar students could
continue their classes.
Two mothers were among the many
braving the heat for the fun afternoon of
the Happening!
Over a decade and half ago, Lisa DeArmas’s
two sons started at 18 months with
the Mommy & Me class and continued
with singing, arts, and instrument lessons.
Guitar-playing Grateful Dead fan, Ryan is
now 16, while piano-playing Dylan, age 14
is a Billy Joel fan. Stacey Lee’s son Jeremy
studied drumming from age 6-15 and was
in the CSSMA band.
Kerlin underscores how, geared toward
all ages, “We focus on helping every child in
fi nding their creative voice.” Many former
students have become artists and musicians
and a handful has become teaching artists
in their creative arts programs.
Committed to high-quality art and music
programs for diverse students of all backgrounds,
this lower Manhattan nonprofi t
community arts school will offer all sorts
of classes to children during the summer—
this year in person, as well as its school-year
programming.
Amar’e Stoudemire goes from hoops to farmstand in Union Square
BY DEAN JAMIESON
After playing forward for the
Phoenix Suns and the New York
Knicks, buying an Israeli team and
coaching for the Nets, NBA all-star Amar’e
Stoudemaire has set his sights on a new,
unlikely project: farming.
His 200-acre Stoudemire Farms, based
in Hyde Park, New York, fi rst started in
2015. Now its products are coming to the
City’s very own Union Square Greenmarket,
every Friday.
“For me, the idea was to have a selfsustainable
lifestyle,” said Stoudemire
yesterday morning, in between talking to
customers and taking the occasional selfi e.
“And to create something that my children
can inherit as they get older.”
For Stoudemire, farming runs blood
deep. His mother worked in agriculture,
picking oranges in Florida and then, come
autumn, apples in upstate New York; in the
same lush country where Stoudemaire now
raises cattle and sheep. His grandfather,
too, was a farmer. “He didn’t have his own
land but he had his own house with fruit
trees, with fi shing,” said Stoudemaire. “He
Amar’e Stoudemire at his new shop in the Union Square Greenmarket.
had grapevines. I always kind of around
self-sustainable living.”
Stoudemire made it clear that he hopes
to accomplish something greater with his
farming than just the lamb-chops and ribeyes
lying in coolers, at his feet. Currently,
only about 2% of American farmers are
African-American. Stoudemire spoke
about the lack of healthy, grass-fed food
in impoverished communities, about the
excess of fast-food and GMOs.
PHOTO BY DEAN JAMIESON
In some small way, Stoudemire, with his
organic, black-owned, sustainably-raised
beef, hopes to amend that.
“The goal of having a self-sustainable
farm that’s grass-fed, that’s pasture-raised,
is to allow people to consume fresh products,
without GMOs. And I think that’s the
importance of it all.”
And to be accepted into GrowNYC – one
of the most “transparent and traceable
farmer’s markets in the world” – is no
light task. From application to acceptance,
it’s taken a year for Stoudemire Farms to
qualify for a stand in Union Square. “They
had to verify. This is really a very strict
producers-only market,” said Michael
Hurwitz, director of Greenmarket, the
non-profi t which runs the Union Square
market and many more across the City.
“We waited for them to have real product
to show – now we’re super-excited.”
Coming from the court, Stoudemire
knew picking up agriculture would be a
challenge. He fi rst purchased the threehundred
acre property in late 2014; it
would be months before the farm was
operational. “Going from NBA playing to
driving the tractor, cutting the grass, building
the fence-post – there’s been a learning
curve,” he said.
It seems, for Stoudemire, to have been
worth it, in ways that go much deeper than
the money or the literal product.
“It’s peaceful. Out in the wilderness,
you fi nd a sense of tranquility,” he said,
and paused. A customer in a Phoenix Suns
jersey had approached, asking for an autograph.
Stoudemire greeted him with a fi st
bump and a smile.
Schneps Media June 17, 2021 5