22 The QUEE NS Courier • october 8, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Volunteers set to beautify bike lane in Long Island City Photo courtesy of the Department of Transportation Volunteers will embark on a beautification project to paint a barrier around a bike lane in Long Island City this week with this design by Parsons graduate student Jessie Contour. BY ANGELA MATUA amatua@queenscourier.com/@AngelaMatua A bike lane in Long Island City is about to get beautified as part of the Department of Transportation’s Barrier Beautification program. Fifty volunteers are heading out to a new protected bike lane on Vernon Boulevard between 31st and 40th avenues to paint unique, colorful designs by Parsons School of Design graduate student Jessie Contour. The volunteers began to transform 1,080 feet of concrete barrier on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and they will continue to do so from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9. Employees from the Midtown Community Court Justice system have been assisting with priming the space for the past several days. Contour has a background in graphic design and illustration and currently works in game design. Her design for the barrier, titled “Jazz Lights,” “aims to relive the energy and fun of the ‘90s through a bold color palette and dynamic repeated pattern,” according to the DOT. This is the 11th iteration of the program, where 25 sets of barriers spanning 7 miles or 35,110 linear feet have been beautified throughout the five boroughs. POLS ANNOUNCE $3.2M IN FUNDING FOR ART GROUPS IN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES BY ANGELA MATUA amatua@queenscourier.com @AngelaMatua Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark- Viverito gathered on Oct. 1 at the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside to announce the allocation of $3.2 million to expand funding to art groups in immigrant communities across the five boroughs. Van Bramer, who is also the chair of City Council’s Cultural Affairs Committee, founded this initiative last year to provide funding to 77 cultural groups that provide programming specifically focused on the cultural history and traditions of immigrant communities in New York City. Three organizations in the councilman’s district will receive $15,625 each to continue offering their unique programming to the community. These include the Ayazamana Cultural Center in Long Island City, which aims to educate others about Ecuadorian culture through the arts; the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside, the only bilingual Hispanic theater in Queens; and Topaz Arts in Woodside, a creative development center that offers affordable space, visual arts exhibitions and residency opportunities for artists. “This year we have literally doubled down on the success of the Cultural Immigrant Initiative,” Van Bramer said. “By increasing funding streams to immigrant organizations and cultural groups that are often overlooked in the cultural funding process, we are empowering more New Yorkers and increasing access to the arts in every neighborhood.” Known as the “World’s Borough,” Queens has the largest foreign-born population of all five boroughs with 35.5 percent, according to a 2011 report. Approximately 138 languages are spoken in Queens, with specific neighborhoods acting as enclaves for certain ethnicities. Angel Gil Orrios, the artistic and executive director of Thalia Spanish Theatre, said this money has allowed his organization to program free performances in local parks and bilingual theater and dance workshops for people of all ages. “Since the economic crisis, small organizations like ours have been struggling with funding cuts from private corporations and foundations,” Gil Orrios said in a statement. “That’s why for us the creation of the Cultural Immigrant Initiative by the City Council has been so important in order to be able to continue serving our community, specially the Hispanics in Queens, after 37 years.”
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