I have mostly ignored you since our break up in 2015. I am ready to write; left you with little to no warning and after almost ten years can now look back and say you were not the problem I was. You were actually pretty great to me, earning $36,000 a year working at Hunter College led to taking side jobs at a Japanese Tourist Agency and at Renaissance School of the Arts in Harlem to teach high schoolers Creative Arts. My passion is to solve problems in the street art community and solutions were to book jams, cop walls, and get us gigs around the city. I gigged as much as I could as an artist; a painter with both a studio and a public art practice. I took care of elderly for side cash and did whatever it took to get by. The impetus was to work a little harder to try to go from survive to thrive.
But I failed---"if you make it in New York you can make it anywhere” and the pride of being an actual birth-native to the state created so much pressure to stay, grind and keep trying. The saying goes that you have to do seven years before you can claim the status as A NEW YORKER. You almost killed me, or maybe I almost killed myself. Ten years ago from this time, I got the call that Mom had over-dosed. I began to mutilate my body and mind. I had a TIA which left me with a scar on the right side of my brain and a whole new set of quirks including immediate memory loss and a soft speech impediment. I felt a haze for the next couple months and never recovered fully until about two years later. I always held that against you, that it was your fault.
Oh NYC, I visited you a couple times desperate to re-connect to my roots and my home state in hopes of having positive and productive experiences, but this last time created a powerful re-association to you — The Big Apple; birthing this apology meets thank you letter. While it is totally different to live with your love versus visiting it now, I do not feel a love-hate relationship. Just love. People do love-hate you and that causes us to love-hate ourselves. Living in New York is very lonely, truly isolating when in a constant state of shortage and survival for most. The grind. The long hard days, barely getting by, wears the nervous system down.
“You will never own your own home” repeated in my head before the American Dream as we know it died. The now-debunked myth, birthed at your Ellis Island, was completely out of reach albeit being overly-ambitious, motivated and determined by the spirit “if you work hard it will pay off.” I was commuting almost 90 minutes ONE WAY to teach in Harlem and ran myself on fumes. Looking back, I can no longer blame you and would like to own the failure of having to leave New York.
Moving to New Orleans; the American South, felt so down, so low, the first real big failure of my life as I had never really “failed.” This was a big fail. The high school I was teaching at wanted me there full-time but could not figure out how to have me legally teach with no plan to earn a Master’s. I almost falsely went back to earn an M.A.T. even though I was teaching at University already. At university no rules were broken for me to teach; just a lot of attitude from my colleagues that felt like my gifts weren't enough in fairness to them in having to get through the expensive and time consuming higher ed to teach from a more dignified level. I was teaching undergraduate Art History classes with a bachelor’s in mathematics in my young twenties.
The system destroyed my parents, my family and was now destroying me.
Looking back on it-- so confused by our love and what to do. I was live painting with a ska-jazz band called Somerton Suitcase that was collectively moving to New Orleans; planning for years to go on a great group migration. I started dating the drummer New Years Eve of 2014 after years of being friends. We were inseparable; so I half joked about taking me in the u-haul; which I in fact ended up in. Today it is an easy story to tell since I figured it out having no plan. But-it was the first time I had no plan.
I always have a plan, a good ambitious plan for upward mobility. This time, John and I plus our cat Beatrice Fratimi Miss Mimi over loaded a u-haul and started the journey. While that was the best decision I had made to launch the last decade of my adult life, coming back to you, New York, this past month on business with a little bit of pleasure at the end has taught me more than I ever knew about you, even though I have known you my entire life.
There is so much to love about New York.
I love how you build my bones. "15 minutes early is on time and on time is late" is a hint at the standard of professionalism you instilled. Working endlessly towards un achievable goals, but still being able to achieve is how I am today. Not only professionally, but the personally character you created is remarkable. You made me have to ask all the questions and be super inquisitive to move through your streets. We are a city of hustlers, you have to hustle; you learn to hustle. We might be described as loud, pushy and rude when we are just trying to talk over the train, push through long days, and reserve every drop of energy by just moving people out our way instead of saying excuse me; not not caring about your day but skipping pleasantries like How Are You? to preserve energy for the hustle.
We are the original scammers.
When you see a “going out of business sign to entice customers in” you have to wonder, how long have you been going out of business? We are the breeding grounds of pop-ups; you taught me all I know today about placemaking. You are where the term and movement was birthed. You spoiled me in public space but also taught me you do not need much of anything to make a place for others to attach to, feel a sense of belonging, and then help take care of. There is something still so sincere and real about you, even though we are also surrounded by so much corruption, privilege, and deceit.
When I was back last month, I met the legendary Al Diez, Basquiat’s partner from SAMO, at his solo show at Van Der Plas Gallery; reminisced on years of dealing art, time spent in and around The Bowery called The Devil's Mile that led to me traveling all over the world for art projects or what I refer to as creative placemaking. A powerful place to learn and fill my toolbox on how to be creative, to work with other creatives and to “be an artist.”
New York taught me you could literally do whatever you want when you grow up. I grew up in Binghamton about three hours north of the five borough which was an "eds and meds" town at the time. I could be a teacher or nurse, and tried both, and failed at both. When my mom and her mom, my g-ma, were alive they were nurses. It was like it ran in my blood but nursing school was not for me. I tried to teach but was obsessed with no longer being poor which at the time being rich was earning $100,000. That was so, so much money in my mind when my mom earned as low as $15,000/year collecting welfare. The best days with mom was when she made $40,000 with us girls and so $100,000 just seemed rich. And it is. Today the inflation has it so that $100,000 in 2000 is $183,00 today, which is no where near what I earn.
When I moved to Brooklyn proper, from upstate New York in 2013/14 it was a breath of fresh air. It was the street art capital of the nation and that was my super niche in life. I had my heart set on a Brooklyn address. And got one. I was over exposed to so many delicacies and senses in the new life. You taught me that quite literally anything you set your mind to, once can do. Brooklyn, or what was once called Crooklyn, is a place where everyone has something to sell. You could package yourself in one-hundred different ways. There’s so many opportunities to sell yourself or something you make out of your mind, or something you find and package. Living in Brooklyn taught me to think through how to sell yourself, how to brand yourself. How to really hustle hard. It was probably the birthplace of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Every little thing has value.
I could watch this New York City, in all of its surface grit and dirt forever. I struggled to detach and leave you this time. I came to accomplish a few things and left with things I could not have planned for. I came for business; to attend a think tank, big brain meeting of the most brilliant work being done around place-based economics and community development. I came to do research for PlacemakingJax, reconnect with the woman who wrote the textbook we use for our school and the man that coined the term who today is a mentor and his son, a colleague. I came to research Japanese-American culture so that when it is introduced more and more to downtown Jax that is is authentic and that the project lead, who already planned to bring the highest standard, is moved to moved even more to elevate our city and it’s Asian-American scene.
We ended up meeting with Al to talk for hours about a show at the Graffiti Museum in Miami, one of only two museums in the world, to showcase the works of our late friend NIC707 then president of OTB. He sent us on a wild time to visit Basquiat’s grave “right around the corner." There was so much unplanned from this trip including a deep new respect for my home place and a re-attachment to the Brooklyn home; which has since stayed in the hands of our closest friends given the weird rental agreement. I reconvened with the Provost-Neuman’s; our little Brooklyn family that adopted us. We sat laughing for four hours at the table eating what felt like the most delicious American holiday food because you can simply taste the love and care. I got to re-unite with my college best friend, Minoo Allen, who’s name I said two or three times in my recent TEDx talk on how wild it was to go from such rags to such “riches” in connection and community. We are both on the other side of adversity and we got to celebrate, cake included, which the famous baker refused to not bleep out our Happy F****** Anniversary”
It was a privilege to stay in The Bowery, some of my old stomping grounds and spend a couple days with Elena walking all over the city to consume as much as we could; which included study stops at Basquiat’s home and studio around the corer on Great Jones and land at his place of his death; ended up at his grave with his dead body below the cold ground. We got to go twice to Industry City and Japan Village as well as spent time with Gold at the Brooklyn Museum. We got to go to the Bowery Wall with the local curator and learn something that I promised to keep in my heart forever. She got to paint 904 in the 212. I got to be among the spirit of Lower East Side where American Counter culture was birthed, with the many greats who were staying at the Chelsea Hotel and running around The Bowery. I could still see hints of that darkness and as someone who comes from the dark; I am in tune with the spirit that still remains.
New York is tough, tough on your bones, on your soul and really makes you question everything. It is a city that isolates and forces you to deal with yourself. It is one of the greatest cities on the planet and coming back ten years later after mastering my craft niche of urban planning led by people I can not help but see the city completely differently. Looking around observing, assessing, evaluating, analyzing, trying to solve problems of the street grid. Practically working while watching. I look all around The City with such big, fresh eyes with a whole new vocabulary of architecture and city planning. I move slowly on the streets, study the public arena; the pocket parks, sidewalks, and community gardens littering the boroughs. I see the people and their connection to the city and pray for healing and more healthy attachments. I spread the word that we call Florida the 6th borough because so many New Yorkers moved there during COVID. I share laughter at how bad New Yorkers judge Florida and help them not talk crap about my new people. I joke about a sunny place for shady people. I share love and laughter all throughout my week long journey of work turned pleasure.
I am so excited leaving New York, my birth-state, headed home. Home is Jax. Equipped with this new found look on your vibrancy and positivity; I am now a bright light. There is no darkness now with you. Thank you New York, you owe me nothing.
Sincerely yours (well Jax’s now),
Kady Yellow
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