Alex Strada’s Public Address Gives Shelter Voices Space Across the Bronx
- Damian Ali
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
Alex Strada’s Public Address installation at Lt. Petrosino Square in Manhattan, where handwritten contributions from shelter residents and staff are displayed as public signage. Image courtesy of Storefront for Art and Architecture. Photo: Michael Oliver.
What to Know
Public Address brings shelter residents’ words to public spaces across the Bronx starting Sept. 14.
A free Sept. 23 program at Joyce Kilmer Park will introduce the Bronx presentation.
Words written by New Yorkers living and working in shelters will soon appear on street signs across the Bronx as artist Alex Strada brings Public Address to the borough beginning Sept. 14.
Presented by The Bronx Museum, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the New York City Department of Homeless Services and Department of Cultural Affairs, the public art project turns handwritten entries from shelter residents and frontline staff into signs fabricated by the New York City Department of Transportation.
The largest installation will be at Joyce Kilmer Park, one block south of The Bronx Museum on the Grand Concourse. Smaller signs will appear inside and outside the Museum and at locations in every Bronx community board district.
That reach is an important part of the Bronx presentation. Instead of asking residents to visit a single exhibition space, Public Address places the work within neighborhoods across the borough, from Brook Avenue and East 169th Street to Fordham Road, Castle Hill Avenue, Pelham Parkway, and Bronx Boulevard.
--
“Our stories are complex, brilliant, political, funny, painful, magical, and they deserve a home that reflects that.” Read: Bloody, Beautiful, and Ours, Rafiana Martinez and the Vision for Borí Books & Café.
--
The project began with more than four years of workshops Strada conducted in dozens of New York City shelters. More than 400 shelter residents and staff contributed handwritten entries and drawings about housing, migration, caregiving, displacement, and other experiences.
Those pages become something much harder to overlook when reproduced on aluminum signs made at the same DOT Sign Shop responsible for New York City's municipal signage.
“Public Address is possible because of hundreds of people willing it to be, beginning with the shelter residents who contributed log entries meant to be read and acted on,” Strada said. “This project is as much about building relationships and intervening in city infrastructure as it is about making art.”
The Bronx is a significant stop for the project. According to the organizers, the borough has more shelters than any other in New York City. Placing the participants' own words in parks, streets, and cultural spaces brings those accounts into communities where housing insecurity is already a visible part of city life.
For The Bronx Museum, the project also extends beyond a traditional exhibition inside its galleries.
“Alex Strada’s Public Address asks us to reconsider what a public space can hold, and whose voices we expect to encounter within it,” said Shamim M. Momin, director and chief curator of The Bronx Museum.
Public Address first appeared at Lt. Petrosino Square in Manhattan in October 2025 before moving to Columbus Park in Brooklyn. After the Bronx presentation, the five-borough project will continue to Staten Island and conclude at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens in March 2027.
Bronx residents will have an opportunity to learn more about the project on Sept. 23, when The Bronx Museum and Storefront for Art and Architecture host Meet Me At The Park: Public Address at Joyce Kilmer Park from 5 to 7 p.m. The free event will include a ribbon cutting and remarks from Strada, participating organizations, and city officials.
The project will also be part of The Bronx Museum's fall season opening on Oct. 9.
Public Address is designed to meet people where they already are, placing words first written inside the city's shelter system directly into the everyday landscape of the Bronx.
Comments