Uptown Arts Stroll 2012 Starts This Week

Whether you live in Brooklyn or another area of New York, you won’t want to miss the Uptown Arts Stroll 2012 which is starting this week. This highly anticipated annual arts festival features hundreds of artists and arts groups who live and work in the Washington Heights and Inwood areas.

Kicking off this Thursday, visitors will enjoy a feast for the eyes in local theaters, galleries, churches, taverns and parks as performers, artists and others come out in droves. The Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance sponsors the annual, month-long arts festival. As Sandra Garcia-Betancourt, the executive director of NoMAA said,

“We have a lot more work to do to sustain an uptown arts hub, and we’re not there yet. But it’s coming, and we’re well on the way!”

The event started as a one-day grassroots art show in 2003 and slowly expanded until it became the one month event that it is now in 2007. There is a plan this year for 120 events to take place in about 40 venues over the one month period. These events will cover W. 155th Street to W. 218th Street.

Events that New Yorkers and visitors can catch include Dominican writers reading at Word Up Community Bookshop on Broadway, Scandinavian music in Fort Tryon Park, painting exhibits at the Broadyke Meat Market on Dychman Street and even art quilts at the Hebrew Tabernacle on Fort Washington Avenue.

There will be participation by close to 500 artists and between 25,000 and 50,000 people are expected to attend the festivities ending on June 30th.