VERNON TIME parking

PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY

Vernon Time Parking is a time-specific public art installation located in a public park and a parking lot along Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City, Queens. It consists of 18 parking meters, free daily newspapers, a cantilevered public bench, and an underground time capsule.  It is to be temporarily installed for 9 days in a pair of adjacent parking spaces at 7 AM every day and reinstalled at a different pair of spaces the following day, at the same time.  The installation contains copies of a local daily newspaper for each day of the project’s duration, as well as newspaper clippings from Long Island City’s past.  They are installed into the seat of a public park bench.  Located above the Queens Midtown Tunnel and #7 train, and along part of the recently adopted Hunter’s Point Subdistrict Zoning envelope, the installation tracks a line of physical and social dis-jointure across a site where history has been paved over with asphalt, patched in concrete, and written on a NYC Parks + Recreation sign. The installation is made of a thermoformed plastic shell, a series of printed acrylic sheets, stock steel channels + rods, cast-in-place concrete, and water, and newspapers.  It is intended as a site for the production of alternative cultural histories and futures for Long Island City.  For a few moments in time, a parking lot is transformed into a public place by exchanging cars for people.