Arte di Strada

My definition of street art also includes advertising, signage, posters, stickers, graffiti and shopping bags.

Trieste

Venice

Bologna

Some people describe Bologna as the "Food Capital" of Italy.  I'd argue it also can claim the title to street art, due in large part to the high percentage of university students in the population.

Rolling shutters make perfect canvases.

Tilda is always up to something.

My two favorite pieces of agit prop were posted next to each other on a wall near the Collezione delle Cere Anatomiche "Luigi Cattaneo."

And the Italians should know from dictators.

Florence

A pizza parlor must lie behind these shutters.

Any resemblance of the cedar trees to the Emerald City is purely a coincidence I'm sure.

The Orchestra della Toscana imagines what an 1866 portrait of Giuseppe Verdi by Giovanni Boldini (known as the "Master of Swish"!) would have looked like if Andy Warhol had screen printed it.

Milan

I didn't expect to see a reference to my birthplace in Milan, that's for sure.

 

Visitors want to leave their marks on the Duomo.

I did a double take when I saw that an inexpensive American brand was coming to town. I guess if Italians will chow down on McDonald's, they'll wear Champion, too.  Go figure!

More Northern Italy

Abstract Italy

Meet Some Italianos

Window Shopping, Italian Style

Trieste

Sunny Trieste 

Castello di Miramare

Museo Joyce

Museo Revoltella

Venice

Canals, Gondolas & Bridges

Size Matters in La Serenissima

Ungepatchke House of Worship

Working @ Home

Art OD

San Michele Cimitero

Piazza San Marco

Vaporetto Sunday

Venetian Leftovers

Bologna

$100 Baloney Sandwich

Let's Do The MAMbo!

Piazza Maggiore

So Many Churches, So Little Time

Odd Collections

Bolognese Leftovers

Florence

My Renaissance Playlist

What Would Bill Think?

Pitti Palace

Spiritual Experience

Acquired Fetish

Iconic Tombs & Views

Statues Galore

The Brunelleschi Dome

Hunky Director

Thumbs Up & Thumbs Down

Florentine Leftovers

Milan

Fascist Chic

Sunday in the Park with Jeff

Cimitero Monumentale

Just Another Diva

Rear Entrance

Albino Porcupine

Inspiring Versace

Milanese Leftovers

We Can Hitch a Ride to Rockaway Beach

My knowledge of the Rockaways was limited to uninformative Ramones' lyrics, a single visit to the gay beach at Riis Park in the late 70s and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy on the peninsula's communities in 2012.

Patti Smith kindled my interest after reading M Train.  She bought a small house in Rockaway Beach shortly before Sandy.  Little evidence of the hurricane exists today thanks to an influx of federal dollars and commercial development, especially at the eastern end, near Arverne by the Sea.

 

You're literally minutes away from the beach once you disembark from the ferry and walk south on B108, past some cute summer cottages.

 

The changing rooms look like Airstream trailers on stilts, built of wood instead of aluminum.

I pedaled to Riis Park along Rockaway Beach Boulevard, past landscaped homes and a beautiful, if somewhat forlorn, synagogue.

 

Robert Moses built Riis Park in 1936.  Somebody should restore the Art Deco bathhouse to its former glory.

It isn't hard to find the gay section. Just look for the Speedos and toned bodies.  Maybe there is life after the Pines!

I returned to Rockaway Beach on the Jamaica Bay side, past a well-tended church and through Belle Harbor, also known as Beach 129.  

Every house flies an American flag.

You can bet this Latino fisherman doesn't live in the neighborhood.

I was a lot more comfortable among the mermaids and street art in Rockaway Beach.

But patriotism could be found even in hipster terrain.