Saturday’s Streetfest — part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City — attracted throngs of urban design, art and sustainability enthusiasts to the Lower East Side. Booths were set up along the Bowery and in Sarah Roosevelt Park under tarps and pink canvas “worm” tunnels, in tents and, in one case, inside an inflatable sphere connected to the back of a truck. Visitors weathered the scattered showers to take part in all sorts of urban interactions ranging from screen printing, mud and seed pod sculpting to brainstorming and answering questionnaires on barter networks. The fest also catered to children, with miniature city-crafting workshops and a collection of large electric blue foam modules which provided the fair’s little guests with hours of building and subsequent destroying fun. Highlights included a traveling troupe of silent dancers from Dance New Amsterdam who performed silent choreographies and battle enactments as well as aiop‘s human statues covered in brightly colored knitted bodysuits, resembling It’s Always Sunny‘s Greenmanscattered around the Streetfest. Quirkier still was a project envisioned by artist Anne Katrin Spiessentitled G.R.E.E.N.H.O.U.S.E whereby participants were handed questionnaires by two sexy “nurses” which, upon completion, was reviewed by “doctor in residence” Stiess. After determining which stress factors affect her “patients” more, Stiess administered a liquid herbal mixture custom formulated to address each individual’s stress inducers. All in all, the Streetfest’s goal of engaging the community and fostering creative thinking was a huge success. The event was, undeniably, of great educational value with most festival-goers walking away having learned something. “Now the challenge lies in actually putting some of these ideas into practice,” said visitor Robin Nataf, who continued “it’s difficult finding sustainable ideas. These activities always seem great at first but quickly become tiresome with repetition.”
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