Two new sound and lighting installations featuring works by composer John Morton and light sculptor Erwin Redl were unveiled earlier this month at Van der Donck Park in Yonkers.
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, as well as members of the Hudson River Museum and local artists, unveiled the installations located above and below the bridge in the park at Dock Street in Yonkers, which are interactive to the public.  Morton’s Sound Bridge includes sounds recorded in Yonkers, including factory whistles.
Pedestrians crossing the bridge can hear the sounds by waving their hands in front of sensors installed on the bridge rails. Recorded interviews with Yonkers artists and residents including poet Countee Cullen and writer John Masefield are played every hour.
Below the bridge, Redl’s Saw Mill Suspension features 174 suspended LED spheres above the Saw Mill River that change their degree of light, color and reflection.
The installations were funded by the city, Groundwork Hudson Valley and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Spano said, during the past three years, Yonkers has seen an “explosion of arts activity,” and the city hopes to create the Carpet Mills Art District in the former Alexander Smith factory.
“The arts have really become a part of the success story that is Yonkers, and you see it all around the city,” Spano said. “I encourage everyone to come down to the waterfront and see the dozens of pieces of artwork we have displayed here.”
“The word is spreading that Yonkers is open to the arts, and we’re just getting started,” he added.
For more information, visit www.yonkersny.gov/art.
