City Councilman Eric Dinowitz (C.D. 11) hosted the unveiling of one of a series of public street murals being unveiled in Council District 11 in Kingsbridge on Sept. 16. He was joined at the mural site, located on Broadway by the 231st Street subway station, which serves the 1 train, by Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81), Laura Levine-Pinedo, executive director of the nonprofit KRCV [Kingsbridge-Riverdale-Van Cortlandt Development Corporation], artist Diana Capasso, and Stephanie Ehrlich, executive director of the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance.

 

Reminiscing on his time growing up in Kingsbridge, the councilman said in part, “We all deserve a clean and beautiful neighborhood, whether you’re a kid, like I was, coming down to get on the train to see a Broadway show [or] maybe you’re going home from a long day at work.” He thanked his “incredible community partners” for bringing the colorful, floral mural to life.

 

The councilman also used the occasion to announce he was awarding funding of $145,000 to a number of organizations including ACE, which he said carries out neighborhood clean-ups, graffiti removal, and snow removal, the City Parks Foundation & Partnership for Parks for flower-planting and beautification in local parks, the Jerome Gun Hill Business Improvement District (BID), to help keep the business corridors clean, the Horticultural Society for planters around the neighborhood, Riverdale Main Street Alliance, Future (Friends) of Mosholu Parkland, which he said was awarded $15,000 for their community work, and to Public Color and Bronx River Alliance.

 

He said Van Cortlandt Park Alliance (VCP) was also awarded $15,000 and added that this was in addition to “tens of thousands of dollars” for VCP’s internship and stewardship programs. In addition, the councilman said KRVC also received $50,000 for more murals throughout District 11.

For his part, the assemblyman said in part, “We live in such a great neighborhood, and these are the types of things that make our neighborhoods even greater. We’ve been working for years to try to make sure we live in a beautiful community. It’s not always easy. We’re here today by the train and it’s noisy, and it’s not always clean but let me tell you, we have a great subway system and most of our people when they go to work, they use that subway system and it’s nice to know that when they get on to the train, they’re going to see this [mural] twice a day.

 

He went on to say that it was important to fund organizations like KRVC and the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, which the assemblyman said he had also funded, in addition to funding essential services like schools and the NYPD. He reflected on when his children, including Councilman Dinowitz, participated in tree-plantings, graffiti removals, and clean-up events as kids and noted how his grandchildren are also doing the same thing now. He said he has said in the past, “I want to make sure that our community is the type of community where my children will want to raise their children.”

 

Meanwhile, the councilman said the idea for the murals emerged after NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) helped with graffiti removal and people agreed it wasn’t just about cleaning up but beautifying the area, and that he had found a great community partner in Levine-Pinedo in that regard. For her part, the KRCV executive director thanked Dinowitz for “advocating for the community” and “spreading the love out.”

 

She said many times Kingsbridge can be overlooked. “He was very determined to spread this beautification effort across the entire District 11,” Levine-Pinedo said, adding that the mural location was located in the center [of Kingsbridge], where people commuted, shopped and did everything. “So, to bring this beautiful, tropical, bright, in-your-face mural to light, people love it, and I’m just so, so excited and honored to be a part of this,” she added.

 

She went on to say that it wasn’t only a nice visual, but it also gave work to local artists. Norwood News had made the point to Levine-Pinedo prior to the ceremony that sometimes when artworks are commissioned and RFPs are issued by the City of New York, they don’t always appear to be sent out to local media via a press release, and seem to be sometimes just publicized on social media and can be missed. We said this may have meant that, in the past, artists from Brooklyn and other boroughs ended up being chosen to complete murals in The Bronx.

CITY COUNCILMAN ERIC Dinowitz (C.D. 11) hosts the unveiling of a street mural on Broadway by the West 231^st Street subway station serving the 1 train in Kingsbridge on Sept. 16, 2025. He is joined by Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81), Laura Levine-Pinedo, executive director of the nonprofit KRVC, one of the artists, Diana Capasso, and Stephanie Ehrlich, executive director of the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. Video by Norwood News

“All the artists working on these projects are local, Bronx-based, Bronx-raised artists, so I’m very, very proud,” Levine-Pinedo said. “This piece behind me was Lisa San Felice and Diana Capasso, we have Ian Sullivan over on Spuyten Duyvil area, and Diana again over on the Bailey Avenue and 238th Street commercial corridors.” Pinedo said that it was, however, the local eyeglass store owner at the mural site who really made the project happen, as it’s painted on his wall. She said as a tribute to the store, the flamingo on the mural was painted wearing eyeglasses.

 

For her part, Capasso thanked San Felice with whom she said she had worked on the mural during the height of the summer heat and said she felt gratified by the response they are receiving now from the public. She encouraged people to take photos of it and to tag KRVC and Artistic Element Studio when doing so.

 

Capasso owns Artistic Element Studios. “I work with seniors, I work with the disabled. I work with children, adults,” she said. “I do sculpture art. I do sketch-to-paint classes. I do all different things and I bring it to you.” Asked what was the most surprising thing a student has painted in her classes from their imagination, she said, “Well I make sure that everybody knows there are no mistakes, and nothing should look the same. We’re not robots. Whatever this creative energy brings you, that I’m bringing to you, and you can come with something different, then go for it! I’m here to help! I give you the bones and you go ahead and build it.”

 

She said she is always surprised by her students. “I’ve met so many people who wanted to do it but had no idea how to get into it,” she said. “It’s inspiring, somebody who’s 80 years old, and inspiring, someone who’s 3 years old. It’s awesome! It’s a lot of fun when I have family days and the grandmothers and the parents and everybody is joining in to do something together and it’s such a variety of ideas. I try to keep everybody open. I really believe it’s a form of therapy. It’s calming. It’s peaceful. I love to incorporate music into what we do too. I do paint and dances where we do a themed dance. They all learn it, and then they paint a painting with that type of [dance].”

Finally, Ehrlich used the occasion to say Van Cortlandt Park was the best park in the city. “It does take quite a bit to keep it clean, so I want to thank the councilmember for his ongoing support for the work we do at Van Cortlandt Park Alliance,” she said in part. She also thanked the assemblyman for his support, adding that such funding helped keep the neighborhood beautiful by facilitating VCP’s volunteer and stewardship programs, and she encouraged more people to volunteer.

 

Local resident Duane Santana said he appreciated the new mural and he welcomed more, especially on Walgreens across the street. “This spot was always so dreary, always posters stuck on here, and people hanging out here on chairs and just loitering, and now, it’s like beautiful.” he said. Speaking in Spanish, Javier Antonio Nava, another Kingsbridge resident, was asked if he painted and he said he did not, but would like to. Of the new mural, he said, “I love it! Very pretty! There should be more of them!”