John Charles JenkinsRiverside Dr between W 72nd St and W 73rd StHeart Three · Location 267 · Drawn June 2003Hover over or select the image to reveal a hidden view.PhotographsDownload photograph 1Download photograph 2Download photograph 3Download photograph 4Download photograph 5Download photograph 6Download photograph 7Download photograph 8Download photograph 9Download photograph 10Download photograph 11Download photograph 12Download photograph 13Show all 13 photographsVideo podcast0:00At the intersection of Riverside Drive and West 72nd Street, you'll find the Islamic Cultural Center.0:08The address is 1 Riverside Drive.0:11The drawing that we made is to the right of the main entrance, over a short, knee-high stone wall,0:17and between the two windows on a curved turret, the drawing faced onto Riverside.0:23The surface the drawing was on was decoratively chiseled with thousands of pockmarked and evenly spaced craters.0:33This is John Charles Jenkins. He was drawn in June of 2003.0:39His drawing is counting five people.0:44We have done our best during this project to stay as true to the heartline as we physically can.0:50That heartline has brought us across a complex array of buildings.0:55Each building brings with it, beyond its architectural attributes,0:59a context in relationship to the drawings that we were doing.1:03But none has offered such a mixed bag of thought-provoking juxtaposition1:07as the discovery of the Islamic Cultural Center as our next drawing location.1:12I worried. I fretted.1:14I seriously considered the ramifications of how a drawing would be interpreted.1:20I looked for signs of hostility towards the building and was saddened to see the telltale1:24traces of removed graffiti. It is too easy to imagine that this building, for some,1:29became a physical entity representing the source of the tragedies carried out by a remote few.1:36It is Sunday, and I feel that a discussion is in order with the occupants of the center.1:42Unfortunately, there is no response from the doorbells or knocking, but we would soon get a1:47predictably negative response from people passing on the street. Within 30 seconds of applying my1:54first line of tape to render John Charles Jenkins, we were being yelled at. It should be noted that2:01everything we have read about Mr. Jenkins portrays him as a universally loving person,2:06kind, and endowed with a profound ability to find humor in any situation. A woman on a bike had2:14had stopped, as well as a man walking by, and we were hearing the worst of it. Andrew turned all2:19his focus to managing the conversation, and I talked and drew quickly. The prejudices and fear2:28that we witnessed confirmed my initial hesitations and reconfirmed that it was important to finish2:34this piece. Important because it was a temporary means of testing the waters, building a footbridge,2:40and emphasizing that we are all in this together.2:43The warnings from the people who had paused to vent escalated to threats.2:49Not threats from them,2:51but threats that the occupants of the building would actually kill us.2:55Strong words.2:58The stronger the words, the more resolve we had to finish.3:01We documented, removed the work, and moved on.3:06Rattled.3:09Charles Jenkins, 45, of Cambridge, Massachusetts,3:12was the corporate office services manager for Charles River Associates,3:16an economics and business consulting firm based in Boston.3:20The Kentucky native enjoyed opera, animals, and antiques.3:24He collected things, old coffee pots, glassware, copies of the New York Times magazines.3:29He collected anything, pots, knives, that had handles made of bacillite and early plastic.3:36He would tell friends that if you rubbed a baccalite handle, it smelled like Vaseline,3:40because it was petroleum-based.3:42The degree of clutter in his apartment was remarkable, said Jeff Levy, a friend.← Location 266Heart Three · Location 267Location 268 →
