16. Women: New Portraits on Exhibit at the Former Bayview Correctional Facility

women-new-portraits-at-bayview-correctional-untapped-cities-afinelyne

With a great deal of anticipation, Annie Leibovitz’s worldwide (10 city) tour of Women: New Portraits has arrived in New York. Opening last week, the UBS sponsored exhibit consists of newly commissioned photographs taken by Leibovitz, in collaboration with Susan Sontag. Women: New Portraits is meant to reflect changes in the roles of women today, with photographs of well-known artists, musicians, CEO’s, politicians, writers and philanthropists.

The setting of the exhibit was as monumental as the exhibit itself, located in the gym of the former Bayview Correctional Facility, across the street from Chelsea Piers, which has been closed since Superstorm Sandy. This renowned exhibit is a kick-off to plans for this building as the future home of what will be named The Women’s Building.

Women: New PortraitsThe Exhibit is located in the gym of the former Bayview Correctional Facility

honor-floor-of-the-bayview-correctional-facility-untapped-cities-afinelyneA row of cells on the Honor Floor of the former Bayview Correctional Facility

The Women’s Building will be a global hub for the girl’s and women’s rights movement, through the efforts of the NoVo Foundation, a philanthropy created by Jennifer and Peter Buffett in 2006, and is expected to be completed in 2020. We were fortunate to meet one of the women previously incarcerated at the facility, who told us that once completed, the Women’s Building will employ former prisoners of the Bayview facility. The free exhibit, Women: New Portraits will be on view to December 11, 2016, located at 550 West 20th Street.

Check out 13 of NYC’s active prisons which you may not have noticed in your neighborhood.