19. The Poetry Jukebox

The Poetry Jukebox, a version which was previously at Extra Place in 2017, will be at Ruth Wittenburg Triangle in Greenwich Village through February 22nd, 2019, an initiative of the Village Alliance, playing twenty poems by neighborhood figures including Jane Jacobs, Edna St. Vincent Millay (who lived in the narrowest house in New York City), James Baldwin, Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Emma Lazarous, and Mark Twain.

The Poetry Jukebox was started by the Czeck project Piána na ulici (Pianos on the Street) by Ondřej Kobza, a coffee house owner and Michaela Hečková. The mission of the organization is to animate public spaces, on a worldwide scale – and besides the Poetry Jukebox they install street pianos (similar to NYC’s Sing for Hope), public chess tables, and other public installations. The Poetry Jukeboxes have been installed in Prague, London, Kiev, Belfast, Venice, Brussels and other cities.