Crossing the BLVD

Archie Bunker wouldn’t recognize the Queens of today, where cultures normally  thousands of miles apart live on the same block, and 138 languages can come together in a classroom. On the streets of Queens, passers by might hear Albanian hip-hop wafting from a market stall, or a  gypsy punk riff sill out of a café.  The diverse colors, accents and clothing illustrate “globalization” and “multiculturalism” in a way that corporate strategists cannot. Judith Sloan and Warren Lehrer are finely attuned to these sounds. The artistic uber-couple are at the heart of Earsay, a non-profit, multimedia organization. Earsay produced Crossing the BLVD... A book, a touring exhibition, and a series of  performances and radio segments drawn from interviews with immigrants living along the main thoroughfare that divides Queens.