Who Should Design NYC's New Billie Holiday Monument?

The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs has released six commission proposals for a monument honoring Billie Holiday. The monument will be installed outside the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens, where Holiday lived and performed. The Percent for the Art program is funding the commission, and the public is invited to provide input on conceptual designs by Thomas J Price, Tanda Francis, Nekisha Durrett, La Vaughn Belle, Tavares Strachan, and Nikesha Breeze. The monument plan began in 2018 through the She Built NYC initiative, aimed at addressing the lack of historical monuments dedicated to influential women. Progress was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the project was revitalized in 2024. Holiday’s life includes her birth in Philadelphia, childhood trauma in Baltimore, and her move to Harlem in 1929, where she began performing as a teenager.

"At long last, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) has revealed six commission proposals for a monument celebrating the legacy of groundbreaking jazz vocalist Billie Holiday. Through the Percent for the Art program, Holiday's monument will be installed outside the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens, where the singer lived and performed."

"DCLA has invited members of the public to share their input on the conceptual designs by Thomas J Price, Tanda Francis, Nekisha Durrett, La Vaughn Belle, Tavares Strachan, and Nikesha Breeze to help inform the final selection. Renderings of each artist's proposal and supporting text are available on the DCLA website, depicting the myriad ways in which Holiday's legacy can be interpreted and represented."

"The plan to commemorate Holiday with a public monument emerged in 2018, when the DCLA announced the She Built NYC initiative in an effort to remedy the lack of historical monuments dedicated to influential women in the city. The jazz vocalist was highlighted alongside Staten Island's historic Robbins Reef Lighthouse keeper, Katherine Walker; schoolteacher and civil rights figure, Elizabeth Jennings Graham; and pediatrician, educator, and reproductive rights activist Helen Rodríguez Trías."

"Holiday was born in Philadelphia and endured a traumatic childhood in Baltimore until 1929, when she joined her mother in Harlem and began performing at nightclubs as a teenager. Without any formal training, she became one of the first Black women to sing alongside a White orchestra, and her iconic, instrument-like voice greatly influenced the jazz and swing genres as they developed."

Read at Hyperallergic