BELVEDERE – MARTHA HENRY & BLADE

In our latest exclusive Luxury Reborn video graffiti godfather Blade hooks up with legendary Subway Art photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant to share stories about downtown New York, the early days of street art and why true luxury is the freedom to express yourself creatively One of the first wave of New York train writers who paved the way for the subsequent graffiti explosion, Blade painted thousands of subway trains from 1973-1983, inspiring a generation of budding artists and earning himself the title King of Graffiti. Later, he was one of the first graffiti artists to take his work into the downtown gallery scene, transforming 75 foot graffiti letters into 20 inch letters as he took paintings of trains onto canvas using the spray can. Photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant are still best known for their pioneering, hugely-influential book Subway Art, which documented New Yorks graffiti scene and inspired thousands of would-be street artists around the world, including our very own Banksy. Published in 1984, Subway Art recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a lavish oversized collectors edition, bringing Blade, Martha and Henry together for the London launch party at Shoreditchs Black Rat gallery, where we caught up with them. Marthas other books of note include Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984 while Henry co-produced and did the background research and photo-documentation for iconic film, Style Wars, still the best film ever made about …

HD Footage of New York City Skyline; Skyscrapers, Tall Buildings, Offices, Downtown, Business District, Harbor, Waterfront, Bridge, Sea Wall, Cityscape.New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York City has a significant impact on global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the United Nations Headquarters, it is also an important center for international affairs. The city is often referred to as New York City or the City of New York, to distinguish it from the state of New York, of which it is a part. Located on a large natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the Northeastern United States, New York City consists of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. With a population of 8.4 million distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km2), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York metropolitan area’s population is the United States’ largest, estimated at 19.1 million people distributed over 6720 square miles (17400 km2). The New York metropolitan area is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.2 million people as of 2009 Census …