Nothing underscores the fraught tensions of gentrification quite like the deafening sound of a large glass door shattering behind you. Moments after I entered Denny Gallery’s East Broadway pop-up space this Wednesday, the gallery’s door splintered with a bang and a startling crack. Fragmenting into a wall of tiny shards, the broken door trapped the gallerists and me inside. “You’re not art press, right?” jokingly asked Director Robert Dimin. Well, actually…
As the initial shock wore off, Dimin, between calls to his building contractor and the gallery’s main Broome Street space, tried to piece together what happened. Was it the scalding summer heat that weakened the glass–a product of faulty construction and sweltering temperatures? Or was it something more nefarious such as a warning sign from a neighborhood hostile to symbols of gentrification like a gallery?
