Yukie Ohta |

Julie Finch and Artists Against the Expressway

The other day, I had the pleasure of interviewing Julie Finch (formerly known as Julie Judd), dancer, choreographer, activist, and founding mother of SoHo. In 1969, with the help of her late ex-husband Donald Judd, Finch co-founded Artists Against the Expressway, a group of activist-artists that included Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, and Frank Stella, among others. The group opposed Robert Moses’ plan to build the Lower Manhattan Expressway, a ten lane elevated highway that was to run across Broome Street, thereby razing the then-thriving SoHo artist community. Needless to say, the Expressway was never built, and that’s thanks in part to Finch’s efforts. Read more>>