Bookending the other end of the atrium is a monumental wall installation by Bronx native Ronny Quevedo called Pacha Cosmopolitanism Overtime. Not quite a painting and not quite a sculpture, it’s a 45-foot-tall panel made from materials typically used in basketball courts: tan wooden planks and curving play lines in bold primary colors. It’s situated on a wall next to an escalator, and as you ascend or descend, the play of natural light across the latticework of intersecting lines creates a welcome feel of unencumbered flow. Quevedo, who grew up watching soccer games here in Queens with his dad, an ex–professional player from Ecuador, was inspired by the indoor courts where the city’s Latin communities meet for weekend matches. He knows that most people will think of basketball when they see it, but for him it refers to a very specific local phenomenon that constitutes a huge part of New York City’s DNA, even if many New Yorkers don’t know it. “These games are where I got to meet people from so many other diasporas: Colombians, Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Argentinians,” he says. “It made me understand that my upbringing was similar to others’, and that soccer is this unifying force.”
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