New Yorkers can now vote on a new monument for Billie Holiday
The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (NYCDCA) is leading an initiative to build a permanent public monument dedicated to Billie Holiday, the jazz artist and Civil Rights Movement champion who sang Strange Fruit.
Today, as part of its Percent for Art program, the NYCDCA shared a selection of six proposals by artists for Holiday monuments that the public can choose from. The designs are on display at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center, where the winning proposal will be built at a later date.
Holiday was born in Philadelphia but her Queens roots run deep. She lived in Jamaica and Flushing for years, often performing at local venues.
A Percent for Art panel convened in 2025 to honor Holiday and, from there, six artists were invited to submit proposals for a monument to her, culminating in today’s release of the designs.
The six shortlisted artists are La Vaughn Belle, Nekisha Durrett, Nikesha Breeze, Tanda Francis, Tavares Strachan, and Thomas J. Price.
Belle’s proposal is titled Billie Holiday: Still, at the Crossing. It presents Holiday “at a moment of self-possession,” before she takes the stage. A meditation on Holiday’s public and private lives, Holiday is depicted on the edge of a reflecting pool wearing an elegant dress for a public appearance, but wrapped in a private garment.
Lady Sings the Truth by Breeze is carved into Nero Marquina marble. “Black marble is intentional, worthy of her legacy and power,” Breeze said. Holiday is shown “mid-song, face radiant, gown cascading” with white marble gardenias in her hair, performing before an amphitheater.
Durrett’s proposal, Bending the Note, is more abstract. Here, a white marble gardenia petal emerging from a slender stem represents Holiday. Ripples “resolve” into Holiday’s profile, connected to a circular granite plinth, lined with a statue of Pepe, her dog, a stand in for “generations captivated by her voice.”
Blood at the Root by Francis acknowledges Holiday’s personal, physical, and emotional suffering. The figure is perched over a healing pond, because water both “cleanses and bears witness.” Holiday is wearing a crown with gardenia petals. Blood red tiles line the base, honoring the pain she endured through bouts of depression.
Price’s piece, Held Within, is explicitly “not a monument to the legend.” Composed of two bronze forms, Holiday’s depiction is stripped of likeness, costume, and era, Price said. This is meant to counteract “decades of projection and mythologizing” and present Holiday at a moment of “authentic joy in its purest form.”
The Very Thought of You by Strachan is a stone sculpture based on a historic photographic profile of the jazz icon. Here, Holiday’s silhouette is transformed into “an infinite vessel-like form where mirrored profiles face one another across a central void.”
Moving forward, the public is invited to submit feedback through the end of May.
