A new art installation paying tribute to the resilience of the immigrant community in Willets Point has been unveiled in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
“Bumperman” by artist Annalisa Iadicicco, a seven-foot superhero sculpture made from used bumpers, grills, floor mats, and other scrap auto parts, has been unveiled at David Dinkins Circle in Flushing Meadows Corona Park at the end of October and will remain on display through October 2025.
The sculpture celebrates the area’s history as a hub for affordable auto repairs while also honoring the area’s ongoing transformation into a mixed-use community.
Iadicicco said she spent a significant amount of time working in Willets Point, where she got to know many of the workers in the area’s auto repair shops and junkyards.
“Bumperman celebrates the immigrant community of Willets Point, who worked in the area for many years despite the poor infrastructure, unpaved streets, and lack of sewage,” Iadicicco said.
She said the project was personal because she had spent so much time getting to know the workers and families in Willets Point, who are now being priced out of the area as it becomes a mixed-use community.
“It is a very personal sculpture because I spent time in the community and met many families there,” Iadicicco said. “Just to see them go, it was sad.”
Iadicicco said it is important to celebrate Willets Point’s legacy as a working-class auto repair neighborhood as the area’s landscape is reshaped by new developments, including a new soccer-specific stadium and housing community adjacent to Citi Field.
She noted that the neighborhood’s “gritty industrial past” fades into history but said Bumperman’s presence ensures that the memory of the people who built the area will not be forgotten.
The sculpture is a testament to the enduring spirit of workers who fought to preserve their livelihoods and their homes in the past decades, Iadicicco said.
However, she said the sculpture also honors the area’s future as a mixed-use community, embodying the power to rebuild and rise like a phoenix.
“With Bumperman, I wanted to capture the spirit of those who gave Willets Point its heart—the immigrant community that lived and worked there,” Iadicicco said. “This sculpture is about acknowledging the past while embracing the future. It’s a bridge between what was and what is to come.”
The sculpture also showcases Iadicicco’s efforts to incorporate recycled and repurposed materials, turning them into usable objects.
“A big part of my work is to inspire people through everyday objects and how we can reuse them and repurpose them instead of trashing them.”
Iadicicco is the founder and creative director of the Blue Bus Project, a non-profit dedicated to bringing participatory art projects to underserved communities. In 2016, she came across a “big bus” and decided to convert it into a mobile gallery that could travel to different neighborhoods in the city.
“The idea is to bring art to people, to make it accessible to many and also make a space where it’s comfortable for people,” Iadicicco said. “When you bring art to people, they automatically connect to it because it’s in their community, and so it becomes easier to connect with the arts.”
Iadicicco used the Blue Bus to transport Bumperman from a studio in Long Island City to its current position in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
The sculpture can be viewed daily during the park’s operating hours between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.
