Muralists bring Sunset Park’s stories to a harbor wall

Two local artists put the finishing touches on one of the neighborhood’s latest and largest murals on Thursday, May 7, at MADE Bush Terminal.

Painted by Sunset Park artists Yukiko Izumi and Ji Yong Kim on an undeveloped building at MADE Bush Terminal, the mural faces New York Harbor and is visible from passing ferries. Based on the artists’ measurements, it stretches across two large wall sections, reaching 88 feet high, about 135 feet wide and nearly 8,800 square feet.

The mural combines the history of Bush Terminal workers with the history and present-day life of Sunset Park. A large red ship forms the central structure of the design, with waves below and figures scattered across the wall. Some represent dockworkers and industrial labor. Others represent the many communities that have lived and worked in the neighborhood.

Izumi said she wanted the mural to show people from different times “helping each other, talking together, community together, and then living.”

It is the third and final mural in a series the New York City Economic Development Corporation commissioned in 2024 from the married artists, with designs drawn from three community workshops. The project also includes two earlier murals on a skybridge at the complex.

A photo collage shows the north and south sides of “United Sunset Park,” Ji Yong Kim’s skybridge mural at 13 42nd St. Photo by Ji Yong Kim.

“It has been incredibly rewarding to watch MADE Bush Terminal come to life with the addition of these community murals, infusing the historic industrial campus with the color, energy, and vibrancy that define Sunset Park,” said NYCEDC Vice President of Asset Management Waverly Neer.

Izumi was the lead artist on the new mural, which is not yet titled, while Kim led the skybridge murals, called “United Sunset Park.” The arrangement is part of how the couple works. Generally, whoever lands the project becomes the lead muralist, while the other takes on a supporting role.

For this final MADE mural, the sheer size presented a new challenge for Izumi.

“I’ve never done such a big thing,” Izumi said. “I was so scared until the end.”

She made a mock-up and checked how the mural might appear from the ferry. But she said she felt real relief only after an EDC staff member sent a photo taken from Bush Terminal Piers Park.

“It looks like a ship,” she remembered thinking. “I was so relieved.”

For Izumi and Kim, as Sunset Park residents, the work is also personal. Kim has lived in the neighborhood for about 15 years and has a studio at Brooklyn Army Terminal. Izumi came to Sunset Park in 2020, after the couple married during the pandemic.

Before becoming a muralist, Izumi worked as a graphic designer and studied design in Denmark. She said that experience helped her understand the power of images across language barriers.

“Visuals, like sketches, are such a good communication tool,” she said. “If I draw an apple, everyone knows it’s an apple.”

A collage of murals by Yukiko Izumi shows, top to bottom and left to right, “Family” (2021) at 5002 Eighth Ave.; “Cross-Cultural” (2024) at the United Senior Center of Sunset Park; “Sunset Park” (2024) at Sunset Park near Seventh Avenue and 41st Street; “WINDOWS #2” (2024) at 5116 Fifth Ave.; “R.I.S.E U.P.” (2025) at R.I.S.E U.P.; and “Wings of Unity” (2024 and 2025) on Fifth Avenue between 34th and 36th streets. Photos by Yukiko Izumi.

Her first mural was painted in 2021 at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street for the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, supported by City Artist Corps funding. During that project, she said, Chinese seniors who were still cautious after the height of the pandemic began stopping to watch her work.

At first they kept their distance. Then, day by day, they came closer.

“They talked to me in Chinese,” said Izumi, who is Japanese. “I couldn’t understand the Chinese, but they were smiling and giving thumbs up.”

At the time, she said, she was lonely in a new city. The mural became a way to meet people.

“If I didn’t paint the mural, I don’t think we’d have a chance to talk,” she said.

Soon after, leftover paint led her to post in the Sunset Park Buy Nothing group. She offered free murals in exchange for walls, helping her build a portfolio and connecting her to local businesses, nonprofits and residents.

Since then, Izumi has painted murals around Sunset Park, often with community partners. Her collaborators have included RaisingHealth, the Sunset Park BID, RISE UP, Apex for Youth, the United Senior Center of Sunset Park, Green-Wood Cemetery and the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association.

Community participation has become central to the couple’s work, though each site has its limits. At MADE Bush Terminal, the location meant residents could join design workshops but not the painting itself.

“The location of it actually impacts how people can participate,” Kim said. “Because it’s in a construction site, people cannot just come in and paint together, safety-wise.”

Other projects have allowed more hands-on participation. For the Green-Wood Cemetery mural, community members helped design patterned birds representing people they wanted to honor. More than 50 participants later joined painting parties, according to RaisingHealth.

Izumi said the mural was later tagged, but community members contacted her quickly to let her know. Kim remembered another moment when passersby saw the artists applying protective coating late at night and thought they were vandalizing the mural.

“They were shouting across the street,” Kim said. “It was quite touching because, oh, they actually care.”

For Kim, that is part of what murals can do. Children who helped paint the Green-Wood mural now pass it on their way to school.

“They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I did this one. I remember painting this with my parents and my friends,’” he said. “Then they grow up, and hopefully that’ll be part of their memory of growing up in Sunset Park.”

The couple’s collaboration is practical, creative and occasionally tense. Kim laughed that they have never had a project where they did not fight at least a little. Izumi called it “a very healthy way.”

They also know their strengths. Kim’s background includes studio painting, public art and teaching art at a community college in New Jersey. Izumi’s strength is graphic design, bold color and local relationships with organizations.

For Izumi, the new MADE Bush Terminal mural is a milestone in a career built quickly, with help from the neighborhood.

“So far, these four years,” reflected Izumi, “it’s definitely because of the community that I can be a muralist.”