Moody

A meditation on place, power, and persecution in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Site-specific projections and spoken word poetry tell the story of Lady Deborah Moody’s founding of Gravesend, Brooklyn in 1643.  

Lady Deborah Moody was the only woman to start a village in Colonial America. The civil and religious liberties granted in her town patent are reflected in her equitable community plan, which was the first grid design of New York City.

Crafted as an urban intervention in how we honor the memory and history of our cities and the people who built them, this ephemeral tribute of light and sound tells Moody’s story in a way distinctly at odds with typical monuments based in bronze and permanence, disproportionately reserved for men.

Shot guerilla-style, the process of display and documentation was a practice in itself of being a small woman alone at night in a big city. Made vulnerable by the craft and the equipment, a nimble setup of only a pocket projector and a DSLR was used to make Moody.

Moody

By Alyssa Shea

1.

Long before your Commissioner’s Plan

There was my community plan

A holy design without the focus divine

A cross to share equally

By a collective conscience with liberty

Shores too shallow for my ‘city by the sea’

No matter, planned self-sustainability

Waters shallow, shelves run deep

I crossed the sea with no relation

But that of my library

Unlike my books, I stood unbound

Until Gravesend, I sailed unfound

2.

Born a rebel

Made a single mother

I left the country for the city

40 days to return

To my husband’s property

Must set an example

I left the Old World for the New

Seeking freedom of movement

Moved from them because I didn’t move like them

Well-read

I could reason my beliefs

In conscious consent

Freely chosen

Self-confession

Declared ‘a dangerous woman’

I chose excommunication

And I left New England for New Amsterdam

3.

Seeking freedom of movement

I turned 40 days into 40 lots

On level ground I chartered a village

On level ground I planned a grid

Orthogonal by design

Yet aligned with nature

Apex of 16 acre square

Bisected side to side

4 miles at its widest

4 squares of 4 acres of 40 lots

40 angled triangles radiating out and around

At its center, the people

Town hall takes place of temple

Public space for herding

Silent space for Meeting

Rebelliousness bisects rational

Rebellious by sex

Rational

4.

Ancient rock mountain

Rises in marshland

Invasive persuasion

Privileged and pawned

With a town patent

On Lenape land stolen

The only woman with land granted

A fellow wolf

Sought by the lone-legged leader

To advise and prove wise

My nobility

Granted allowance

My diplomacy

Concealed defiance

I was known as the spirit of Gravesend

When I passed, it remained orthogonal

But became crooked with corruption

In the hands of the man who took over

Square footprint fossilized, though rarely recognized

Amidst the orthogonal overgrowth of today’s city

My grid radiates from Gravesend

The angled bend of corners and sundial light

Leaves barely an impression on paper from ink

Must have a God’s eye to see

And a man’s hand to remember