What does one do with all the waste in the garbage bag? No clue. What about the hundreds of bottles, corks, caps, ribbons and so on? Again no clue. At least this is what we knew. But it has all changed.
Suddenly all this waste has found a new address. It all goes to the fourth floor attaic of a brownstone building, one block east of Union square. There are bottle caps, wine bottle corks, and scraps of wood, pebbles. Also vinyl records and surprisingly even dental X Rays.
This is all a part of the supply at the material center for the Beginnings Nursery School. All these things which are considered useless and wastes, all cleaned and used for children’s art projects here. These kids are also taught lessons about second acts. Actually this center was started out as a dumping ground for student’s art work projects but slowly it evolved as a ever-changing repository of odds and ends which make children do real creative work.
There are things like plastic VHS cases in the East village which make for objects of artworks for these kids. They add ribbons, lids and buttons to make stuff. You can see these things around the classrooms here. Apparently an old bicycle tire is hanging on the wall and the kids have put up colorful ribbons on the spokes of the wheel. Just recently, a bunch of kids, four or five year olds made a fleet of boats with a pile of corks. They tied this boat in a fountain at Madison Square Park.
It is a known fact that every school has a supply closet but this is completely different.
Everything here has a designated section for itself. The wood will go in a particular box or shelf, so will the bottle caps and corks. Also they make use of seashells, coils and wipe boxes.