After a three-hour conversation in a café on the lower east side, there is no other way of describing Susana Ventura aka Penny Arcade but as a bomb, a threat, a prophet, a nymph, a mother, and a muse all in one. She’s like the downtown fairy god-mother who spins you completely out of your comfort zone and into a history that is more compelling and more relevant than anything you’re seeing in the downtown art scene right now. How can she do this? Because she lived the downtown we are mourning, and was practically raised by those who made it. Many of these names, like Jaime Andrews, Jack Smith, or John Vaccaro mean nothing to most of us in our 20’s and 30’s, but without them, downtown would never have become the bedrock of envelope pushing, politically mired, and socially liberating art. 

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