ABSTRACT
This is a story about Tim Rollins’ life-changing encounter with Intermediate School Number 52 in the Longwood district of the Bronx, New York. The story opens in the Kids of Survival (K.O.S) studio in lower Manhattan during the World Trade Center tragedy on September 11, 2001. Although they were saddened and distraught, the experience reinforced the purpose of their art community. Rollins then returns to an earlier September, in 1981, when he rode the Number 6 train to Prospect Avenue. His encounter with the students who would become K.O.S. is Rollins’s legacy, which continues today in his students and their children who are teachers and artists.
