Edition: U.S. / Global

ON THE MAP; Where Missiles Bristled, Making Art Instead of War

Published: May 27, 2001

Leonard DiNardo is an artist who works in glass. He is also an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam for five years. Mr. Di Nardo's studio is at the top of a hill in Riker Hill Art Park in Livingston in what used to be the launch room of a Nike Missile base. In 1974 the federal government sold the 42-acre base to Essex County for $1, and the county turned it into a park. In the mid-1980's, the county decided to lease the nine former military buildings, including barracks, electronics centers, a mess hall and offices, to artists and artisans as studio space, and about 50 people now work there. Mr. DiNardo, who arrived in autumn 1985, talked about his studio.

Q. Do people who used to be stationed here ever turn up?

A. A couple of times I've had people come up and walk into my studio and say, ''I was stationed here back in '64 and we had this and that,'' and they'd tell me about the place. They said my building was where the missiles were controlled from, and that they had vans with electronics trailers pulled up to each side of the building. There was one time, they said, that the missiles were actually uncovered in their silos and raised up and prepared for launch. They were tracking some unknown object. They said they were on full alert and that they came as close as they ever had to launching the missiles. I think it was 1967

Q. Describe your studio.

A. There's a hot shop with a glass furnace and all the equipment needed to have a glass-melting facility. There is also a grinding shop, and a display area and an office. I added two wings to the original building. I have windows on three sides. It's very sunny. In the hot shop there's a large bay window that gives me a fantastic view. It's one of the highest points in Essex and Morris Counties. You can see for 20 miles.

Q. What was the building like before?

A. When I took it over it was a cinder block shell of two 250 square foot rooms, totally gutted, with a gaping hole in the ceiling, no power and no water. When I first looked at it I couldn't even envision this being a studio. But the building was strategically located at the highest point in the park with that commanding panorama. I had been a recipient of a New Jersey State Arts Council fellowship and I used that money to purchase the materials I needed to rehab the building. The county also gave me some assistance. Some of their carpenters and masons helped me out. There were also pieces of machinery and gears outside left over from the Nike site. So I kind of went through it and incorporated some of the junkyard type materials that were outside to add onto my glass-making equipment.

Q. Does it seem to you that you are turning swords into plowshares?

A. When I had this opportunity to create a glass studio here it was something I saw as a kind of karmic opportunity to make what had been used for a negative thing, destruction, into a building where creativity happens. When you're a young you don't think about dying. You think you are going to live forever. But then when you go to a place like Vietnam, it occurs to you in a very serious way that you might not come back. I did come back and I feel very fortunate about that. I wanted to do something significant with my existence, and doing glass gives me some purpose and meaning and it gives me the opportunity to honor my friends, especially the friends who didn't come back from Vietnam. Their opportunities were taken from them. And now the park seems like an inspiration point in a lot of people's lives in Livingston. People come up here to enjoy the view and they come up here to enjoy the sunset. MARGO NASH

Photo: Leonard DiNardo in his glass studio at Riker Hill Art Park in Livingston, once a missile base. (Norman Y. Lono for The New York Times)