Dreams Are Made Of

Text and images by Allie Moustakis.

In her Long Island City studio, Erica Enriquez bends to pick up stray cardboard scraps from the floor, putting them into a bag where they won’t be crushed. Dried banana peels stitched together hang on the wall. Piles of props sit in the corners of the room. A growing ball of tape rests on the floor.

Against the wall, a pair of life-sized subway doors made of cardboard, tape and aluminum foil leans upright, with Welcome aboard, Do not feed Choo Choo and Do not lean on door written across the panels.

The studio is just a holding place.

When there’s a show, Enriquez folds the doors down, packs them up and carries everything to whatever venue her train-themed, indie-rock band, Choo Choo, is playing that night. 

Enriquez moved to the city in 2019 after finishing her degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. After years focused on sculpture and fine art, she drifted back towards music.

Her first group formed on Thursday nights at Arlene’s Grocery in the Lower East Side, where her older brother, Peter, ran a weekly jam session and she worked the door.

“That’s kind of how I met all my friends in New York,” she says.

Before Choo Choo had a name, it was Erica Enriquez plus Friends, and their first show took place in the trash room of Peter’s apartment building. 

In 2024, she graduated from Columbia University with an MFA.

“While being there, a big goal of mine was ‘How do I think about music and my art practice? Should they be together?’ she asks. “Because they feel very different.”

This month, she’s taking those question on the road.

Enriquez calls Choo Choo’s first run the “two-for-one tour,” pairing an afternoon artist talk at a college with a night show to help cover travel.

“I can perform as the artist doing the fancy talk or whatever, even though it’s kind of a silly thing,” she says. “And then use that to promote the band stuff. That’s really the center of what my practice is about and what it means to be an artist in New York.”