Today I became acquainted with José de Diego (April 16, 1866 – July 16, 1918), statesman, lawyer, journalist, and poet. Born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, Diego spent time between Spain and Puerto Rico and was an advocate and leader of the movement for Puerto Rico’s independence from Spain. An important figure in Puerto Rico’s history, many things have been named in his honor – roadways, schools, and his birth date as an official holiday. He was also known as father of the modern Puerto Rican poetry movement. The last six lines of his poem, Fuerzas Irresistibiles, are on the wall of the public community garden:

La idea es el vapor: vapor divino,
que invisible y potente, como el viento,
marcha seguro a su inmortal destino.

¿Quién osa detener su movimiento?
Si se alza una montaña en su camino,
abre un túnel y pasa el pensamiento!

The poem and bas relief speak to community solidarity in this neighborhood, which has a large Hispanic community and Puerto Rican heritage. The community garden, Bello Amanecer Borincano, was started in 1984 by Carmen Pabon (it was later partially bulldozed). Click here for photo. The location is at 119 Avenue C (in Alphabet City), which has the official alternate name Loisaida Avenue (Loisaida is Spanglish for Lower East Side). The term was originally coined by poet and activist Bittman “Bimbo” Rivas (1939-1992) in his 1974 poem “Loisaida.” The renaming of Avenue C was a token of appreciation for his contributions to the Lower East Side, his home, and for his people…

Photo note: I only noticed on close examination that the illustration’s background is a replica of a Certificate of Naturalization of the United States of America. Click here for close-up.

The Wall in SoHo is one of the most well-known pieces of installation art in NYC. Its size, brilliant colors (turquoise aluminum beams on a lavender wall), and location at the intersection of two of the busiest major thoroughfares, Broadway and Houston Street, all give this piece enormous visibility.

In reading for this article, I have found egregious errors, heinous omissions, misinterpretations, and conflicting facts, typical in online sources. And in the case of long and complex sagas, like the story of this wall, the situation worsens as people pick up a fact or two and fill in the blanks, extrapolating as they see fit. To add insult to injury, the misinformation is then copied.

All that being said, it appears that The Wall was installed in 1973 by Forrest “Frosty” Myers. According to the New York Times:

“The building at 599 Broadway was constructed in 1917. The building next door, No. 603, was razed in 1944 as Houston Street was widened. That building’s abutting wall was anchored to 599 Broadway with 42 steel tie rods ending in 42 exposed channel braces.

This architectural scar endured until 1972, when Mr. Myers was commissioned to undertake ”The Wall” by Doris C. Freedman of City Walls, an organization that placed large-scale artworks on the blank facades of buildings. The project was welcomed by Charles J. Tanenbaum, who then owned 599 Broadway. Mr. Myers devised four-foot aluminum extrusions affixed with stainless-steel bolts to the channel braces, forming T-shaped projections from the wall plane. The background was painted blue-gray and the metal elements were green.”

In 1984, the building was converted to commercial condominiums. The artist has been battling the condominium since 1997.
In 2002, the work was taken down for repairs to the building – damage was being done by water penetrating through the artwork. The condo also wanted to generate income via billboard advertising, estimated to be $600,000 per year, and was not interested in reinstalling the art. The work sat in storage for 5 years until a compromise agreement was finally reached in 2007. You can read about it here. The newly reinstalled wall will now also be illuminated at night…

When I first started seeing cabs with these floral patterns, I assumed that it was some sort of trend that drivers and the public would soon regret, with the art deteriorating over time and the subsequent shabby looks and bad repainting jobs. I was relieved to find out that the decorations are stickers and can be easily removed.

Apparently taxi drivers as well as the public share confusion as to the meaning of the flowers – many (incorrect) rumors have been circulating. Garden in Transit is a privately financed $5 million art, education, and creative therapy project as part of TAXI 07, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first metered taxicab in NYC. 23,000 children in schools and hospitals – in addition to many adult volunteers – have painted 80,000 flowers on 750,000 square feet of adhesive panels. The project is sponsored by the community art organization Portraits of Hope, founded by Bernard and Ed Massey. It was 7 years in the making (first conceived and proposed to the city in 2000) and approved by the Taxi and Limousine Commission in 2006 – the Mayor’s press release and formal announcement was made July 18, 2006.

Garden of Transit workers approach cab drivers at night at their various haunts – diners, Kennedy Airport, etc. – and persuade them to participate. The decals are installed on the spot for free. The moving exhibition is for four months – September through December 31, 2007. After that, it is up to drivers/owners to remove the decals when and if they choose…

Technical Note: The material used was MACtac IMAGin® B-Free vinyl with a patent-pending bubble-free air egress adhesive. This sophisticated material is frequently used for vehicle wraps and other surfaces with complex curves.

The Tower of Toys has been well-known to habitues of the East Village and even to some from outside this country – buses of Japanese tourists would occasionally visit. Click here for more photos. This structure is the creation of Eddie Boros, an extraordinarily eccentric character who lived his entire life on 5th Street, around the corner from where this tower is located in the Sixth Street & Avenue B Garden. He was the son of Hungarian immigrants, a house painter and a seamstress. Boros served in the Army during the Korean War, but he was such an adamant pacifist that he was put on a detail planting trees.

In 1985, Boros began carving large wood sculptures in the middle of this garden, but this was met with opposition from other garden members. He was told to confine his work to one 4′ x 8′ plot, but eventually, this expanded to several plots. Boros, with a passion for reuse of discarded things, decorated his 65-foot tower (which he named My Baby) with items scavenged from the neighborhood. Boros was known for climbing to the top of the tower and beating a drum or blowing a horn. The tower appeared for a time in the opening shots for the television show NYPD Blue. A 1/2 scale version also appeared in the musical RENT. His structure was always controversial and a bone of contention with other members of the garden. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store now that Boros has passed away…

NOTE: Boros died April 27,2007 at the age of 74 while recuperating after having both legs amputated above the knee.

I assumed the Ring Dome Pavilion installed at Lieutenant Petrosino Square was just a whimsical piece of public art. Not so. This structure provided a setting for Performance Z-A: a Pavilion and 26 Days of Events at Storefront (Update: 1/19/12: Link no longer works), a series of 26 evening events, performances, concerts, and screenings to celebrate the Storefront’s 25th anniversary. The Storefront for Art and Architecture is located in a unique triangular ground-level micro space at 97 Kenmare Street in the Little Italy/SOHO area. Click here to learn about them.

The pavilion itself was designed by Korean architect Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies in Seoul and is made of 1,000 off-the-shelf plastic hoops attached with plastic ties, supported by a thin steel structure. The hoops were fitted with electroluminescent wire. Here is a video of the installation at Youtube. Although the month-long event itself has passed, I would recommend a visit anytime to the Storefront. It’s an amazing little space you won’t forget…

Note: Lieutenant Petrosino Square is a tiny, triangular “pocket” park located between Cleveland Place, Kenmare Street, and Lafayette Street. It adjoins the renowned Eileen’s Cheesecake.

As I have written in my post on the Knotted Gun, the United Nations is not at the top of the list for residents or independent visitors. On a recent visit, I discovered this beautiful sculpture, Sphere Within a Sphere (Sfera Con Sfera), created by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. He has a long and varied list of achievements and work (click here). This metallic sphere is one of a series of six located throughout the world – at the Vatican, Pesaro (Italy), Dublin, Berkeley (California), Washington, D.C., and this one at the United Nations, donated by the Italian government in 1991.

I have read a number of interpretations of this work, such as “the fractured outer surface of the sphere reveals a complex inner sphere that represents the harsh difficulties of the modern world at the end of the second millennium.” Or from Lamberto Dini, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy: “a sphere growing inside another sphere, as if a world torn asunder by the horrors of war and suffering could still give birth to another world: a more prosperous and just world, within an international frame of peace and progress for generations to come. What better image for illustrating the primary role the United Nations are called upon to play: a global quest to build a new world wherein all peoples can co-exist peacefully and develop in freedom.”