Does this 'Alphabet City' mural on Avenue C represent the community?

[Photo by Bobby Williams]

If you've been over on the southwest corner of Avenue C and East Sixth Street in the last week or so, then you've likely seen the new mural in progress on the (rather mysterious) RCN Cable building.

The mural, called "Alphabet City," is the work of Brooklyn-based artists The Yok and Sheryo who work for the Jersey City-based arts group Green Villain.


[Photo last week by Magic Brian]

All this has arrived with controversy, according to The Villager:

Is RCN whitewashing Loisaida culture and history? Celebrated street artist Antonio "Chico" Garcia and the community group Loisaida Inc. are crying foul after the company nixed their plan to create a mural celebrating L.E.S. “heroes” on the RCN cable building on Avenue C.

Apparently RCN officials are still pissed at Chico for his unauthorized Obama-McCain murals back in 2008. (RCN finally had them painted over in 2010.)


[EVG photo from 2008]

Elizabeth Colon, a founder of Loisaida Inc., told The Villager, "Is that what they think the community is, ‘A, B, C, D’? When we were talking about representing 50 or 60 years of Lower East Side history?"

You can read the rest of The Villager piece here.

And here was how the RCN wall was looking back in the summer…



Previously on EV Grieve:
RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

Warming up to RCN's blue wall on Avenue C

Last Tuesday, we pointed out that the first tags had appeared on the RCN building on Avenue C at Sixth Street since workers painted over Chico's murals last November...

And now... a few more appear...

A tweet from RCN

Yesterday, I sent out a tweet about the RCN-Chico post... and RCN responded ...



Previously on EV Grieve:
RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

RCN Cable discovers 'illegal graffiti' two years later

As Jeremiah reported on Monday, workers at the RCN Cable building on Avenue C and Sixth Street painted over the Obama-McCain election mural and others on the site last week....



Now...



Patrick Hedlund has a follow-up piece today at DNAinfo. He speaks with an anonymous RCN spokesperson who sounds a little huffy about Chico's mural, which graced the wall for two years.

"The bottom line is the building had illegal graffiti on it and we cleaned it up — period."

And!

But the RCN spokesman quickly dismissed the idea that Garcia might return to work on the wall.

"We're not interested in doing business with him again," he said.

Curious to see how long the building sits tag free.... this little doodle was quickly painted over....



Anyway, there were all sorts of Chico murals on this corner...



Are you telling me that RCN just figured out that there are murals here? (What about the illegal ads?) And it wasn't as if Chico just ran up here and tagged the wall in the middle of the night... this corner art took a long time to create... And this entire time RCN was unaware of the activity?

A side note, perhaps ... graffiti artist Jairo Pastoressa, accused of murdering Christopher Jusko, helped Chico create this mural ... His signature was in spray paint below Chico's name.


[Photo via DNAinfo]