Game over for Kobe Bryant video game ad on Avenue A

So, you know, back in the fall, we devoted a few hundred several posts to Chico's "spay/neuter" mural on Avenue A near 12th Street that was painted over for a Kobe Bryant video game ad.



Anyway, last week, workers painted over the Kobe ad...




So what will we see next on the wall? I'm going with a Vans ad.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Kobe Bryant's slam chunk

Searching for the truth about the cats and dogs mural on Avenue A

Why the Kobe Bryant video game mural was removed

As we reported last week, the Kobe Bryant video game ad on Avenue A near 12th Street was painted over by workers... The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) has more on what happened here in its most recent update (second item):

GVSHP and the East Village Community Coalition had long called upon the city to take action against the billboard which violated zoning regulations and, which some argued, violated an agreement to maintain the community mural for 10 years. Following complaints about the billboard from GVSHP and many others, and a great deal of attention from blog EV Grieve, the City inspected the site, issued several violations, and scheduled hearings on the violations. The sign was finally removed in late March.

And thanks to Christine Champagne at MediaPost for digging into the background of this wall in a feature last December.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Kobe Bryant's slam chunk

Searching for the truth about the cats and dogs mural on Avenue A

There's a giant mural of Kobe and Gianna Bryant going up on the Lower East Side

Here's a WIP look at a tribute to Kobe and Gianna Bryant going up outside Emma Lazarus High School on Hester and Eldridge. The brightly-colored, large-scale mural is by Mark Paul Deren, aka Madsteez.

Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were killed alongside seven other people on Jan. 26 when the helicopter they were in crashed in California.

Here's the completed mural of Kobe and Gianna Bryant on the Lower East Side

After a week, Mark Paul Deren, aka Madsteez, has finished his tribute to Kobe and Gianna Bryant outside the complex that houses Sun Yat Sen Middle School and Emma Lazarus High School on Hester and Eldridge...



East Village Walls curates this space, and the students here reportedly voted on who they wanted a mural of outside their school.

The mural is based of a photo by Atiba Jefferson.

View this post on Instagram

WEEN legendary photograper @atibaphoto officially lets you use his @kobebryant x GiGi photo for reference. —————-> 📷 @just_a_spectator 📷 @smurffedout 🏛 @eastvillagewalls

A post shared by MARK PAUL DEREN (@madsteez) on Feb 26, 2020 at 2:01pm PST

Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were killed alongside seven other people on Jan. 26 when the helicopter they were in crashed in California.

Searching for the truth about the cats and dogs mural on Avenue A

Back in the fall, we devoted several posts to Chico's "spay/neuter" mural on Avenue A near 12th Street that was painted over for a Kobe Bryant video game ad.

Interestingly enough, Media magazine reported on the story. (Thanks to the reporter, Christine Champagne, who reached out to me for the article.) Here are portions of the piece (you can find the whole thing right here):

For nine years, cats and dogs loomed large over a parking lot on Avenue A as part of an iconic Advocates for Animals mural on the side of a tenement building in Manhattan's East Village. Created by well-known local muralist Chico, the mural tugged at the heartstrings with an assortment of animals — including a sweet kitty with pleading eyes and a trusty German Shepherd — urging local residents to spay and neuter their pets, and providing a number to call for assistance.

But the mural, which can be seen in the opening moments of the 2005 film "Winter Passing," was whitewashed this fall and replaced with an ad for 2K Sports' NBA 2K10 basketball video game, and now NBA superstar Kobe Bryant looms large on the wall.

For her part, Irene Muschel, a social worker and animal activist who runs Advocates for Animals, and hired Chico to paint the mural back in April 2000, didn't even know it had been covered up until MEDIA contacted her.

Muschel claimed that the landlord of 189 Avenue A, Desides Weinberg, was contractually obligated — "We had a legal contract drawn up by an attorney and signed by me, Chico and the landlord" — to keep the Animals for Advocates mural up for 10 years. If that's the case, the mural should have stayed in place until April 2010. "About a year ago, the landlord that signed the contract called me about how he needed income, and he said there was an advertiser who wanted to put something up there, and would I go along with it," Muschel recalls. "I said no, actually, and I had contacted a lawyer. But then it just faded away."

For his part, Weinberg repeatedly insisted that the contract Muschel speaks of was a "phony contract." He also faulted Muschel for not properly maintaining the mural, pointing out that chunks of it had fallen off the side of the building over the years.

One has to wonder: Did New York-based KD&E Advertising, which did the media buy for the NBA 2K10 campaign, realize the ad would replace a mural that had special meaning to East Village residents? KD&E did not return calls or respond to efforts made to reach someone at the agency on MEDIA's behalf by a representative for 72andsunny, the creative agency on the campaign.

Muschel says she is not going to pursue the matter legally or otherwise, instead choosing to focus on the good the mural did. "The mural helped a great many animals get spayed and neutered and provided answers on a wide variety of animal issues to people who called," she muses. "It did its work."

Previously on EV Grieve:
NBA ad takes over

Kobe Bryant's slam chunk

Our obsession interest in the former spay/neuter wall on Avenue A near 12th Street continues. As we pointed out the other day, the building's landlord, Desides Weinberg, was critical of the spay/neuter mural because it had not been properly maintained through the years... As Media magazine reported, chunks of the mural had fallen off the side of the building over the years.

Fine. As an EV Grieve reader pointed out...have you looked at the new mural here lately?

That really big Chipotle ad on First Avenue is illegal, probably

Back in April, I made note of the ginormous Chipotle banner hanging from the building on the northeast corner of First Avenue and St. Mark's Place...




The Chipotle banner is one of several different ads in the East Village and West Village that the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) say is illegal. In a recent letter to Robert LiMandri, commissioner, New York City Department of Buildings, GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman noted that the Chipotle sign is illegal because "the property has no signage permits in-process or issued in the last year." The area was inspected and violations issued, but no hearing has been set.

The GVSHP was instrumental in getting that awful Kobe Bryant video game ad removed on Avenue A and 12th Street this spring... I hope the Chipotle ad makes a quick exit too... I hate having such a large fast-food banner on a main thoroughfare of the neighborhood...

Week in Grieview

[Inspiration on Avenue B]

Posts from this past week included...

• Ranger Rob comes to the rescue after Christo gets stuck between buildings on 7th Street (Saturday)

• Report of a fatality at the Astor Place station (Monday)

• JUICE is a new gallery on St. Mark's Place, and its first group show debuts tonight (Thursday) At the opening night group show at JUICE gallery on St. Mark's Place (Saturday)

• Crowdfunding campaign launched for fire-damaged Via Della Pace on 7th Street (Tuesday)

• Special news report from 1967: "Hippies change scene in East Village" (Wednesday)

• The Third Man has closed on Avenue C (Monday)

• 94-96 Avenue A wrapped ahead of 1-floor extension (Monday)

• The Black 6 Coffee Trading Co. takes up temporary residency on 4th Street (Tuesday)

• Someone tagged the steps at the Merchant's House Museum (Tuesday)

• More details made public about the 101 Condominium on 1st Avenue and 2nd Street (Thursday)

• Here's a look at the new Half Gallery exterior on Avenue B and 4th Street (Thursday)

• Zadie's Oyster Room has closed (Friday)

• Sally Beauty coming to 14th Street (Wednesday)

• Solidcore snaps up former ICP space on the Bowery (Monday)

• The former Manitoba's space receives the plywood treatment on Avenue B (Friday)

• Construction watch: 238 E. 3rd St. (Wednesday)

• Cover letters: Signage comes down at the now-closed Zum Schneider on Avenue C (Thursday)

• Here's the completed mural of Kobe and Gianna Bryant on the Lower East Side (Friday)

• Stargirl 2020 (Friday)

• The remains of the St. Mark's Market (Thursday)

... and please enjoy the new mailboxes that the USPS left for our use, such as one on Avenue A and Ninth Street...


[Photo yesterday by Steven]

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