[EVG photo from June 27]
Workers erected a sidewalk bridge around the Houston/Bowery Mural Wall in late June, as we first reported here.
This was done ahead of a new two-floor building that will rise from the former home of Billy's Antiques on East Houston and Elizabeth.
We were unsure what this meant for the mural, which dates back 30-plus years to Keith Haring.
Renderings of the new building showed the mural still in place.
However, on Tuesday, we noticed that workers had started ripping down Cope 2's mural ...
By yesterday afternoon, the mural had been removed and hauled off. And then workers started wrapping up the rest of the mural wall...
Through the handy blogger portal we spotted photographer Martha Cooper, who has chronicled subway graffiti and urban art for several decades. She was taking photos of the work in progress as well as salvaging what she could of Cope 2's mural.
We spoke with her briefly. Here's how we understand it. What remains is the original wall with the mural from 2009 by Os Gêmeos, the twin brothers and street artists from Brazil. This work was apparently the favorite of Tony Goldman, the curator of the wall and property owner who died in September 2012. Subsequent artists painted over a temporary canvas, the one which workers just removed.
Cooper seemed pleased to say that the mural wall would remain adjacent to the new building.
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Houston/Bowery Mural Wall has been boarded up
2 comments:
Great that there is still the edge of the original (or at least the repro) Haring work.
It should be noted that while Gary Silver is the architect of record for this building William Wreue is the design architect of the new two story buildning that will be erected at the former Billy's Antique site.
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