[Image via the Village Alliance]
After being in safekeeping the past 19 months, Astor Place's centerpiece — the Alamo — will return for re-installation on Wednesday.
This welcome news comes courtesy of the weekly Astor Place Construction bulletin (PDF) issued on Friday...
Note that the rain date is June 29. (The forecast does NOT call for any rain at the moment.)
Officials had been vague about an exact return date (June/early summer) until now.
Leading up to its return, the Village Alliance is holding a Creativity Cubed event at Astor Place through Tuesday.
Per the event notice:
Alamo Cube fans, young and old, will have the opportunity to craft and design their very own mini spinning Alamo Cube, and create new memories and stories for the future.
Visit Creativity Cubed today, Astor Place. Make your own spinning Alamo Cube & see the Strangers Project. FREE event pic.twitter.com/GjlPUwW0wl— Astor Place NYC (@AstorPlaceNYC) June 19, 2016
The return might come as a relief to some (parody accounts)...
First person to make a life size reproduction wins and it will go on permanent display as I lost the original. https://t.co/j9IQYp6tT6— Amanda Burden-Christ (@A_Burden_Christ) June 18, 2016
As you know, the area around the cube has been undergoing a reconstruction these past few years. No word on when it will all be officially complete.
And the Alamo won't be the only familiar installation to return. BoweryBoogie reported on June 13 that part of Jim Power’s “Mosaic Trail” will also return to Astor Place later this summer.
Workers packed up and carted off the Alamo for safekeeping for the duration of the reconstruction back on Nov. 25, 2014. The cube was installed here in 1967.
Updated 6/21
The Parks Department is now saying that the Alamo won't return until August. Per amNY:
Although there were fliers posted in the Village that gave a June 22 date for the art piece’s re-installation, the agency said it is being inspected by a conservator for final preparation.
“NYC Parks has historically contributed its expertise to the upkeep of the Cube,” Parks spokeswoman Maeri Ferguson said in a statement.
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Alamo returns to Astor Place this Halloween
Five years later, Astor Place apparently ready for its 2-year reconstruction project
This is what it might be like living inside the Alamo on Astor Place
RIP Tony Rosenthal, the sculptor who created the Astor Place cube
16 comments:
I love going up to it and spinning it around with a crowd of tourists nearby who have no clue it spins.. Why is it called the Alamo?
Donnie, it's the Alamo because it helps us remember - what the East Village was like before it was turned into the raving, cretin-filled, overpriced shitshow it is now thanks to a series of uncaring politicos and greedy vampire developers. Ruined forever for money, an absolute tragedy.
While they're at it, why don't they bring back a few more... make that a lot more trees. The reconstruction is a vast wasteland... dedicated to bikers and skakeboarders. What a lost opportunity.
In order to better reflect the changing character of the East Village, The Alamo has been completely redesigned and will now have only two sides: one for the haves, and the other for the have-nots.
I heard they installed a Shake Shack in the Alamo... so expect tourists and newbies to stand in line for hours.
Still prefer it over the Kidult Haring man sculpture near 3rd.
It's amazing how they mamage to rip up more and more of the neighborhood, without finishing anything first, so there ends up being construction barriers everywhere at the same time. THanks guys!
I can't wait for this Mid-Town South makeover to end.
How exciting, a wide swath of boring concrete took the city two years to repave exactly the way it was. Only in NYC could this be called a renovation or reconstruction. Thank you DeBlasio for throwing our money away on this waste of a project and torturing us with an unusable construction site for two years - and counting.
What are you all complaining about that concrete was mixed in Brooklyn and is 100% artisanal.
Will the marble bench with the Walt Whitman poetry ever return ?
Will the peace totem at the entrance to the public theater ever return ?
Will the Alamo cube ever be coated as the original in black board paint to write on ?
I've said it before and will repeat this ad nauseam: This whole Cooper Square construction serves nobody local and is a way to transfer taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the Triumph Construction Company. This was a Bloomberg brain fart that has been continued by this milquetoast DeBlasio.
I (will always) call it The Cube.
I would LOVE a miniature version of it for my desk.
Paperweight?
Hopefully they bring it back completely chromed. Maybe we can get it to bounce a death ray at the death star and evaporate it causing millions of voices to suddenly cry out in terror and be suddenly silenced.
The reconstruction already has *more* trees than what used to be there, and it looks, like there are more to come. WTF are people always bitching for?
Further FYI to the miserable cranks who populate threads like these, people are *already* using the new seating on Alamo Plaza , and there's *already* been several exhibits/displays utilizing the site. I'll bet they'll be sunning themselves on the new seating on the Subway plaza too, in a few weeks.
Dibs on its air rights. And its return ain't a progress without a full liquor license.
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