Dan NguyenGood morning, East Village.
There’s more information this morning about the disappearance of the mural of President Obama over at Sixth Street and Avenue C. DNAinfo reports that the owners of the space, RCN, said that they removed the mural because they considered it a piece of “illegal graffiti.” A spokesman for RCN told DNA that they never endorsed the creation of the mural, which was done by Antonio Garcia, who paints under the name Chico. (The mural was also connected to recent news events: one of the assistant painters who helped Mr. Garcia create the mural is Jairo Pastoressa, who has been charged with murder in a fatal stabbing Oct. 25.)
EV Transitions offers some striking stills and newsreel footage documenting the 1956 fire at the old Wanamaker building at Eighth Street and Broadway. According to Transitions, 187 firefighters were injured in the blaze, which took 25 hours to control. The 50 million gallons of water that were used to put out the fire also flooded the Astor Place subway station causing enough damage to shut down the BMT and IRT subway lines for two days.
And, from a more recent page in history, The Villager reproduces an image of the old Tent City in Tompkins Square Park taken in the late ’80s or early ’90s.
