Artist Is Gone but 65 Feet of Protest Still Stands
Hyfler/Rosner
photos)
April 30, 2007
Artist Is Gone but 65 Feet of Protest Still Stands
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
It would be practically impossible to mention Eddie Boros, a
charismatic, sometimes cantankerous artist from the East Village,
without describing his most ambitious work, a looming sculpture made
of scrap wood and salvaged objects that rises 65 feet above the
southern end of the Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden.
The wood of the ramshackle tower is aged and graying. The flotsam
suspended from it includes a string of red and white buoys, toy horses
and a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mr. Boros called it the toy tower,
but others likened it to a psychedelic treehouse.
Mr. Boros died on Friday at 74, and now his sculpture will be the most
visible reminder of his long presence in the neighborhood.
A wake was held yesterday for Mr. Boros at a funeral home on East
Seventh Street, but before that, members of his family visited the
garden, where photographs of him were taped to a tall iron fence and
candles sputtered in the breeze.
"He had a great soul," said one of Mr. Boros's nieces, Helen Boros,
50, from Massapequa on Long Island. "He was a very giving man."
She said her uncle had undergone surgery to have both legs amputated
below the knees at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan in the
winter. He had been recuperating at a veterans center in St. Albans,
Queens, but was taken last Monday to Mary Immaculate Hospital in
Jamaica, where he died.
His relatives said that Mr. Boros was born, and until recently, lived
in an apartment on East Fifth Street. He served in the Army and worked
delivering ice and painting apartments. But he was always an artist,
and the Avenue B sculpture was his masterpiece. And its mere survival
over more than two decades has elevated it to the status of
neighborhood institution.
Mr. Boros began constructing the sculpture on a 4-by-8-foot garden
plot in the early 1980s, initially as a form of protest because the
garden's founders wanted to relegate him to one plot. Before the
garden was formally organized, he had been using a bit of empty space
on the site to work on wood carvings. For years, Mr. Boros added to
the structure until the base expanded to cover six times the original
space.
Not everybody was pleased that Mr. Boros had turned a significant
chunk of the garden into an outdoor folk art studio. As the sculpture
rose, some gardeners accused the artist of insubordination born of
bitterness. There were angry meetings. In the early 1990s, some of the
garden members spearheaded an effort to evict Mr. Boros and his
sculpture. In the end, they settled for an agreement in which Mr.
Boros accepted a height limit.
As time went by, the sculpture became a local landmark. People used it
as a meeting place, and feral cats used it as a home, climbing their
way through the intricate interior of the piece. Sometimes, Mr. Boros
himself was known to clamber to the top, where an American flag flew.
He sat there, like a lookout on the Pequod straddling a spar, while
surveying the streets and skyline.
A documentary featuring Mr. Boros was broadcast on PBS in 1998, and
for a time, an image of the sculpture was among opening shots of the
television show "NYPD Blue."
In recent years, Mr. Boros's health declined and he quit climbing.
Instead, he could sometimes be seen sitting near the sculpture in a
folding chair and chatting with visitors.
Yesterday afternoon, a garden member, Pat Russell, gazed up at the
sculpture.
"It's given so much to this garden," she said. "It's been a talking
point for strangers walking by and for longtime neighbors."
Brad Ferguson
Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> As time went by, the sculpture became a local landmark. People used it
> as a meeting place, and feral cats used it as a home, climbing their
> way through the intricate interior of the piece. Sometimes, Mr. Boros
> himself was known to clamber to the top, where an American flag flew.
> He sat there, like a lookout on the Pequod straddling a spar, while
> surveying the streets and skyline.
"Like a lookout on the Pequod straddling a spar." God, that's good.
Here's the sculpture:
Shortstop
thir...@frXOXed.net wrote on 5/2/07 5:12 PM:
> In article <1178142033.2...@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
> Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
>
>> As time went by, the sculpture became a local landmark. People used it
>> as a meeting place, and feral cats used it as a home, climbing their
>> way through the intricate interior of the piece. Sometimes, Mr. Boros
>> himself was known to clamber to the top, where an American flag flew.
>> He sat there, like a lookout on the Pequod straddling a spar, while
>> surveying the streets and skyline.
>
>
Too bad we still have that ultimate nut "Christo" wrapping islands in toilet
paper and used brassieres.
If you think there's no drugs in the world...
Brad Ferguson
<ballga...@aol.com> wrote:
Please don't change headers. Leads to confusion, as above. Thanks.
Shortstop
thir...@frXOXed.net wrote on 5/2/07 5:28 PM:
aka Bob
magnanimously proffered:
PLONK!
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
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