I’ve been feeling a bit sad lately about how all of the great parts of old Manhattan
That I had loved seem to be disappearing and Manhattan is more every day turning into the emerald city
just watched a documentary on the Ramones
and almost cried when I thought about how CBGBS is gone
and
The Bowery is now miillionare row!
Little italy has shrunk to 3 or 4 blocks!
The jews of the lower east side have been replaced with hip designers
The west village has turned into Hollywood on the Hudson
The lower east side is being harpooned with glass skyscrapers
And my beloved east village becomes every day closer and closer to
Madison avenue
honey i dont miss the crime of the 80's dont get me wrong
but did we have to lose all our character too?
In the east village
There sits a magnificent community garden
In which is perched a structure like no other
The life work of a mad visionary a man named eddie
Who fathered the garden
And built the structure by attaching piece after piece of dolls, stuffed animals
Urns anything he could find
this huge tower must shoot up 20 feet in the air or more
It was an icon of the old alphabet city amidst the new S.U.Vs
it was punk rock in a sea of pop
Today on my way to work I watched a man in a cherry picker
Chain saw Eddies legacy into pieces
It felt like the end of the east village
Heres what I have learned from Michael Rossato Bennett
A champion of Eddie’s work who just passed this press release on to me
Thanks Michael…
if you want to write about this
or find out more contact michael
""East Village Residents Band Together to Save "Eddie's Tower"
65-Foot Tower of Toys Will Soon Be Torn Down By NYC Parks Department
The East Village, New York, NY (May 15, 2008) - The world-famous
East Village Tower at Avenue B and East 5th Street will be destroyed
within the month. Best known from the opening credits of the TV series
"NYPD Blue" and the long-running stage hit "RENT," the 65-foot wooden
tower filled with old stuffed animals and carousel horses, is being
torn down as a result of recent rulings that allow the NYC Parks
Department to destroy objects over ten feet high within its
jurisdiction.
Instead of bemoaning the loss of yet another East Village symbol of
anarchy and free expression, a group of residents, some members of the
Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden, are banding together with
a "Save the Tower" campaign. It includes a plan for the structure's
safe maintenance, which has been lacking since the death last winter
of its quirky and controversial creator, Eddie Boros.
According to Michael Rossato-Bennett, a 48-year-old filmmaker and
Eldridge Street resident, there is a realistic grass-roots plan to
save the Tower and make it safer and better. A member of the Avenue B
Garden, an artist also named Eddie, has volunteered to take over being
the tower's guardian. With some engineering help, he is willing to
stabilize the tower, keep it intact and make it safe from collapse or
fire.
But there's a problem. The Parks Department isn't listening. And
with few financial resources, Rossato-Bennett and other garden members
need to raise money, and FAST. They also need volunteer engineering
and construction help, and legal resources to find a way to fight the
new parks ruling against objects over 10 feet high.
Finally, they've been making outreach to all kinds of celebrities
and New York City denizens whose sensibilities are aligned with
gardens and the pre-gentrified East Village and Lower East Side that
it represents. Among the names they're trying to get in touch with:
Bette Midler, John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez, Phillip Glass, Kiki Smith,
Debbie Harry of Blondie, and Rosario Dawson.
Rossato-Bennett doesn't care if he drops names, because he believes
media coverage is the best shot the community has for saving the
Tower.
"It's the only way to provoke a public commitment to preserve the
sculpture," he said. "The Tower is the Empire State building of the
Revolution, the Eiffel Tower of Punk NYC. "There was even a Japanese
town that wanted to buy the tower, but we want it right here where it
belongs. I know some gentrification is inevitable, but why does one
rule have to destroy the best-known symbol of what the East Village
and Lower East Side is about?"
Rossato-Bennett has been circulating a "Save the Tower" petition,
available at www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/269521983.
# # #
Media Contacts:
Michael Rossato-Bennett, (212) 533-8116 OR Peter Engel, (646) 734-1933
Email: savetheeastvillagetower@gmail.com
Website: http://savethetower.blogspot.com
