Photo: Courtesy of Curbed
From yesterday’s Times:
The ramshackle wooden tower has loomed over Avenue B for more than 20 years, drawing curiosity and a range of reviews from tourists and neighbors. Some have declared the colorful structure a masterpiece, and have admired the effort that went into assembling it. Others have complained that it takes up valuable space or just looks weird. The Toy Tower, at the edge of the community garden at Sixth Street and Avenue B, was built by Eddie Boros, a nearby resident. The tower was erected bit by bit over decades at the southern end of the community garden at Sixth Street and Avenue B by a man named Eddie Boros, who was born and lived nearly his entire life in an East Fifth Street tenement that overlooks the garden. He died last year at 74, and the tower became the most visible and lasting reminder of his life. Now the city is saying that the Toy Tower, as Mr. Boros called it, is structurally unsound and will be dismantled in the next few days.
CRISTAL: Wait, you hate the Tower of Toys?
NOELNOEL: I do.
CRISTAL: Why?
NOELNOEL: It’s weird.
CRISTAL: That’s not a reason.
NOELNOEL: And creepy
CRISTAL: Yeah, it is creepy. That’s kind of why I love it.
NOELNOEL: It looks like the fucking junkyard from the Heathcliff cartoon, only with toys instead of cars.
CRISTAL: It made me think of RENT. It was like the only authentic and gritty thing in Alphabet City still there by the time I moved in.
NOELNOEL: Why am I always the negative Nancy in these scenarios? Outdoor eating, mini-cows, toy towers…
NOELNOEL: Then you come in all happy and gay and make me look all curmudgeonly.
CRISTAL: You didn’t like Heathcliff? That cartoon was awesome.
NOELNOEL: I loved Heathcliff! But what happens in Cartoonland should stay in Cartoonland.
NOELNOEL: I loved how everyone freely hated on Mungo, who was obviously mentally impaired.
CRISTAL: I just liked how ugly the thing was. When you walked down Avenue B, it was like, “Ooh, have a delicious Kir Royale at Rue B! Try an organic, grass-fed burger at Back Forty! Eek! Shit-covered toys hanging from the sky!”
East Village Toy Tower: Time to Say Goodby [Curbed]
Creation of a Bygone Era, Soon to Be Demolished
[NYT]
