Meeting friends for dinner last evening at Valbella, I was surprised to discover that the strikingly painted concrete slab on display in the tiny plaza outside the restaurant is actually a section of the Berlin Wall.
That’s right. The Berlin Wall. Tucked away in a lovely little plaza on the north side of E 53rd between 5th and Madison. How could I have lived in NYC for over 20 years and not known it was there?
This section of the wall was illegally painted in the 1980’s by Berlin street artists Therry Noire and Kiddy Citny. Noire, who lived a mere 5 meters from the west side of the Wall, was the first street artist to paint on the wall, a risky act of political rebellion that he and the other street artists he inspired continued until the Wall came down in 1989.
To paint the Berlin wall, to transform it, to make it ridiculous, to help to destroy it.
– Therry Noire
Amazingly, the sections of wall on display at 520 Madison are the very ones Noire is painting in the 1987 Wem Wenders Film “Wings of Desire”.
After the wall came down in 1989, the East German Government, seeing the value in the art Noire and his fellow artists had created, ultimately auctioned off huge sections of the wall in Monaco, which is probably where Jerry Speyer of Tishman and Speyer, the owners of the plaza at 520 Madison, purchased this piece of history in 1990.
The artists who painted the Wall have seen very little of the income from the sale of the sections that bear their paintings, and it is not known where the profits from their sale, supposedly slated for humanitarian causes by the East German government, ultimatley ended up.
Kudos to Speyer for sharing his piece of the Wall with the public in this lovely little respite in midtown.
I encourage you to visit the Wall. If you choose to eat al fresco at Valbella, as we did on this warm summer evening, you’ll have plenty of time to consider this infamous piece of history and the spirit of courage and freedom that both its demolition and the remarkable artwork painted on it represent.
__________________________________________
MORE READING
- There are three other sections of the Berlin Wall in NYC!
- Clap for Bacon wonders how to integrate this displaced piece of history into our present lives (and has some great close up shots)
- Therry Noire – The Story of the Berlin Wall from the artist’s perspective
- Revisting the Wall – Therry Noire Retrospective
- Meet Therry Noire
- New York’s Berlin Wall at 1000 things NYC
- Art Nerd google maps the Wall at 520 E Madison so you can find it for yourself.
- Notes from the City Wonder tells us that there are four other pieces of the Berlin Wall in NYC
The Berlin Wall (from Wikipedia)
Great street http://streetics.com/en/new-york/east-53rd-street/14661