The Berlin Wall in New York City

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 t...

Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - July 10, 2014 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: New York City NYC Moments 520 Madison Ave 53rd St Berlin Wall Jerry SPeyer kiddy Citny Therry Noire Source Type: blogs