Bureaucratic Terrorism usually does attack the most vulnerable, the most not equipped to defend. What will replace the toy tower? A Gucci billboard?
_____________________________________________
May 19, 2008, 4:58 pm
An Eccentric East Village Structure Is Torn Down
By Colin Moynihan
A toy horse hangs from the Toy Tower, a 65-foot wooden structure that is being demolished this week. (Photo: Oscar Hidalgo/ New York Times) A city work crew wearing hardhats showed up early this morning on Avenue B and began dismantling a 65-foot wooden structure known as the Toy Tower that has stood for more than 20 years in a community garden and has become a beloved, if unofficial, landmark.
The tower in 1998. (Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times) Enlarge this image. The tower, built of boards and beams salvaged from the streets, was assembled bit by bit over decades by a local man named Eddie Boros, who died last year at the age of 74. His creation has been described in guide books and was the subject of a documentary that was broadcast on PBS. But about two weeks ago, the city's Parks and Recreation Department, which has some oversight over the garden at East Sixth Street and Avenue B, determined that the intricate tower was unsound and had to be removed.
By 11 a.m., about two dozen people were watching the workers operate a large orange truck with a crane. Although some passers-by expressed relief that the tower was coming down, most of those who stopped to watch said that they regretted its removal.
"It's a shame," said a local man who goes only by the name Graywolf and has been a garden member for 18 years. "That tower is an icon. It's world known."
At the same time, he acknowledged, "We've seen that it's shifted and twisted in the high winds."
Garden members said that some of the many found objects that festoon the structure, like a French horn, which Mr. Boros used to blow sometimes late at night, would be saved and included in a memorial to the tower and its creator.
As a worker suspended in a bucket near the top of the tower wielded a chainsaw and began slicing off bits of wood, talk turned to the irascible but generous Mr. Boros, who was born and lived nearly his whole life on East Fifth Street, within shouting distance of the garden.
"That's his portrait, his autobiography," said Eileen Shields, 38. "He worked on it every day."
Remnants of the tower, which some locals call an "icon." (Photo: Oscar Hidalgo/The New York Times)Some remembered an icy night in 1996 when Mr. Boros used ropes to lash together a part of the tower that had become destabilized by a storm. True to his custom, Mr. Boros, who often roamed the streets in his bare feet, worked that cold night without the benefit of shoes. He did, however, have the help of several comrades from Sophie's Bar on East Fifth Street, a dimly lighted and congenial tavern, where Mr. Boros was as much of a fixture as he was in the garden.
He would often stop in for a tall noontime glass of straight Seagrams, said Kirk Marcoe, 40, an owner and local resident. Mr. Boros would happily take on those who wished to challenge him in arm wrestling, he added.
"He had hands the size of ham hocks," Mr. Marcoe said. "He never lost."
At one point, the city workers tied a rope to a section of the tower and pulled it to the ground. An 8-by-8-foot tangle of graying wood came crashing down on top of a plot where flowers, plants and herbs had been growing.
The demolition halted for the day around 1 p.m. with the tower still about three-quarters intact. Workers began moving debris from the garden plots into a large metal container. Pat Russell, a garden member, grabbed the tattered remnants of an American flag that had once flown from the tower and folded it neatly, while others took bits of weathered wood as souvenirs.