{"id":48061,"date":"2023-07-18T04:43:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T04:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=48061"},"modified":"2023-07-18T07:53:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T07:53:13","slug":"after-a-beach-weekend-the-astor-place-cube-comes-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2023\/07\/18\/after-a-beach-weekend-the-astor-place-cube-comes-home\/","title":{"rendered":"After a Beach Weekend, the Astor Place Cube Comes Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The famous spinning sculpture, which got rejuvenated recently, left the Hamptons on Monday.<\/p>\n

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Good morning. It\u2019s Tuesday. We\u2019ll look at a Manhattan landmark that spent the weekend in the Hamptons. We’ll also meet the new police commissioner.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dave Petrie, the director of the estate of the artist who created the Astor Place cube, gave it a spin at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in Southampton, N.Y.<\/span>James Barron\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Like so many Manhattanites who have spent the weekend in the Hamptons, a familiar landmark had to go back to New York City.<\/p>\n

The giant Astor Place cube was a big star in the East End of Long Island, if only because it is 8 feet tall, weighs 1,800 pounds and was right there next to the entrance to the Hamptons Fine Art Fair<\/a> in Southampton, N.Y.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And it is no longer an immovable object. It can once again turn on its axis, something it stopped doing in 2021 after more than half a century \u201cof being spun by drunk N.Y.U. students and curious tourists,\u201d as Curbed once put it.<\/p>\n

Now, fresh from the equivalent of a spa treatment with some orthopedic work, the cube is on its way to Manhattan. The art fair closed on Sunday; on Monday morning, a crane lifted the cube onto a truck that drove it away. The city Department of Transportation, which is responsible for the cube, scheduled the unveiling of the restored sculpture for this morning.<\/p>\n

The cube\u2019s motionlessness was one reason it was removed from Astor Place in May. There was also concern that it was leaning like the Tower of Pisa.<\/p>\n

The transportation department had installed a cradle to balance the cube, horizontally and vertically. But that kept it from rotating \u2014 and spinning it was \u201cpart of the New York experience,\u201d as Michelle Villar, who oversaw the art unit for the transportation department, put it last year.<\/p>\n

How much a part of the New York experience it was came as a surprise to the artist who created it, Tony Rosenthal. He had expected it to be locked in place when it was new, but it never was. He said later that he \u201cdid not realize that the turning was such a factor in people\u2019s enjoyment of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nor did Rosenthal, who died in 2009, expect it to last. He envisioned the cube \u2014 formally known as \u201cAlamo (Cube)\u201d \u2014 as nothing more than a temporary installation. But its planned six-month stay became permanent after residents petitioned the city not to remove it. Along the way, its name changed: Rosenthal\u2019s wife, Cynthia Rosenthal, said its size reminded her of the 18th-century mission in San Antonio. Her husband\u2019s original title was \u201cSculpture in Environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The restoration sent the cube to a foundry in Connecticut that fabricates and fixes sculpture, where a refurbishing job estimated to have cost $100,000 was paid for by Rosenthal\u2019s estate. Dave Petrie, the director of the estate, said the cube got a new weatherproof spinning mechanism that should keep it turning for 20 years or so.<\/p>\n

From there, it went by truck to the art fair in the Hamptons, where some attendees did double-takes. \u201cThey can\u2019t believe they\u2019re seeing the real \u2018Alamo,\u2019\u201d Petrie said. \u201cThey think they\u2019re seeing a new sculpture. Five coats of paint.\u201d It had even been painted inside, he said.<\/p>\n

He spun it, slowly. So did Chad Johnson, the chief of staff for a nanotechnology company, who first pushed its weight around in the early 1990s, when he was still a teenager. \u201cThere were 15 of us guys,\u201d he said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t want to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

It did several years later, when he went back with a group of friends that included Jolee Sanchez, who was also at the art fair. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was WD-40 down below, but it started moving,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the thing to do. It was \u2018you are now a part of New York City. You spun the cube on Astor Place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Weather<\/p>\n

Prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms, persisting into the evening, with temperatures near the high 80s. At night, temps will drop into the low 70s.<\/p>\n

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING<\/p>\n

In effect until Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption).<\/p>\n

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