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It’s a sign of the times.
Tribeca residents are fresco-fretting over the fate of quirky paintings on the side of a historic building that the owners want to replace with trendy Fendi ads
“It is an architectural crime,” said Lynn Ellsworth, chair of the local preservation nonprofit Tribeca Trust, said of the plan to replace the old artwork at the 109 Broadway.
“We’d sue if we had the means, but too many other lawsuits going,” she told The Post. “But if someone in Tribeca wants to finance the suit, we’ll manage it.”
Ellsworth was just one of numerous Tribeca locals up in arms over the plans to paint over a pair of towering advertisements that reach three floors up the face of the building at the intersection of Reade Street.
There are two faded signs on the buildingm one saying “Brush up business with paint paste paper and push” and the other depicting a giant hand holding a paint brush. They’ve been there for decades although no one’s quite sure for how long, and they appear to advertise a business of some kind.
“That’s what I love about this neighborhood – or New York in general – they have all these great little paintings,” said Megan O’Neil, a fashion designer who has worked out of Tribeca for 15 years and called plans to paint over the old signs “s—ty.”
“It’s one of the few that are really intact. I think they should try to preserve it – they should try to preserve anything like that. That’s what this city is about,” she said. “We have all the buildings come up here. There’s a lot of new, modern stuff. There’s no shortage of that.”
Plans to replace the signs call for them to be painted over by a pair of 290-foot colorful Fendi advertisements that would stretch up the façade of the 1860 building, the Tribeca Trib reported.
During a June 4 hearing on the matter, the Landmark’s Preservation Committee declined to vote on the proposed plans for the new signs and instead asked developers to resubmit an idea that would better blend with the architecture of the building.
The move gave locals an opening to keep up the fight but it also handed developers a second shot at replacing the signs.
“I would much rather [see it preserved], of course,” said resident Paul O’Connor, 43. “I’m kind of an old soul. I love details like that. I would never want to remove anything like that. I never understand why they do it. It’s horrible.”
The oldest records of the sign go back to 1975, according to the Tribeca Trib, and neighbors told The Post they estimate it was painted sometime in the 1950s.
“It’s a lot of history down here. You walk around and you look at some of these buildings, they have 100 years or more. This is old New York or what once was old New York,” said 45-year Tribeca resident Steve Stitt.
“Everything is let’s build something, tear it down and make money. Sooner or later we will be drowned by all that money,” he said. “Everything is high rise luxury, chic chic. But I’m an old man, what do I know?”
