Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’re looking at a Manhattan landmark who spent the weekend in the Hamptons. We will also meet the new police commissioner.
Like so many Manhattan residents who spent the weekend in the Hamptons, a well-known landmark had to return to New York City.
The giant Astor Place cube was a huge star in Long Island’s East End, if only because it’s eight feet tall, weighs 1,800 pounds, and was right next to the entrance to the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in Southampton, NY
And it is no longer a fixed object. It can spin on its axis again, something it stopped doing in 2021 after more than half a century of being “spinned by drunken NYU students and nosy tourists,” as Curbed once put it.
Now, fresh from the equivalent of a spa treatment with some orthopedic work, the cube is on its way to Manhattan. The art fair is closed on Sundays; on Monday morning, a crane lifted the cube onto a truck that wheeled it away. The city’s Department of Transport, which is responsible for the cube, has scheduled the unveiling of the restored statue this morning.
The cube’s immobility was one of the reasons it was removed from Astor Place in May. There was also concern that it was leaning like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The transportation department had installed a cradle to balance the cube horizontally and vertically. But that kept it from spinning — and spinning was “part of the New York experience,” as Michelle Villar, who oversaw the transportation department’s art department, put it last year.
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 lock into place when new, but it never did. He later said that he “didn’t realize that spinning was such a factor in people’s enjoyment.”
Nor did Rosenthal, who died in 2009, expect it to last. He envisioned the cube – formally known as “Alamo (Cube)” – as nothing more than a temporary installation. But the planned six-month stay became permanent after residents petitioned the city not to remove it. Along the way, the name changed: Rosenthal’s wife, Cynthia Rosenthal, said its size reminded her of the 18th-century mission in San Antonio. Her husband’s original title was ‘Sculpture in Environment’.
The restoration sent the cube to a Connecticut foundry that fabricates and repairs sculptures, where a refurbishment estimated to have cost $100,000 was paid for by Rosenthal’s estate. Dave Petrie, the estate’s director, said the cube has been given a new weather-resistant rotating mechanism that should keep it running for about 20 years.
From there it was trucked to the art fair in the Hamptons, where some attendees took double shots. “They can’t believe they’re seeing the real Alamo,” Petrie said. “They think they’re seeing a new image. Five coats of paint.” It was even painted inside, he said.
He turned it around slowly. So was Chad Johnson, the chief of staff of a nanotechnology company, who first asserted his weight in the early 1990s, when he was still a teenager. “We were 15 guys,” he said. “It wouldn’t move.”
That happened several years later, when he went back with a group of friends, including Jolee Sanchez, who was also at the art fair. “I don’t know if it was WD-40 down there, but it started moving,” he said. “It was the thing to do. It was ‘you are now a part of New York City. You have rotated the cube on Astor Place.’”
Weather
Be prepared for a chance of showers and thunderstorms, lasting into the evening, with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees. At night, temperatures drop below 70 degrees.
ALTERNATIVE SIDE PARKING
In effect until August 15 (Feast of the Ascension).
The latest New York news
Caban becomes the first Latino police commissioner
Even the setting made sense: Edward Caban was sworn in as police commissioner for the South Bronx district where he had been assigned 32 years ago at the start of his career.
Caban, 55, became the first Latino to lead the New York Police Department. Mayor Eric Adams focused on what he called the “historic” importance of Caban’s appointment as a crowd of police officers and city leaders chanted “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.” “This is a great moment, not only for the Hispanic community,” said the mayor. “This is a great moment for the whole city and the whole country.”
Caban, who previously served as first deputy commissioner, had remained close to Adams throughout Keechant Sewell’s 18 months as commissioner. Sewell, who stepped down last month, did not attend Caban’s swearing-in; people with knowledge of her experiences as a commissioner said she felt frustrated in her attempts to act autonomously.
My colleagues Maria Cramer and Karen Zraick write that the new commissioner, whose rise from the 40th Precinct in the Bronx to Manhattan police headquarters has been punctuated by run-ins with departmental oversight agencies, is taking over the nation’s largest police department at a critical time.
Morale has improved after successful contract negotiations with the city, but union leaders say the department is still losing officers to early retirement or other agencies, with officers feeling overworked or discouraged after protests against police brutality. The police union has a new leader, Patrick Hendry, who has been a behind-the-scenes figure, unlike the man he succeeded as president of the Police Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch. leave-it megaphone for 21,000 active members’ who had fought for mayors for nearly a quarter of a century, as my colleague Chelsia Rose Marcius described him.
And crime, which became a concern in the months after Adams took office in January 2022, has declined. The number of shootings in New York City fell about 25 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. But suburban residents and many New Yorkers say they worry they’ll be victims of crime on the streets or on the subway.
Adams, speaking for Caban at the ceremony, credited him with helping Sewell run the department as the number of shootings and murders declined. Adams had pushed last year for Caban to become deputy commissioner, bypassing the department chief ranks to give Caban the promotion. Several officials with knowledge of the relationships involved said Caban subsequently called the mayor frequently about police matters, bypassing Sewell.
METROPOLITAN Diary
Pete’s Camaro
Dear Diary:
I came to America in 1971 to attend graduate school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY
I worked nights in a burger joint to earn some extra money. The night manager was a young man named Pete about my age.
We became very friendly and at some point decided to take a day trip to New York City. We drove down in Pete’s Camaro.
The only time I’d been to the city was when I passed through it on my way to Troy after landing at JFK. Pete had grown up in Utica and had never been to the city. We spent the day walking around and took the subway to Canal Street and back.
When it was dinner time, Pete simply stopped a man in the street and asked where Mamma Leone’s was. I was quite surprised when the man gave us the way to the restaurant. I still remember the wonderful dinner we had there.
When it was time to go back to Troy, Pete stopped the car in the street.
“Hey, can you tell us how to get to Major Deegan?” he asked the driver in the car next to us.
“Follow me,” said the driver. “I’m going that way!”
—Ranjan Sonalkar
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — JB
PS Here’s today’s one Mini crossword And Game match. You can find all our puzzles here.
Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday..
Sign up here to receive this newsletter in your inbox.
