8. There was a Statue of Vladimir Lenin Atop a Building in the East Village

Overlooking East Houston Street between Avenues A and B was a seemingly out-of-place statue of Vladimir Lenin that we previously wrote about at Untapped Cities. The Lenin Statue was moved to the Lower East Side in 2017. The statue stands 18 feet tall on the top of a building known as the Red Square. The sculpture was a Soviet-commissioned project created by artist Yuri Gerasimov. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the statue did not have the opportunity to be displayed. In 1994, Red Square developers Michael Rosen and Michael Shaoul found the statue in a backyard in Moscow and decided to make it a display piece for their new building. The statue itself is not an homage to the Communist leader but is a reference to socialist history in the East Village and Lower East Side.