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Under the cover of the night this past Monday, a crew of workers from the New York City Department of Transportation removed the Astor Place Cube. Originally installed in the East Village in 1967, the sculpture is officially titled “Alamo.” The iconic public artwork will be restored and returned to its spot in Astor Place Plaza this summer, and it will spin once again!
In 2022, the Astor Place Cube started to lean and officials were concerned that it couldn’t spin safely. As a temporary fix, the DOT devised a cradle apparatus that stopped the sculpture from moving. Before that, if a group of people worked together, they could push the 1,800-pound steel sculpture and make it rotate.
This isn’t the first time the Astor Place Cube has stopped spinning, or been removed from the plaza. In 2004, the cube got stuck and restoration workers had to climb inside. They removed rust, unclogged drainage holes, and made the piece more water-resistant in order to get it moving again. Most recently, in 2014, the cube was removed for the redesign of Astor Place which created a permanent car-free plaza. Untapped New York was on the scene in 2016 when the cube was re-installed after a two-year absence.
While rotating the sculpture has become a New York City attraction, this interactive feature wasn’t intended by the artist. Rosenthal told New York Magazine in 2005, “I actually thought we would put it on this post and we’d turn it to the position we wanted it and then stick it like that. I did not realize that the turning was such a factor in people’s enjoyment of it.” After the sculpture’s initial installation, however, it was never locked into place.
The sculpture will be restored by Versteeg Art Fabricators in Connecticut, with costs underwritten by the Rosenthal estate. Versteeg is the company that got the “Alamo” spinning again in 2005. Restoration is expected to be complete by August 2023. In the meantime, The Village Alliance will post signage in Astor Place keeping the public informed of the restoration. “The world keeps spinning – and so will the Alamo Cube!” said Scott Hobbs, Executive Director of the Village Alliance Business Improvement District.
Next, check out A Secret Version of The Astor Place Cube in Westchester and A Mini Version of the Cube
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