Remember the Alamo? The Astor Place Cube is Back

The Alamo, better known as the Astor Place cube, was returned to its historic home overnight and will soon be gleefully spinning away after a $100,000 facelift.

The sculpture, created by artist Tony Rosenthal in 1967, was dispatched to a Connecticut foundry on May 8. Rosenthal’s estate picked up the tab for the renovation.

Today, the cube was attracting attention from many visiting the weekly Astor Place farmer’s market. It looked shiny and new, down to the bronze plaque with the inscription that reads in part: “An anonymous gift to the City of New York, November, 1967. John V. Lindsay Mayor.

“The cost wasn’t the issue. We want Tony’s legacy to live on,” Dave Petrie, the director of Rosenthal’s estate, told the New York Times in May.

After 56 years, authorities, including the city DOT which has jurisdiction over the cube and 21 other public art installations in New York, felt the cube was in need of repairs.

It was anchored to its base by steel brackets in 2021, so it could no longer be spun as intended by Rosenthal. Petrie assured the many neighborhood fans of the kinetic sculpture that it would again spin freely.

This morning, though, the cube was cordoned off by barriers with red and white signs saying Astor Place, in case passersby were wondering where they were. No word on when we might be able to spin it again.

“Rosenthal’s artistic vision in the 1960s has managed to capture the imagination and spirit of the whole East Village community for decades with an iconic sculpture that is best enjoyed when it is touched and spun with friends,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in May.