THE SPIRIT OF EAST HARLEM MURAL DETERIORATING

Harlem Bespoke:  We followed up on the story of the restoration of the Eva Cockcroft mural in Hamilton Heights this week and was surprised to see that an even more famous public work of uptown art has not received similar treatment.  Hank Prussing painted The Spirit of East Harlem back in 1973 on the side of building at East 104th Street and Lexington but now the iconic mural appears to be deteriorating badly.  

The top photo was taken 10 years ago and the lower ones this week.  Apparently there was some brick repair recently so a portion of the painting has totally been removed in certain areas.  Remaining paint on the facade has also faded drastically in the past decade and it does not appear that the work of art will survive to see another unless something is done.  See more before photos from in our past post: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2021