Mural at St. George Pool Slated for Destruction

By on April 8, 2009 11:10 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Brooklyn Heights, News

jsw_st_george_pool_mural
Beautiful though the mosaic mural above the St. George Hotel Pool (see detail above) may be, it is to be destroyed next week. The reason given is that it has a crack; as reader Benita Berman, who alerted us to this, points out, “so does the Sistine Chapel.”

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  • nabeguy

    Hey, my2, maybe you can kick off the “Rebuild the Mosaic Campaign” since the rescue possibilities are now lying in a dumpster. You’re right that the tiles in question are not hand-made and regular squares but, having grabbed a bunch of pieces, I can attest to the fact that these are not DIY items that you’ll find at Lowe’s. The variety and subtlety of the color palette that was used does make this a unique piece IMHO. In just the greens alone, I’ve identified at least 4 variations.
    Like I said on the other post, the loss of this mural is a blip in the larger arena of preservation, but the mindset that allows for the wholesale destruction of entire blocks makes no such distinction between the two, so it’s left to lonely voices like mine to hold the line. Think of the QOL argument regarding graffiti…nip it in the bud, or deal with the larger consequences down the line. BTW, in regards to the fact that the mural developed a crack after only 80 years, don’t lose site of the fact that the 2/3 lines has been running underneath it 24/7 for just as long.

  • benita berman

    It’s ridiculous to speak negatively of the mural just because it had square regular tiles. It still took a human to plan it and design it. Artistic decisions were made as to where to put the colors and shapes – thank you Nabeguy for noticing the subtlety of the various colors. These are the same kinds of decisions made by an artist when painting. Rebuilding it makes is a “copy”, not the original. Save the Mural would have been nice, but I don
    t think there would have been enough time. They must have kept it pretty quiet because I learned about it two days before they closed the pool.

  • http://green480 elliot remler

    We boys as teenagers would pay a 75 cent admission to the ST.George gym and pool from `46 to `52.
    And the high pool mirrors reflecting everything in a flashing deep green
    there all day in the semi blzackness affecting us boys in a highly exotic way. Making a boy leary of another whole wlorld univedrse
    for him ——next year. ELLIOT REMLER ONEGUFFAW@aol.com

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