Thanks to the The Little Italy Merchant Association, Mulberry Street will soon have a new mural painted by street artist and toymaker Tristan Eaton. Bowery Boogie reports that the association's goal is to lure a "younger demographic" to Little Italy. But youngs are different, and aren't to be trusted. "That’s not going up in my courtyard," 87-year-old Father Fabian Grifone, told the Post. "It has nothing to do with the Catholic religion or Italians. It looks like pagan art. I don't want it." Yeah, how about something tasteful, like James Gandolfini?
“I see tiger’s teeth in the crotch—that’s dangerous. It looks like Armageddon. This is the devil,” Luigi Cicenia, a "retired jeweler-turned-Sinatra-esque crooner" added, presumably after he swept all the frisbees and footballs caught on his roof into a raging bonfire.
Eaton, who will start painting the mural on Memorial Day weekend, free of charge, says that the piece is open to interpretation, but that he design is a child, and the animals "symbolize emotions and qualities," such as the tiger's courage or "darker, submerged" feelings about his father in the eels.
But nah, it's probably "the devil."
