In The East Village, A 9/11 Mural Gets A Second Life

EAST VILLAGE, NY — A mural of the twin towers painted just days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks got a second life on Sunday, 16 years after it first came to the East Village.

The mural, located on the outside of a building at Avenue A and Ninth Street, was believed to have been painted in the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Although its exact date of origin remains unclear, locals believe the the work went up just days after the most devastating terror attack on American soil.

In the years after the attacks, the mural became an impromptu memorial for the neighborhood, where locals would place votive candles every September 11th. Since then, however, much of the mural has been defaced with graffiti and stickers. As the image became increasingly weathered, and obscured, the local artist and musician David Ouimet thought it looked like a promising spot for his next canvas.

Ouimet, who has lived in the East Village and the Lower East Side for the past 25 years, had recently picked up street art, painting numerous murals throughout the neighborhood. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Here's a photo of the mural last year, as captured by neighborhood blog EV Grieve:

Watch: 9/11 Victims Honored In NYC

The street canvas on Ninth Street, which is home to the newly-opened ice cream shop Gelarto, is located just across the road from Tompkins Square Park in the heart of the East Village. Ouimet, whose work as an artist has spanned films, music, children's book illustrations and, now, street art, decided to approached the Gelarto's owners about updating the mural from its state of disrepair.

Gelarto's owners suggested that Ouimet build off of the original mural, which has been credited to local businessman Jesse Fishler, Ouimet said. Patch was not able to locate Fishler to comment for this article. Scott Richey, Gelarto's manager, told Patch that the business wanted to "preserve it as well as add to it."

Richey have also speculated that prolific NYC street artist Chico was responsible for the mural. Chico painted a 9/11 memorial mural nearby at Avenue A and 14th Street, which has since been partially covered with advertisements.

Ouimet decided to preserve a window of the 2001-era painting, and build off of it with his own work. He spent about a week cleaning up the wall, donning a Hazmat suit to clean the bricks of 16 years of detritus.

Ouimet said he hadn't planned on doing 9/11-related artwork, but when Gelarto suggested he build off what was already on Ninth Street, the idea came quickly.

"It was an immediate, immediate thought," he explained. "The days after [the attack] that the one thing that I remember clearly is I felt like I was frozen. I had no sense of movement, I couldn’t even wash dishes...and I started to think about movement and one thing I felt very in tune to in the weeks and months after was nature, and birds and dogs and animals."

Ouimet's mural takes the original structure of the twin towers from the 2001 mural, and expands on the two columns using birds and fish.

Ouimet said he witnessed the terrorist attacks from his home on the Lower East Side in 2001, initially mistaking the first plane crash for a fire, as many observers did during the chaotic and confusing first minutes of the attack.

"When I saw the second plane coming I put the camera down and I realized it was something profoundly significant that was happening," he said.

After quickly developing to the concept for his own take on the original mural, Ouimet said he was influenced by conversations he had with passers by on the street while he worked, conversations which helped him to develop the mural's motif.

Ouimet painted the entire mural in a marathon session on Sunday, starting before dawn and completing the work later that day.

Images via Ciara McCarthy / Patch