25 March 2007

Hail Barbie, Full of Grace



No. 229 Dean Street in Boerum Hill offers something in the way of visual interest its neighbors don't: a humorous/blasphemous (depending on your point of view) display window in which a statuette of the Virgin Mary and a giant severed Barbie head share a few cubic feet of oxygen. The 3' by 2' space was carved out exactly between the two first story windows and is easily viewable from the street. There are no other signs of weirdness about the house.

Mary and Barbie are not exactly strangers. A few years back, an artwork that involved a Barbie doll and the Virgin of Guadalupe was exhibited in Santa Fe. So there's more than enough history there to justify their sharing a small studio apartment.

7 comments:

  1. that little space looks like an old air conditioning hole, that doubles as an art gallery in the cooler months... How hip!!??

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  2. There was an explosion at this house back in December that blew out the front and back windows on the parlor floor.

    You can see the windows have been recently replaced.

    Does he still display the plastic horses in the front yard? They were blown over during the blast!

    The cause of blast was the occupant cooking up a little crack.

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  3. Yes, come to think of it, it does look like an air-conditioning space. Should have thought of that.

    But this news of the crack-born explosion is freaky and unsettling. Barbie and Mary shouldn't be living in a house like that!

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. I found the article about the explosion. It's pretty funny - not so ha ha but funny.

    go to...
    www.brooklynpaper.com/assets/pdf/29_50bp.pdf

    it's on page 17.

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  6. the explosionwas caused by a boiler malfunction which blew outone ofthe radiatorsandall thewindows. the rest of the story is bogus with no charges. and i hear he has a law suit against the city.

    a neighbor

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  7. i live a couple doors down. I remember the bang - my whole building shook a ton. Seen quite a few shady people hanging smoking cigarettes outside that residence. A few weeks ago, saw a police van parked right outside. Whatever was going on there is probably still going on.

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