[NY Newsday - 4/25/01] The Bronx crowd gushed yesterday when Hulbert Waldroup unveiled his outdoor mural tribute to Amadou Diallo, the West African emigrant shot dead by police in 1999.
But the owner of the botanica whose wall was adorned with the artwork he had commissioned a year ago had a much different reaction.
"He has to erase it," said a glowering Jay Berrero, owner of Telco Religious Articles. "I didn't know he was doing that."
Waldroup's mural, "The American Dream," near the intersection of Westchester and Wheeler avenues, depicts four police officers in Ku Klux Klan hoods as well as the Statue of Liberty holding a gun in place of her torch. It is the latest artwork to spur a New York City brouhaha. Only yesterday, headlines were generated after complaints about a nude Jesus depicted in a Kennedy Airport mural prompted the artist to add a loincloth.
Diallo's death at the hands of four Street Crime Unit officers in February 1999 set off a series of protests about alleged police brutality and for a time put City Hall on the defensive about race relations.
That a work of art about Diallo would spark controversy and strong emotion had to be expected. But Waldroup never thought he would have to decide whether to change his work himself or have it drastically changed for him.
That was the choice the artist faced yesterday after Berrero voiced his displeasure, about the same time three police cars arrived.
Berrero told Newsday he had not noticed the macabre depiction of the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by skulls, and the police painted with Ku Klux Klan garb while Waldroup was working. He says the other half of the mural -- a portrait of Diallo, and the fig tree in West Africa under which the immigrant was buried -- should stay.
"I won't destroy my own creation," Waldroup countered, standing 20 yards from Berrero.
Waldroup also maintained he has no doubt why Berrero changed his mind: the police caught wind of what the mural was about, and pressured him to press the artist to erase the controversial parts.
"It shows that somebody is afraid of something," said Bertrand Simmons, 73, a retired maintenance worker who watched the sidewalk disagreement unfold.
However, Berrero denied the police had anything to do with his concerns. So did Deputy Insp. Michael Phipps, from the nearby 43rd Precinct.
Sgt. Frank Sorensen, one of the officers who stopped by the scene, said the police were responding to reports of a disturbance between residents and members of the media. No such problems were apparent to the crowd or the reporters assembled.
Later, a representative from the office of Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. (D-Bronx) arrived and unsuccessfully tried to mediate a compromise.
Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou's mother, had not seen the mural but took a more cautious view.
"In general I think any artist is free to express their own feeling," she said. "But when I see it I can have an opinion."
The store owner was clearly chagrined by the stark use of symbols of America in the artwork.
"I should not put the flag of my country down," said Berrero, who arrived here from Puerto Rico in 1939 and who yesterday wore a cap celebrating Operation Desert Storm. "An American dream means everything."
Calls to the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association were not returned yesterday.
With both Berrero and Waldroup adamant in their positions, the matter was still not resolved last night. But the artist seemed resigned to the fact that a section of the mural would be repainted, possibly by a community development group.
Waldroup said he is looking to his next project: a large painting on racial profiling he plans to do in Manhattan.
"I want it near the bridge to New Jersey," he said.
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