Art Mysterious Manhattan Artist Shames Litterbugs

Trash on the streets of New York City? No, not since Giuliani, right?! Sorry Virginia, but even though there is a Santa Claus and a Disney Store in Times Square and you can now go to Alphabet City without getting jumped for your BK Knights, the Big Apple still has a pretty severe litter problem. But now it seems one anonymous street artist is doing something to bring Gothamites’ attention to it.

Yesterday, a series of seven display cases appeared near the Complex offices, attached by cables to trees on 23rd Street just west of 6th Avenue. Inside the cases are various pieces of NYC detritus: bottle caps, parking receipts, guitar picks, matchbooks, pigeon feathers, green Tic Tacs, pens, and the filters from Black N Milds, among other objects. At the bottom of each frame is the simple caption: “THE ITEMS DISPLAYED IN THIS BOX WERE COLLECTED FROM THE TREE WELL BELOW ON JULY 11TH AND 25TH, 2008.” And of course, this being New York, two of the cases had been ripped off by this afternoon. See close-up images of the five remaining cases below.