Updated: May. 13, 2024, 12:12 p.m. | Published: May. 11, 2024, 5:30 a.m.
By Tom Wrobleski | wrobleski@siadvance.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – It’s a mystery wrapped inside a whodunit.
An exotic piece of guerrilla artwork on the beachfront at Lemon Creek Park appears to have been vandalized.
But the question of how the mysterious sculpture came to be damaged has revealed a deeper puzzle: who created the unsanctioned artwork in the first place?
What remains of the sculpture, which to some resembled an Easter Island totem, can be found a short walk down a sandy path from the Lemon Creek Park parking lot at the end of Seguine Avenue in Prince’s Bay.
The sculpture, which included fierce fangs, penetrating eyes and a protruding tongue, looks to have been carved from an existing tree on the shoreline.
It’s not known when the sculpture was done, but the totem has been on the beachfront at Lemon Creek Park since at least 2017, when it was photographed by the Advance for a feature on the park.
It was also featured in an Advance/SILive.com story in 2023.
But the totem today bears little resemblance to the eye-catching work of art that it once was.
The sculpture’s distinctive and mesmerizing facial features appear to have been hacked or torn off and parts of the artwork appear to have been freshly burned. Chunks of the sculpture litter the sand around the totem.
The only recognizable piece of the totem that remains is a crown-like design at the top of the sculpture.
Those familiar with the artwork believe that vandals are to blame for the damage.
“Only a bona fide a-hole would do something like this,” said City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore).
Borelli said he would take his children to view the sculpture and recalled meeting the artist doing maintenance on the piece at the beach in March of 2020.
The artist, identified by Borelli only as Kevin, told the councilman that he was sanding and staining the artwork in order to get it ready for the coming summer.
Borelli said he hoped that the sculpture, which in an Instagram post he said was called “Mambo,” could be replaced.
Staten Island artist Scott LoBaido was also familiar with the sculpture and said he had met the artist years ago but did not know the artist’s name.
“To destroy the tranquil, soothing work of this quiet genius breaks my heart,” LoBaido said. “I’ll be the first to chip in and buy him the supplies to do a new one.”
The Advance/SILive.com has been unable to locate the artist.
The city Parks Department told the Advance, “This carving is not an official piece of artwork in the City’s collection. It was installed without permission of Parks and we are unaware of who initiated it.”
Artwork that’s placed unannounced and anonymously in public locations or beyond art-sanctioned spaces is commonly called guerrilla art.
Fred Nattboy alerted the Advance to the damage that the sculpture had endured. He said he was “heartbroken” by the vandalism.
“I just can’t understand what goes on in the ‘minds’ of these so-called human beings when they are destroying someone’s work of love,” he said.
Said Nattboy, “It’s very sad and a sign of the times of how society views the arts and our natural environment too.”
Lorraine Davi, a registered nurse, visits Lemon Creek Park regularly on lunch breaks from her job at Staten Island University Hospital, Prince’s Bay.
She said the vandalism was “unnecessary.”
“We should enjoy our nice places and just relax,” she said.