Toy Tower

On our way to the Tompkins Square green market last Sunday, we stopped briefly at the community garden on Avenue B. While M. cast a critical eye over their flowers, I studied the Toy Tower, a ramshackle pile of timbers that rises sixty-five feet above the garden, decorated with toys and other found objects. I couldn't decide if it was my imagination, or whether the structure had acquired an ominous backwards lean.

Whether I was imagining it or not, the same thought has apparently struck someone in the Parks Department. The Toy Tower is to be taken down. It's sad to see another piece of Lower East Side history disappear, but I guess I should be grateful that my chances of being struck down by a falling railway sleeper or a mildewed toy kangaroo will now be measurably reduced.