Berlin Wall in Battery Park

In 1982, French artist Thierry Noir moved to West Berlin, drawn by the music scene that formed when David Bowie and Iggy Pop relocated to the city. Over the following years, he began illegally painting the western face of the Wall that separated the Berlin he knew from the Communist East — becoming the first person to start what would become a tradition. His goal, as he described it, was to “demystify” the structure.

Working fast and under cover, Noir developed his signature large, simplified “Big Heads” in bold colors — forms that could be executed quickly. His miles of painted sections, each measuring roughly 8 by 12 feet and weighing over two tonnes, are the most recognizable images to have survived from the Wall before it fell in 1989.

One inner section — an escape-prevention barrier that once stood between Potsdamer Platz and Liepziger Platz — was given to Battery Park by the German Consulate in 2004. It still stands at Kowsky Plaza in Lower Manhattan. A second, larger piece by Noir is located in Midtown.

There’s something quietly powerful about these fragments. Objects that once enforced isolation and repression have traveled across the Atlantic and ended up as public art on a Manhattan waterfront.

Location: Kowsky Plaza, 385 S End Ave, New York, NY 10280