Eddie Boros (1934-2007) lived and died in the same small apartment at the corner of E. 5th St. and Ave. B in which he was welcomed into this world. The second of three sons raised by Hungarian immigrant parents, young Eddie delivered ice in the East Village before moving on to house painting, which he did professionally for the remainder of his life. His passion, however, was art - woodworking - and soon much of his time was spent adding to, subtracting from, forever improving upon what would become his greatest work: the Toy Tower at garden 6B.


Boros was a character. Renowned for his strength, it is said that in a liquor and testosterone fueled display of his masculinity, he carried a manhole cover from Sophie's bar back to his apartment. He was unable to move it when he awoke in the morning. This guy was old-school, a character even in the old East Village, a guy who had a friend named Gray Wolf, and is remembered for walking the streets shirtless in just an old pair of cut-off jean shorts and a string of pearls.

Ornamented with found toys and other discovered jewels from the detritus of the city, the Toy Tower grew to surpass a height of 60' feet, occupied 8 plots in the small community garden, and perhaps due to Eddie's love of late-night climbs to the top, where he would bang on drums and blow on horns, was a continuous object of chagrin for his neighbors. He called the tower 'My Baby', and had dreams of building it high enough such that from its tip he could see the United Nations. Sometime during the 25 years Eddie worked on it, it became the centerpiece of the garden and a symbol of what the East Village was all about.


Boros' reappropriation of waste, his dependence upon found goods and bits of trash for his work, brings to mind Richard Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg once said, "I really feel sorry for people who thinks things like soap dishes and mirrors and Coke bottles are ugly, because they are surrounded by things like that all day long, and it makes them miserable." Thus it is fitting that in the same week in which Rauschenberg meets his death, so too does Eddie Boros' Toy Tower. Rotting, and a danger to the garden, the Parks Department began dismantling the tower on Monday.

For the eulogy: Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.