Last spring, the city shut down the iconic “Alamo” sculpture (1967) — the 1,800-pound cube in Astor Place that can spin in slow motion — when the Department of Transportation (DOT) locked the steel block with a metal support frame. The eerily hypnotic artwork on the border of Noho and the East Village had been broken for some time, and in 2021 the city surrounded the block with a makeshift barricade. In May, the DOT finally removed “Alamo” for restorationand now, just over two months later, the colossal cube is spinning again.

Bernard “Tony” Rosenthal’s sculpture is an impressive feat of engineering – the nearly one-ton work of art stands on a spike and miraculously maintains its balance when rotated. The passerby can send the eight-foot-tall sculpture spinning – slowly – with a forceful push.

The city installed “Alamo” in Astor Place in 1967 as part of a 27 games series of exhibitions to see throughout Manhattan. The show, titled Sculpture in the environment, was only supposed to stay awake for six months. “Alamo”, however, proved an immediate hit, and the residents of the East Village successfully demanded that he stay.

The cube has undergone many renovations since then. This time, “Alamo” received about $100,000 in repairs (paid for by Rosenthal’s estate) by Versteeg Art Fabricators in Connecticut. The same manufacturing company restored the cube in 2005, and this new round of repairs is expected last another 20 years. Sporting a shiny new paint job, the cube left Connecticut and made a pit stop at the Hamptons Fine Arts Fair this weekend before heading back to its East Village home.

Local officials unveiled the new and improved “Alamo” yesterday morning and expressed their appreciation for the 56-year-old sculpture in the DOT’s restoration announcement in May.

“The World Keeps Spinning” declared Village Alliance Business Improvement District Executive Director Scott Hobbs. “And the Alamo cube too.”