Where's Chico? | january 18, 2004
The spray-painted image of Tony’s tightly clipped moustache and smooth fade is beginning to show its age — but his dark eyes still stare out intently from the wall at indifferent passersby. This is still the Loisaida, he might boast: Spanglish for the Lower East Side. Realtors and landlords concocted “East Village” to make the shady streets sound like the nicer neighborhoods to the west. Alphabet City? That’s what artists christened it back in the 1980s as they moved into dilapidated walkups. His pupils are guarded, harboring the memory of the violent episode in 1993 that brought about his untimely demise, and led to his immortalization by the guy they call Chico.

The drug trade was wreaking havoc on these streets in the late 80s and early 90s. Dope. Heroin. Cocaine. Ten years on, this graffiti memorial to Tony, along 10th Street at Avenue B, slowly sheds its spray-painted skin. Perhaps soon to disappear completely, like so many other murals, should a new building owner have a different concept of what constitutes art. The neighborhood has been constantly changing. Defiantly though, the history of these streets is recorded on its walls in bright color. In the early morning hours, as the fierce sounds of rising metal gates echo through the neighborhood, Chico’s murals speak, and they tell the story of the Loisaida.  

Chico never wears a mask when he works, people say — story goes, the noxious Krylon fumes have made him insane. No one can remember a time when the neighborhood wasn’t one big gallery of his work. He used to do his own thing, hitting abandoned buildings with bright motifs. Got arrested a few times. His first mural — long gone — was a jab at then President Reagan: a tank driving toward the words “World War III.” Couldn’t stand that sucker. Then local businesses offered to pay him $100, then more, to paint walls near their stores. It’s strange to see his rendition of larger-than-life cutesy pets on one corner, and the sounds and sights of the barrio on the next, but someone was footing the bill — Chico was making ends meet, he was getting known. Families and dealers came knocking to put up memorials to the dead.

There are distinct qualities within each piece: tone, depth and subject. At 12th and A, a cartoonish cucaracha holds court with a fiendish rat, promoting a local pest control service. On September 11th, 2001, Chico painted a simple, lasting memorial on Avenue A just south of 14th Street: he didn’t know the whereabouts of a few close friends, couldn’t have known if they were alive or dead. Flowers and candles showed up within minutes. Today, it ages peacefully, unblemished, part of the neighborhood’s fabric.

They say Chico’s been at it since the early 1980s, maybe even before that, tagging the old redbird subway cars after sneaking into locked rail yards. Grew up in the projects on Avenue D, the Jacob Riis Houses. Just moved back there recently from a few avenues over. Actually started working there again, too. Wanted a job so badly after he dropped out of high school, that he would tag “Chico” on the building manager’s door — the name his mom used to call him when he was little, because he looked like old man Chico back in Puerto Rico. Each time it was painted over he would tag it again. One evening, the police showed up at his door. Word on the street had it that Antonio Garcia was the perpetrator. They saw Antonio’s, err Chico’s, canvasses stacked against the wall next to cans of spray paint. He pleaded that he was an artist and simply wanted a job. He wanted to beautify and speak to his neighborhood. Fight back against the graffiti. Next thing, Chico got paid to color the drab high-rise community.

It seems remarkable how difficult it is to find this man whose name dots block after block within the area bounded by Avenues A and D, from Houston to 14th Streets. Someone mentioned a bar he frequents after work. A few more inquiries and ensuing directives to other bars and it seems pretty clear that the man enjoys a drink. Walking into a tiny joint on C, a small, three-dimensional, spray-painted bust protrudes from a canvas. “Chico” is scrawled tightly in the corner. The bartender hasn’t seen Chico in a bit, but makes it apparent that his presence is requested — and not necessarily for small talk. She points out his work throughout the space. No one has seen him, actually. Seems Chico disappears on occasion. Heard he was over in Germany doing murals in restaurants. Or was it Japan this time? They love his stuff over there.

The slick-haired bar manager saunters over in a pair of black, pleated pants. Two henchmen with indecipherable foreign accents cackle next to him. They speak about Chico with simultaneous fondness for his art and disgust with his antics, clenching and unclenching their enormous fists as they talk. A head pops out from behind two turntables. This guy, skinny, pale, practically trips over himself in self-congratulation as he busts out a laptop. He throws a greasy bang behind his ear and begins a slideshow of the mural that Chico recently painted in his apartment. A subway car bursts through a brick wall. One of those old redbird varieties. He proceeds to pull over other slackers at the bar to show him his prize, before jumping back behind the decks. Chico, it would seem, has diversified his clientele.

Maybe someone on Avenue D will have seen him. An explosion of bright faces and messages to the people flicker from the walls along the street, the drab browns replaced. People choose Chico because his work responds to social and emotional issues. It transmits feeling. Even in the snow, with bike frames rusting along a sagging chain link fence, it feels like summer, thanks to a huge bright mural of the weekly farmers mercado.

Houston marks the end of the line and the gateway to other distinct parts of the city. High above the street, the recently departed Celia Cruz smiles broadly from a mural that went up right after she died. A guy cruises past and notes that before Celia, the canvas contained the Pope, his hands held out with Saddam to one side and Bush to the other. Then, legend has it, the FBI told Chico to take the mural down. Facing the heat, he proceeded to paint over the politicos and left the Pope asking why. Here and there, a few posers have left weak tags on Chico’s art. But for the most part, his work is left untouched. Chico built this. This is his Loisaida. But Chico is nowhere to be found. And he seems to like it that way.

© 2009 david gerlach | contact: davidgerlach at yahoo dot com