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A Nassau County town this week decided to cut to size the artistic contributions of its resident mogul, Aby Rosen, and they did it by clipping everybody’s statues and gazebos.
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According to Newsday, the Old Westbury, NY village board of trustees on Monday approved a law limiting the height of accessory structures—including gazebos, pergolas and statues—to 25 feet, same height limits as cabanas and sheds in the village. And Mayor Fred Carillo suggested any homeowner with a structure taller than 25 feet should appear before the village zoning board of appeals to apply for a variance.
The reason the village elders became so concerned with height issues was Manhattan real estate billionaire Aby Rosen, who drew complaints from his neighbors for a 33-foot-tall bronze statue by British artist Damien Hirst, of a nude pregnant woman on his 5.5 acre estate. The statue is named statue he installed, “The Virgin Mother.”
Rosen’s home is also the 1938 A. Conger Goodyear House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The statue displays the insides of the woman’s body, with skull and fetus exposed, with a lot of red paint.
Neighbors who could see the statue from their homes complained to village officials.
Rosen received approval to place the statue, one of three altogether, on his property, promising to shield “The Virgin Mother” way out in a hill, out of sight and out of neighbors’ view.
Aby Rosen was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1960, the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors. His mother spent the war hiding in a Belgian farmhouse; his father was prisoner in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. After the war, his mother became a painter and his father a real estate developer. In 1987, Abey moved to New York City, where he apprenticed at a real estate brokerage firm selling properties to German investors.
We think he should get to keep the statue.
