Stephen King’s scary clown inspires NYC street art (photo of the week)

By
Leslie Koch
– March 4, 2011Posted in: Arts and Culture, Street Art, Video

A twinge of panic surged through me as I crossed 1st Street and 2nd Avenue in the East Village. I glanced at the man’s wild red hair, crazy eyes and yellow teeth, and immediately looked away.

I had to remind myself that this was street art, and not an actual threat. Like many Americans, I find clowns to be incredibly creepy!

Scary clown street art at Mars Bar in the East Village

Clown-themed street art outside Mars Bar in the East Village. (photo: Leslie Koch)

This deranged clown is the work of street artist Jane Knox and sits outside of the East Village’s Mars Bar.The clown bares its teeth and dips a claw-like hand into a cocktail, perhaps to place a roofie in an unsuspecting patron’s drink.

If you are looking for an edgy take on beloved pop culture characters, keep an eye on Mars Bar‘s wall. A drunk Santa street mural graced this same location in December.

The artist references the dive bar’s status as a street art hot-spot (and notoriously sketchy hangout) with a caption scrawled in dripping red paint:

Can’t you see I’m having a Mars Bar moment?!?!

Literary inspiration

I wasn’t sure what to make of this clown street art, so I posted the image on my LeslieTravel Facebook Page. Alert Downtown Traveler reader Cesar pointed out that this clown looked familiar:

How I got schooled on Facebook...

Cesar claimed that the clown was based on a Stephen King character from the novel/1990 mini series It. Somehow, Cesar, who has lived his entire life in Argentina, had seen this American series, while I  had not.

A quick Google Images search confirmed Cesar’s assertion that this artwork is based on the Stephen King clown. The hairstyle, eye makeup and frightening claws are a perfect match:

Poster from Stephen King film It with scary clown

The scary clown from Stephen King's "It." (photo: Wikipedia)

Perhaps artist Jane Knox was haunted by childhood memories of this scary TV clown. While we don’t know why Knox chose this character to immortalize on 2nd Avenue, we do have video of her creating the street art.

The EV Grieve blog posted this short clip of Knox at work on the mural:

Clowns: fun or scary?

We’d love to hear what you think of this street art and, more generally, these red-headed, big nosed entertainers. When you picture a clown, does Ronald McDonald or John Wayne Gacy spring to mind?

***

Enjoy this post? Follow Downtown Traveler on Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: , , , , , ,

About Leslie Koch

I'm a New Yorker with a passion for travel and art. I founded DowntownTraveler.com after returning from a year-long backpacking trip around the world. Find me on Twitter at @leslietravel.

14 Comments

  1. Reply
    Dave from The Longest Way Home
    Posted March 4, 2011 at 11:40 AM

    Ha, great topic. I don’t find clowns scary at all. I don’t know why most Americans do?! Yes, IT was a good film, and the clown scary. But, I still don’t find the average clown scary.

    The mars bar moment thing, is however a little strange 🙂

    • Reply
      Leslie Koch
      Posted March 4, 2011 at 1:33 PM

      Thanks for the comment Dave! We had a serial killer who dressed as a clown and killed little boys. That might have added to the frightening clown image…

  2. Reply
    Maria A
    Posted March 4, 2011 at 3:05 PM

    The quote next to the photo made me laugh. Brilliant!

    • Reply
      Leslie
      Posted March 9, 2011 at 10:51 PM

      Glad you liked the clown street art, Maria!

  3. Reply
    Juno
    Posted March 4, 2011 at 9:31 PM

    Aha, It’s inspired by Stethen King. Honestly I don’t really like his stuff. Maybe because I don’t like scary stuff. 😀 But the street art is so cool. It’s amazing how much we get to know things everyday, right?

    • Reply
      Leslie Koch
      Posted March 5, 2011 at 9:19 PM

      So true. There’s a lot of creativity in our backyards, if we take the time to stop and look 🙂

  4. Reply
    Alyson Smith
    Posted March 5, 2011 at 8:24 AM

    Wow thats some scary clown!

  5. Reply
    Ted Nelson
    Posted March 5, 2011 at 9:04 PM

    When I think of clowns I think of high school students.

    • Reply
      Leslie Koch
      Posted March 5, 2011 at 9:19 PM

      Haha, thanks for adding the teacher’s perspective 🙂

  6. Reply
    Erica
    Posted March 6, 2011 at 1:44 AM

    Oooh! How creepy and amazing. Definitely a way to draw attention to the space! I never saw It growing up so I never developed a healthy fear of clowns like so many people have.

    • Reply
      Leslie Koch
      Posted March 7, 2011 at 7:21 PM

      Yeah- I have a feeling seeing this movie as a child could turn someone off to clowns forever 🙂

  7. Reply
    ciki
    Posted March 10, 2011 at 2:23 AM

    Stephen King is one of my all time favourite writers! He totally digs clowns.. i have lost count on the number of times this “innocent” doll has been twisted into a fiend, in his stories.. and he does it so effectively too! Great 1st shot! clowns totally freak me out.. in a good way;)

  8. Reply
    Katherina
    Posted April 12, 2011 at 4:01 PM

    I would have said fun…. but after seeing this… SCARY !! I will be having nightmares of clowns hiding in my closet tonight!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Page not found - Sweet Captcha
Error 404

It look like the page you're looking for doesn't exist, sorry

Search stories by typing keyword and hit enter to begin searching.


Read previous post:
Hotel Perks: Ben Folds Five Concert at the NYC Westin Grand Central

What can you get with 5,000 hotel loyalty points? If you're a Starwood Preferred Guest, you can now get VIP...

Close