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!
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:
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?
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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 🙂
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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…
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The quote next to the photo made me laugh. Brilliant!
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Glad you liked the clown street art, Maria!
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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?
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So true. There’s a lot of creativity in our backyards, if we take the time to stop and look 🙂
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Wow thats some scary clown!
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Seriously!!!
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When I think of clowns I think of high school students.
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Haha, thanks for adding the teacher’s perspective 🙂
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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.
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Yeah- I have a feeling seeing this movie as a child could turn someone off to clowns forever 🙂
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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;)
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I would have said fun…. but after seeing this… SCARY !! I will be having nightmares of clowns hiding in my closet tonight!
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