The public battle between the two men intensified after Mr. de Blasio announced his Democratic presidential bid last year. The mayor made Mr. Trump’s behavior a focal point of his campaign, and the president repeatedly scorned the mayor’s hopes for higher office.
The painting outside Trump Tower is a part of a citywide project that will ultimately see at least one similar street painting in each of New York’s five boroughs.
As the work got underway on Fifth Avenue, activists, reporters and onlookers milled around, with some occasionally shouting criticism of Mr. Trump.
Sapur Postell, 65, who was sitting on a concrete barrier observing, said he had journeyed early from his home on Staten Island to witness the phrase being painted.
Mr. Postell said that the project had a deep meaning for him, because he was a descendant of people who had been enslaved, and that he hoped it would catch the president’s attention.
“Hopefully, the guy will look out the window and rethink,” Mr. Postell said. “But I doubt that.”
New York City’s project followed an act by Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, who had “Black Lives Matter” painted in giant yellow letters outside the White House after the president deployed federal officers during protests there sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
New York City has continued to see largely peaceful protests in recent weeks, though Mr. de Blasio and the Police Department came under fire for their aggressive handling of protesters early last month.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/nyregion/blm-trump-tower.html
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