A tree house grows in West Village

[underpants]

Artist Melinda Hackett poses for a picture on the steps leading up to the tree house in her backyard in New York City, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010


When is a treehouse not a treehouse? When it’s in the middle of the West Village and wins landmark status after a protracted legal dispute!

After Melinda Hackett, an artist, built a gargantuan cedar playhouse in a tree in her backyard, a not-in-your-backyard neighbor reported her to authorities, The Associated Press reports. She prevailed after legal wrangling and won a permit for the structure, which sits behind her 1860s home on West 12th Street, a townhouse that used to belong to David Byrne, the musician. The A.P. includes a video report.

Outside of the city’s secret gardens, plenty of sites are dedicated to documenting street art, both above ground and under, and there are, of course, blogs that catalog amusing and/or passive-aggressive notes that people — often New Yorkers — leave for one another. But there are relatively few places that seek to capture the intersection of these two phenomena: the tossed-off bit of social street art that can appear scrawled on any number of urban spaces. That problem has now been addressed.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/a-treehouse-grows-in-the-village/?partner=rss&emc=rss