LENOX - Five years ago, as the multi-generational Allegrone family prepared to mark the 100th anniversary of their construction company's opening in Pittsfield, they had good reason to pop the cork on a favorite Italian red wine. The National Park Service had just awarded the Allegrone Cos. a $40 million, two-phase, five-year contract to shore up the massive granite Fort Wood Walls structure built in 1807 to defend New York Harbor.
Outside an entrance to the Second Avenue subway station in Manhattan's East Village, commuters and passersby are confronted with an artwork portraying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detaining the Statue of Liberty. Longtime New York City street artist Doug Groupp, who uses the moniker Clown Soldier, created "Attack on Liberty" on November 26. The black and white spray-painted work binds immigration crackdowns to an erosion of civil liberties more broadly.
