Tower of Toys

The Tower of Toys has been well known to habitues of the East Village and even to some from outside this country - buses of Japanese tourists would occasionally visit. Click here for more photos. This structure is the creation of Eddie Boros, an extraordinarily eccentric character who lived his entire life on 5th Street, around the corner from where this tower is located in the Sixth Street & Avenue B Garden. He was the son of Hungarian immigrants, a house painter and a seamstress. Boros served in the Army during the Korean War, but was such an adamant pacifist that he was put on a detail planting trees. In 1985 Boros began carving large wood sculptures in the middle of this garden, but this was met with opposition from other garden members. He was told to confine his work to one 4' x 8' plot, but eventually this expanded to several plots. Boros, with a passion for reuse of discarded things, decorated his 65 foot tower (which he named My Baby) with items scavenged from the neighborhood. Boros was known for climbing to the top of the tower and beating a drum or blowing a horn. The tower appeared for a time in the opening shots for the television show NYPD Blue. A 1/2 scale version also appeared in the musical RENT. His structure was always controversial and a bone of contention with other members of the garden. It will be interesting to see what the future has in store now that Boros has passed away ...

NOTE: Boros died April 27,2007 at the age of 74 while recuperating after having both legs amputated above the knee.