This Artist is Using Monopoly Property Cards to Highlight Rents

In this town, nary is there an equivalent to the relative steal of Baltic Avenue.

To that end, the anonymous artist Symbol has repurposed the classic Monopoly property cards to highlight the exorbitant commercial rents around New York City. So far, there are wheat-paste treatments for Broadway, Bleecker Street, Lexington Avenue, and the Lower East Side.

This mockup of the title deeds shows the monthly rents for different lease intervals (i.e. 1 to 4 years). The fine print is a quote from Jane Jacobs – “There are only two ultimate public powers in shaping and running American cities: votes and control of the money. To sound nicer, we may call these ‘public opinion’ and ‘disbursement of funds,’ but they are still votes and money.”

We’re told that Symbol spent late Monday night gluing the bills to various street furniture around the Lower East Side.

“I’ve lived in New York City for many years and got tired of all the empty storefronts all over the city,” Symbol, who asked to remain anonymous, told us in a text. “It’s just a game between the landlords, tenants, and politicians, and we all lose. We’ve lost the vibrancy in Manhattan replaced with the hope of a pharmacy or a bank. The fun and character is gone.”

When asked about the choice of neighborhoods to lampoon, Symbol explained plans to include Monopoly cards “wherever the city died.” That’s a lot of pasters…