‘Bean’ there in Tribeca
Summer debut eyed
Tribeca’s long anticipated “half bean” sculpture is nearly fully baked and ready for the public to view.
The 19-foot-high stainless steel piece could be finished by the end of the summer, a project manager told The Post. The sculpture is the work of British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor, creator of downtown Chicago’s Cloud Gate — which is better known as “The Bean.”
“We are working really hard to make that happen,” said Mike O’Toole, an engineer with the Dash 7 Design firm in Brooklyn.
The sculpture sits at the entrance to 56 Leonard St., the 57-story tower known as the Jenga building for its cantilevered floors. It is tucked into a corner of the property below a secondfloor overhang with the top portion of the reflective work clearly visible above green construction fencing.
The work located at the corner of Church Street has been in the planning stages since 2008.
Construction began in 2019 but was stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic. The slow progress led to the “half bean” moniker, although the piece is also said to resemble a squashed balloon.
The silvery structure is smaller than Chicago’s shiny, 33-foot-high version that sits in Millennium Park and has become a major tourist attraction for the city.
But unlike the Windy City’s free-standing version, under which visitors can walk, part of the yetunnamed Tribeca sculpture will be visible only to the well-heeled occupants of the condo tower. Residents include singer Frank Ocean. Comedian KeeganMichael Key sold his twobedroom home there last year for $5 million.
The 85-ton sculpture was commissioned by building developer Alexico Group and reportedly cost upward of $10 million.
Residents and passersby are anxious and eager to see the final result.
“I love the one in Chicago,” said Molly Forr. “I mean, in an urban sense, I like how [this] holds in the corner. I think that the reflections on it are kind of cool.”