New York City will begin painting the words “Black Lives Matter” in yellow on the road section of Fifth Avenue in front of President Donald Trump’s Trump Tower on Thursday.
On Thursday morning, New York 1 News reporter Lindsay Tuchman tweeted that the city had shut down the street in preparation of the project.
Fifth avenue officially closed as the city gets ready to paint a Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower. More on @NY1 pic.twitter.com/KdaZYcnea6
— Lindsay Tuchman (@LindsayTuchman) July 9, 2020
Local NBC News affiliate News 4 New York reported on Wednesday night that city workers would begin painting the mural the following morning.
Trump, who has thrown his support behind the police amid recent protests against anti-Black police brutality, had bashed the project on Twitter last week by claiming a Black Lives Matter sign was a “symbol of hate” and that painting it on the upscale street will “antagonize New York’s Finest.”
“Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates and disrespects them, won’t let this symbol of hate be affixed to New York’s greatest street,” he tweeted.
De Blasio fired back shortly afterward, telling Trump that Black people “BUILT 5th Ave and so much of this nation.”
“Your ‘luxury’ came from THEIR labor, for which they have never been justly compensated. We are honoring them,” the mayor tweeted. “The fact that you see it as denigrating your street is the definition of racism.”
