For forty years, an original Salvador Dalà painting went unnoticed inside New York Cityâs massive jail complex. Then a gang of thieves decided it might be worth something.
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The Great Rikers Island Art Heist
On February 26, 1965, Salvador Dalà woke up with a temperature of 101 and realized his day wasnât going to go as planned. The surrealist master had agreed to visit Rikers Islandâthe New York City jail complex located off the shores of Queens and the Bronxâthat afternoon to paint alongside the prisoners. He was a sucker for a good media stunt, and the New York City Department of Correction had already heralded the visit with great fanfare in a press release. Dalà was due to arrive ceremoniously by boat, with his wife, pet ocelot, and a gaggle of reporters in tow.
Earlier in the year, Department of Correction Commissioner Anna Moscowitz Kross met DalÃâs business associate Nico Yperifanos at a dinner party, where they hatched the plan for DalÃâs visit. Kross, the first female commissioner of the jail system, believed in rehabilitating prisoners with art, including painting sessions and theater productions. It didnât take much for Yperifanos to persuade DalÃ. As long as the cityâs newspapers would be there to capture his magnanimous act, he was game.
But now, feverish and ill, Dalà needed to bow out. There was no way he could make the trip. From his suite at the gilded St. Regis Hotel in midtown Manhattan, he quickly slapped together a painting as an apology and summoned Yperifanos to take it to the island in his absence. News photos from that day show Yperifanos presenting Kross with the untitled work, a five-by-three-foot slapdash of brushstrokes depicting Christ on the cross. DalÃ, whose paintings would later command as much as $21.7 million at auctions, signed and dated the work in the lower righthand corner.
But the spectacle didnât make a lasting impression, and over time the paintingâs remarkable provenance faded from the memories of the wardens who ran the jail system.
For nearly two decades, it hung in the prisonersâ mess hall. In 1981, after an inmate lobbed a coffee cup at the painting, breaking its glass casing and leaving a stain, the Dalà was taken down. A warden sent it off to a dealer to authenticate and appraise it; the painting was then shipped to a Virginia gallery for temporary display in a prison art exhibit. After its return, the Dalà was boxed up in a storage crate, forgotten again. At one point it made its way to a trash bin, where a guard saved it from being thrown out. Then it found its way to the wall of a wardenâs office and, finally, to the lobby of Eric M. Taylor Center, one of Rikersâs ten jails. There it hung under the lobbyâs fluorescent lights, within a few steps of a humming Pepsi-Cola vending machine.
The work barely registered with the Department of Correction officers and visitors who passed it. But a plaque next to the painting proclaimed that it was worth an estimated one million dollars. To the island's residents, it screamed easy money.
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The 15 Best Rugby Shirts to Bring a Big Dose of Fun Into Your Wardrobe
Rugby shirts have arrived with a vengeance this season. The shirt is a classic, but it's gotten a major overhaul recently. There are throwback versions that are great, of course. But there are also new colors, prints, and detailing we normally might not associate with rugbiesâwhich is what makes them so welcome. They're fun. Very fun. Here are the 15 best rugby shirts to shop right now.
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How to Make a Piña Colada
The Piña Colada may not be an everyday drink (or something to drink too much of; there's a lot of sugar in it, after all). But for those occasions when you're feeling festiveâespecially if that festivity should be accompanied by warm weatherâthe classic PC is tough to beat. Hereâs the best way to make it.
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An Expert on Concentration Camps Says That's Exactly What the U.S. Is Running at the Border
After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out a link to Esquireâs piece about the detention facilities at the southern border, it started a national conversation about whether or not they qualify as âconcentration camps.â Hereâs what the experts say about it.
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The 10 Most Popular Drinks to Order at a Bar
Unless you're finishing up your undergrad years, the days of ordering Rum and Cokes and Vodka Crans are over. There's better stuff to drink out there, and no excuse not to try it. Besides, the social value in knowing the most classic of cocktails is immeasurable. To limit the list of cocktails worth knowing to a manageable length, we rounded up the 10 most popular bar drinksâbeer and wine excludedâin 2019, as tallied by Drinks International. Even if you aren't familiar with them, your bartender will be, so order with confidence and drink happily.
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Escape the Heat With the Best Books of Summer 2019
There's no better reading season than summer. Whether you're lounging by the shore or parked in front of the air conditioner, these long, hot days are the ideal time to get lost in an engrossing read. From page-turner fiction to zeitgeisty nonfiction, newcomers to household names, here are the books we're loving this summer.
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