Jim Power a.k.a. "The Mosaic Man"

Position(s):

The Mosaic Man

In sections on the East Village, in guidebooks on New York City, there are photographs of mosaic lampposts, a mosaic bus bench made from a broken planter and mosaic restaurant walls. These are all the work of Jim Power a.k.a. the "Mosaic Man."

Power was born in Ireland, in Waterford. His family immigrated to Long Island and as a young man he served in Vietnam.

After Vietnam, Power came home...more or less. He lived on the margins, never far from the war that took his youth and took much of the rest of his life. For 20 years now, he has festooned the East Village with joyous art.

"Very tiptop of the morning!" he yells to folks on their way to the never-ending grind of making a living in New York as he pastes broken glass and pottery to the gray metal lampposts.

He once had an apartment, then a squat, then a tent as it became harder and harder to scrape by on New York’s former Lower East Side. Power was one of the artists who made the neighborhood the East Village, helping give it its distinctive personality.