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# Dumbo's New Recycled Watertower
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/dumbos-new-recycled-watertower/
- Published: 2012-06-04T20:22:54.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:19:08.000Z
- Description: As either an antidote or a companion (depending on your view) to its uber-expensive and iconic Clock Tower building, Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood will get a different kind of tower this week — a water tower, which is actually a giant art project, a large and colorful public sculpture by Brooklyn ar
- Author: Jillian Steinhauer
- Tags: News, Piet Mondrian, Public Art, Rachel Whiteread, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![Tom Fruin, "Watertower"](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/06/watertower-robert-banat2.jpg)

Tom Fruin, "Watertower" (photo by Robert Banat)

As either an antidote or a companion (depending on your view) to its uber-expensive and iconic Clock Tower building, Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood will get a different kind of tower this week — a water tower, which is actually a giant art project, a large and colorful public sculpture by Brooklyn artist [Tom Fruin](http://tomfruin.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com).

The piece, “Watertower,” is constructed entirely from salvaged and recycled Plexiglas and steel; Fruin gathered the 1,000 pieces of plexiglas from businesses and buildings all over New York City and the steel from Pennsylvania. This is the fourth work in a global series of sculptures by the artist, all of which pay tribute to architectural icons in their respective locations ([an obelisk in Buenos Aires](http://tomfruin.com/obelisco.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), for example) using the same materials combined to form a gridded, patchwork and playful aesthetic.

“Watertower,” which opens this Thursday, June 7, will be illuminated by the sun during the day and light sequences by projection designer [Jeff Sugg](http://jeffsugg.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) at night, bringing to mind a kind of glowing, sculptural, scrap-art version of another famous tribute to New York — Mondrian’s “[Broadway Boogie Woogie](http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object%5Fid=78682&ref=hyperallergic.com).” And as it turns out, Fruin isn’t the first artist to pay tribute to the city’s skyline with a water tower of his own making: [Rachel Whiteread constructed one](http://www.artbabble.org/video/hammer/rachel-whitereads-water-tower-sketchbook?ref=hyperallergic.com) of cast resin in 1998\. Whiteread’s water tower stood for two years over Soho; that this one is going up in Brooklyn may be a sign of the changed (artistic) times.

*“Watertower,” located at 20 Jay Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn, opens on June 7 and will be on view through June 2013\. Daily light shows run from dusk until morning.*