Rebecca Howland Real Estate Octopus and Manhattan Dead Horse

For Real Estate Octopus and Manhattan as a Dead Horse, sculptor Rebecca Howland (b. Niagara Falls, NY) has used metal to create the figure of a monstrous octopus engulfing the World Trade Center buildings for the walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge. Gregory Sholette, in his essay “Unnatural Speculations: Nature as an Icon of Urban Resistance on NYC’s Lower East Side 1979–1984,” argues that the octopus is an emblem of big business and the sculpture “cast the real estate wars in terms of natural predation and defense.”