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Iconic Banksy ‘Ghetto 4 Life’ mural removed from the Bronx, headed to Connecticut: ‘Took a piece of my heart’

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Iconic Banksy ‘Ghetto 4 Life’ mural removed from the Bronx, headed to Connecticut: ‘Took a piece of my heart’


An iconic Banksy graffiti installation in the Bronx that initially drew the ire of some but grew to be considered “the pride of the neighborhood” was shipped off to Connecticut this week.

South Bronx residents were left feeling betrayed as the exterior wall that displayed the “Ghetto 4 Life” graffiti was removed from 651 Elton Avenue due to the building’s demolition.

“Everybody was crying around here. This is art,” Steve Jacob told The Post of the mural, which has been in the neighborhood since October 2013.

“The gentleman made it for us, the community. I’ve lived all my life in the Bronx and this was made for the Bronx people,” said Jacob, who owns a store across the street from the Banksy piece. “And now someone’s taken it away from us.”

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The graffiti first appeared on the wall when the elusive British artist tagged a variety of New York locales during his “Better Out Than In” series.

Despite being blasted by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg as “defacement” and panned by some who found the white artist’s use of the word “ghetto” offensive in the historically blighted area, the work survived far longer than most Banksys in the city, many of which were painted over by rival artists or lost to real estate development.

The work depicted a boy painting the slogan “Ghetto 4 Life” in bubble letters as a butler serves him spray cans on a tray.

It had been protected by plexiglass under a roll-up gate hidden by makeshift curtains, according to Welcome2TheBronx, which reported on the building’s demolition last year.

The iconic Elton Ave mural in 2013, after it was protected by plexiglass. Robert Kalfus

On Monday, Jacob watched as workers from an outfit called Fine Art Shippers clamped an iron frame around the mural and sawed it off. They then packed it in wood and loaded it upright on a flatbed truck and drove away. 

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“How are you going to leave the community like this? It’s poor, there’s a lot of crime – but we had this piece of art, and you took it away,” Jacob said.

“Whatever [Banksy] did in the picture, he did for the community, and now that the building is gone, the owner of the building took the art and left and moved it to Connecticut, not even the Bronx or New York. The community here is very upset and we can’t do anything about it.”

The loss of the art also hit home for Quentin Soto, 34, a local store manager.

Here today, gone tomorrow. The same location on Wednesday, after the building was demolished and the famous section of the wall was removed and sent to Connecticut Dennis A. Clark

“They really took a piece of my heart. This mural was the pride of the neighborhood, and as you can’t see, we don’t have a lot of pride to spare,” Soto said.

“The Bronx ain’t Florence, if you know what I mean. But we had this mural, and it brought people here from all over the world who appreciate fine art. I liked to brag to people, ‘You know that Banksy mural Ghetto 4 Life? I live right there.’ Sort of like how you’d brag if you lived next door to the Empire State Building or something. I really loved it,” he continued.

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“Banksy is all about the people living in the locations he stencils. Something about the picture always felt to me to be a dead-on representation of what we’re all about.

“And now it’s in Connecticut, of all places. Not the Bronx Museum of Art, not the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not the Guggenheim. Connecticut.” 

David Damaghi is the owner of the former tourist attraction, which is reportedly being demolished to make way for a charter school. Robert Kalfus

Another local resident, electrician Carlo Cintron, 44, called the development a “big loss for the community.

“This was something really unique, really special. I’d walk by it all the time and always stop to admire it, to appreciate it, because in a way I always felt like it was too good for this neighborhood, know what I mean? But here it was. We thought it was permanent, but I guess nothing’s permanent in New York real estate.”

It was unclear how much the section of the wall was sold for. An intentionally shredded Banksy has fetched some $25 million at auction.

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David Damaghi, who owns 651 Elton Avenue, did not immediately return a call to The Post, nor did Fine Art Shippers.

The owner of 800 Union Avenue in Bridgeport, where the piece was set to be displayed in a courtyard, according to the New York Daily News, could not immediately be reached.

The Post also reached out to a representative of Banksy for comment.





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Connecticut

State police investigating suspicious incident in Burlington

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State police investigating suspicious incident in Burlington


BURLINGTON, Conn. (WFSB) – Connecticut State Police are investigating a suspicious incident at a residence on Case Road in Burlington.

Multiple state troopers and police vehicles were seen at the home conducting an investigation. A viewer reported seeing nine police cars and numerous troopers at the scene.

State police said there is no threat to the public at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

No additional details about the nature of the suspicious incident have been released.

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Ecuadorian national with manslaughter conviction sentenced for illegally reentering United States through Connecticut

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Ecuadorian national with manslaughter conviction sentenced for illegally reentering United States through Connecticut


NEW HAVEN, CT. (WFSB) – An Ecuadorian national with a manslaughter conviction was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for illegally reentering the United States through Connecticut after being deported.

40-year-old Darwin Francisco Quituizaca-Duchitanga was sentenced and had used the aliases Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca and Juan Mendez-Gutierrez.

U.S. Border Patrol first encountered Quituizaca in December 2003, when he used the alias Juan Mendez-Gutierrez and claimed to be a Mexican citizen. He was issued a voluntary return to Mexico.

Connecticut State Police arrested him in March 2018 on charges related to a fatal crash on I-91 in North Haven in March 2017. He was using the alias Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca at the time.

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ICE arrested him on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2018 while he was awaiting trial in his state case. An immigration judge ordered his removal to Ecuador in September 2018, but he was transferred to state custody to face pending charges.

Quituizaca was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in January 2019 and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

After his release, ICE arrested him again on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2023. He was removed to Ecuador the next month.

ICE arrested Quituizaca again on a warrant in Meriden on June 28th, 2025, after he illegally reentered the United States. He pleaded guilty to unlawful reentry on July 30th.

He has been detained since his arrest. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated the case.

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The case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat illegal immigration and transnational criminal organizations.



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Justice Department sues Connecticut and Arizona as part of effort to get voter data from the states

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Justice Department sues Connecticut and Arizona as part of effort to get voter data from the states


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Officials in Connecticut and Arizona are defending their decision to refuse a request by the U.S. Justice Department for detailed voter information, after their states became the latest to face federal lawsuits over the issue.

“Pound sand,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes posted on X, saying the release of the voter records would violate state and federal law.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced this week it was suing Connecticut and Arizona for failing to comply with its requests, bringing to 23 the number of states the department has sued to obtain the data. It also has filed suit against the District of Columbia.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department will “continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections,” saying accurate voter rolls are the ”foundation of election integrity.”

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Secretaries of state and state attorneys general who have pushed back against the effort say it violates federal privacy law, which protects the sharing of individual data with the government, and would run afoul of their own state laws that restrict what voter information can be released publicly. Some of the data the Justice Department is seeking includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Other requests included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, while some have been more state-specific. They have referenced perceived inconsistencies from a survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Most of the lawsuits target states led by Democrats, who have said they have been unable to get a firm answer about why the Justice Department wants the information and how it plans to use it. Last fall, 10 Democratic secretaries of state sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security expressing concern after DHS said it had received voter data and would enter it into a federal program used to verify citizenship status.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, said his state had tried to “work cooperatively” with the Justice Department to understand the basis for its request for voters’ personal information.

“Rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue,” Tong said Tuesday, after the lawsuit was filed.

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Connecticut, he said, “takes its obligations under federal laws very seriously.” He pledged to “vigorously defend the state against this meritless and deeply disappointing lawsuit.”

Two Republican state senators in Connecticut said they welcomed the federal lawsuit. They said a recent absentee ballot scandal in the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, had made the state a “national punchline.”



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