Art Pigeon of Elizabeth Street Garden Stars in Next Season of HBO’s The Deuce

Photo: Eddie Panta

When both sides of the street are lined with 1970s gas-guzzlers, it could only mean one thing. HBO’s The Deuce is filming in the ‘hood.

Viewers flocked to the first and second season of the Time Square series for a look at the seedier side of the city. Now that the show is transitioning into the early 1980s, the Downtown art scene that helped define the decade may make an appearance on screen.

Wednesday night, the “Penny Lane” production team temporarily restored Elizabeth Street to its blighted past, boarding up the trendy boutiques with flats of graffiti covered plywood and curating curbside trash with busted bric-a-brac from the bygone era.

Photo: Eddie Panta

But the main set-piece for this upcoming episode was a street art installation.

Art mimicked life in a nighttime shoot as the (endangered) Elizabeth Street Garden played itself in a scene where the show’s characters stop to gaze at a wheat-paste mural on the building facade overlooking the garden.

The street art, composed of hundreds of identical pigeon pictures, was pasted together to form one gigantic pigeon overlooking the street. But the top few pigeons – the ones making up its head – are fleeing the coop in what appears to be symbolic of breaking away from a group-think mentality. That or they’re just flying off to Prince Street to hunt for pepperoni.

Photo: Eddie Panta

During the production install, locals mistook the set-piece as another mural by artist JR, whose large-than-life depiction of a young girl in a Goliath stance attempting to hold down the trees from some unseen force, has graced the same wall for months. What remains of JR’s mural was temporarily concealed by faux ivy by the crew.

Fans of the show will need to wait until Fall 2019 to find out the exact symbolism behind the winged creatures.

Photo: Eddie Panta

In the meantime, the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe is getting in on The Deuce, too. This Sunday (June 23), cast members of the HBO series will perform, “Readings and Reflections about the City that Shaped the Show.” The event is currently SOLD OUT, but more tickets will be released today at noon.

Didn't get a ticket for Sunday's event with the all-star cast of @HBO show #TheDeuce yet? We're releasing a few extra general admission tickets on Friday @ 12PM!

Featuring #JamesFranco, @mgyllenhaal, @realchrisbauer, @Domfishback, @SepidehMoafi, & many more! pic.twitter.com/w56UO9RzK7

— Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (@HousingWorksBks) June 20, 2019