The record
Five Noir and Citny panels from Waldemarstraße, in the courtyard at 520 Madison Avenue until 2015 — now in a depot in Connecticut.
Five segments painted by Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny stood for years in the small courtyard beside the entrance at 520 Madison Avenue, the Tishman Speyer building. They were probably bought in the early 1990s by Jerry I. Speyer, though a competing account has Limex selling them to the Museum of Modern Art in 1990 for 500,000 marks, which the museum could not confirm.
Outdoors, they decayed. In 2015 they were taken away to a warehouse in New Jersey for careful restoration, came back to Manhattan after about six months and were installed in the building's lobby, stood there roughly two years, and were then removed again to a depot in Connecticut, where they are now. This catalogue holds a separate record for that depot, which is how the unexplained listing filed under the state of Connecticut turns out to be identified.
The panels themselves are among the most widely reproduced pieces of the Wall ever painted. Noir took the left part and Citny the right in October 1985, on Waldemarstraße in West Berlin; Liselotte and Armin Orgel-Köhne photographed them that year and the pictures were used everywhere for Berlin's 750th anniversary in 1987, and they are clearly visible in Wings of Desire, which Wim Wenders filmed the same year.
How did it get here?
Given in 1990 by Jerry Speyer of Tishman Speyer.
Sources & verification
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Source accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 291
Source-reported segments: 5. This is not a separately verified count.
Mapping the 5 Pieces of the Berlin Wall in NYC — Untapped New York ↗
The 1990 gift, the 2014 move indoors, and the later storage report.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Berlin Wall piece in New York — Wikimedia Commons ↗
The panels on East 53rd Street between Fifth and Madison in Paley Park, later relocated to the lobby of the adjacent building.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The five segments at 520 Madison Avenue until 2015, the competing accounts of their purchase by Jerry I. Speyer or MoMA, their decay outdoors, the 2015 removal to a New Jersey warehouse and return to the building lobby for about two years, their subsequent storage in Connecticut, and their painting by Noir and Citny on Waldemarstraße in October 1985 with the Orgel-Köhne photographs and the Wings of Desire appearance.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
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