The New York Observer

Takeshi Miyakawa was released from custody a little after 4:30 this afternoon. The Greenpoint-based designer spent the past four nights behind bars for hanging I [heart] New York shopping bags, illuminated from within by an LED matrix of his own design, on trees and lamp posts around North Brooklyn.

So, does Mr. Miyakawa still love New York? “Yes, I do,” he said as a pack of reporters gathered around him outside Brooklyn Supreme Court on Jay Street, a few long blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. It was an odder than usual scene, just so, for the media scrum outside the halls of justice, with the impromptu press conference being conducted in equal parts English and Japanese, Mr. Miyakawa speaking softly either way.

He wore the same mint-green button-up shirt and baggy nylon cargo pants he had been arrested in at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, after cops spotted him hanging one of his pieces at the corner of Bedford and Lorimer Avenues. A similar piece he placed early Friday morning on Bedford and North Sixth Street got three surrounding blocks shut down when a curious 311 call turned into a zealous 911 response.

“I was in shock,” Mr. Miyakawa said of his arrest, “but I was more in shock that people in Williamsburg were locked down for two hours, and I really want to apologize to them.” Read More

Takeshi Miyakawa was released from custody a little after 4:30 this afternoon. The Greenpoint-based designer spent the past four nights behind bars for hanging I [heart] New York shopping bags, illuminated from within by an LED matrix of his own design, on trees and lamp posts around North Brooklyn.

So, does Mr. Miyakawa still love New York? “Yes, I do,” he said as a pack of reporters gathered around him outside Brooklyn Supreme Court on Jay Street, a few long blocks from the Manhattan Bridge. It was an odder than usual scene, just so, for the media scrum outside the halls of justice, with the impromptu press conference being conducted in equal parts English and Japanese, Mr. Miyakawa speaking softly either way.

He wore the same mint-green button-up shit and baggy nylon cargo pants he had been arrested in at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, after cops spotted him hanging one of his pieces at the corner of Bedford and Lorimer Avenues. A similar piece he placed early Friday morning on Bedford and North Sixth Street got three surrounding blocks shut down when a curious 311 call turned into a zealous 911 response.

“I was in shock,” Mr. Miyakawa said of his arrest, “but I was more in shock that people in Williamsburg were locked down for two hours, and I really want to apologize to them.” Read More