Pink Pop-Up Penis Painting Pisses Off Neighbors in NYC

Art is hard work.

Denizens of New York City's Lower East Side neighborhood are usually edgy, progressive and not concerned about things like the boundaries of traditional taste. But the recent appearance of an envelope-pushing piece of public art has neighbors up in arms.

According NBC New York, on Christmas Eve, a four-story, realistic pink penis was painted on the side of an apartment building in New York's Lower East Side. The pop-up penis is the work of Swedish artist Carolina Falkholt.

"I have never heard so much laughter and seen so many happy faces behind my back when painting as for today doing this wall on Broome Street," wrote the graffiti artist on Instagram on Sunday.

But while many laughed, there is a loud contingent that want the art removed.

"Do you really want to wake up to wake up to something like that in the morning?" one male passerby told Spectrum local news channel NY1.

The Lo-Down reports that longtime Lower East Side resident Naomi Pena fired off an angry email to The New Allen, an arts foundation believed to be connected to the painted penis.

"While I happen to love and appreciate street art, your latest commissioned display is the most disgusting display of art I've seen," Pena wrote. "Contrary to what developers and the folks you see in the street, there are thousands of people in this neighborhood who are raising their children here. While I'm gathering you may not have any children or may not live here to have to walk by and see this, I certainly was not happy to have to explain to my 8-year-old twins what this was. I would hope your organization would at least provide some basic protocols for your artists when producing art... or at the very least implore them not to produce something that would piss off parents like your organization just did!"

But not everyone was prudish on the penis. NBC reported that many defended the work -- saying the piece was "a lovely shade of pink" and sparked a conversation.