VIA Patch:
The Confederate flags hanging in an East Village apartment have been covered by tarps.
EAST VILLAGE, NY — The Confederate flags displayed in an East Village apartment were covered by massive tarps on Friday.
Tarps could be seen hanging from the building’s roof on Friday evening, covering the flags that a resident had displayed in his windows on East Eighth Street near Avenue D. Neighbors told Patch that building management had hung the tarps on Friday morning. Patch was not immediately able to contact the building’s owner for information about who was responsible for hanging the tarps and why they were hung. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)
The East Village resident who displayed the flags, who has not been identified, has lived in the neighborhood for years, according to multiple neighbors who spoke with Patch. In the windows of his fifth-floor apartment hang two Confederate flags, an American flag and an Israeli flag. Although community members have approached him previously and asked him to remove the flags from his windows, locals say that it wasn’t until the violent rallies Charlottesville this weekend that his display caused larger-scale outrage.
The Charlottesville rally, organized by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, was planned to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a Charlottesville park. The protesters, many of whom were armed with guns, marched through the city bearing flaming torches and openly chanted threats like “Jews will not replace us.”
On Saturday, counter protester Heather Heyer was killed when James Alex Fields allegedly drove his car into a group of anti-racist demonstrators, including Heyer. Fields was reportedly a Nazi sympathizer, according to his teacher.
Since then, the man’s flags have been the source of outrage and frustration. On Wednesday, an irate man hurled rocks at the East Village apartment, demanding that the symbols of the Confederacy be removed.
Attempts to contact the occupant were unsuccessful Friday.
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