SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The New York-Dublin portal was shut almost as soon as it opened. The portal is a live circular video screen by Lithuanian creator Benediktas Gylys, by which people in two different cities can, in the words of exhibit organizers, embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness. But global interconnectedness can be messy. The portals were set up earlier this month near The Flatiron Building in Midtown Manhattan and O'Connell Street in Dublin. Those who crowded in to view, to smile, wave, snap selfies and make heart signs or faces between the two cities were overwhelmingly courteous, but New York and Dublin are not Mayberry.
CNN saw a man in front of New York's portal flash two middle fingers. Social media sites show a few people on the Dublin side hold up swastikas and images of the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11, which were especially horrifying. A woman who has an OnlyFans site responded by lifting her shirt in front of New York's portal as revenge, she told the Daily Star. New York has been home to Philip Roth, Lenny Bruce, the New York Dolls, James Baldwin, Charlotte Moorman, the Topless Cellist, and many artists whose words and works have sometimes been disdained or even banned.
And Dublin, home to Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats and the Boomtown Rats. Dubliner Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" depicts a giant who quenches a fire by relieving himself on it. There's a scene for the portal. James Joyce's "Ulysses," about a day in Dublin couldn't be published at first for its frank depictions of other facts of life. Dubliner Sinead O'Connor notably shredded a photo of Pope John Paul II on live TV in America in 1992.
Perhaps the civic and business groups who support the installation might seem a little naive to invite Dubliners and New Yorkers to embrace the beauty of global interconnectedness and not expect some invective profanity and outright slurs to seep through the portal. The technical team says they're working on what they call additional solutions to limit such behavior appearing on the live stream, and that the installation will reopen this weekend. The portal does not include audio. As someone on the New York Portal side might put it - forget about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE DUBLINER'S "INSTRUMENTAL")
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