CHICAGO, April 4 -- Painters Thursday whitewashed a 37-foot tall portrait of Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman that caused massive traffic jams and some accidents on an expressway. Clothing company Bigsby & Kruthers, owners of the warehouse on which the mural was painted, bowed to public safety concerns but said Rodman's likeness would be repainted on a different wall in another pose. Even though traffic delays had eased a bit, company CEO Gene Silverberg said Wednesday he decided to remove Rodman from the highly visible north wall of the building and repaint his image on the south wall, which is not so close to the expressway. Silverberg said Rodman was 'disappointed' with the decision, but had accepted it. 'If it's safety versus art, we both believe it's going to have to be safety,' he said. 'So please resume normal speeds and drive carefully.' Rodman said during a break in a Bulls practice session Wednesday that he agreed public safety was an issue. 'People are making a big deal out of nothing,' Rodman said. 'But if they want to take me down. I don't care. It will save some lives I guess. If I changed my hair color tomorrow, there'd probably be another traffic jam. Maybe its good for everybody.' The striking black-and-white painting of the controversial Rodman went up over two weeks ago on the building owned by Bigsby & Kruthers, which has established a tradition in recent years of painting huge murals of celebrated Chicagoans wearing the company's suits.
The mural depicted Rodman wearing a suit, but with the sleeves ripped away, exposing the rebounding champ's heavily tattooed arms. The painting was made from a photograph taken by Marc Hauser, who told the Chicago Sun-Times that it was the tattooes and the eyes that made people slow down and want to get a good look. 'I really was going for... he has this one thing he does with his eyes,' Hauser said. 'He kind of looks down at the ground and looks up. That's what I had him do. I wanted him to look like he was leering at you.' Illinois Department of Transportation officials said the sign added up to 40 minutes to the downtown drive on the Kennedy Expressway and contributed to several rear-end collisions. Workmen said motorists pulled off the highway to snap pictures of the Chicago Bull.
