Taxpayer Dollars at Risk? Controversial Professor Defends $407K Art Project Amidst Scandal

A former CUNY professor, who infamously brandished a machete at a reporter from the New York Post, has recently come under fire for her new taxpayer-funded monument, which has drawn criticism as being “junk.” The monument comes with a hefty price tag of $407,000.

Shellyne Rodriguez, the ex-professor, responded to the backlash with a lengthy diatribe, claiming victimhood and accusing her detractors of being “violent fascists” intent on her downfall. Her thoughts were shared in an article published on Hyperallergic.com.

Notably absent from Rodriguez’s piece is any mention of the machete incident or an apology for her 2023 attack on reporter Reuven Fenton.

“This is not my first encounter with the tabloid, but a continuation of a targeted attack,” Rodriguez, 48, wrote. She described the situation as part of a broader “fascist seizure of life,” which she claims has been a constant reality for Black, Indigenous, and colonized individuals worldwide.

In her column, titled “Why My Public Art Drives the Right Nuts,” she contends that the media scrutiny is part of a long-standing issue and links it to her public artwork. This piece, a 23-foot-tall structure made of brick, steel, and terracotta, is called “Phoenix Ladder: Monument to the People of the Bronx.”

Unveiled in November at the intersection of Grand Concourse and Morris Avenue, the monument’s debut comes just over two years after Rodriguez accepted a plea deal with Bronx prosecutors for the assault on the journalist.

The monument– which already has cracks along its foundation — was first commissioned in 2018 through the city’s Percent for Arts program — which sets aside 1% of the budget for city-funded construction projects for new artwork — as part of a $62.5 million reconstruction of the Grand Concourse.

Rodriguez, a self-proclaimed black Marxist, pocketed $81,400 of the project’s $407,000 budget as an “artist fee.”

The polarizing piece is adorned with images of the phoenix, a mythological symbol of rebirth; a series of piercing eyes; four clenched fists signifying black power/socialist solidarity, and the home-borough letters “B” and “X.” On top of the structure is an ascending black ladder without an end.

It is supposed to be testament to the borough’s resiliency after the arson spree during the tumultuous 1970s.

However, many neighborhood residents ripped it as an eyesore, including Frankie Santiago, who told The Post last week, “It looks like a piece of junk.”

In the column, Rodriguez claims she became a “target” of “right-wing media” only after making headlines as a then-Hunter College adjunct art professor in May 2023 for flipping out on pro-life students at the Manhattan-based CUNY campus.

She failed to mention she menaced Fenton, who was simply doing his job and knocking on her Bronx apartment door to ask about the incident.

She also bizarrely claimed “White Christian supremacy is on the fascist march and carrying out a race cleansing campaign” and that “despite these obstacles” she was somehow able to complete Phoenix Ladder in November – seven years after being commissioned.

“She is an homage to the people of the Bronx, a lighthouse for our collective futures, and our witness.” she wrote.

“It’s no surprise that these reactionary forces are appalled by it. They understand that this monument is built on their ruins.”

The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, which oversees the program, has refused to comment about Rodriguez’s outrageous, headline-making past or whether it considered pulling her budget after she threatened to “chop” up a reporter.

The nutty professor was immediately fired by Hunter after the attack. In February 2024, she was axed from another teaching gig at Cooper Union for anti-Israel screeds. Her website doesn’t highlight any current projects.