A Brooklyn landlord who suddenly got a Banksy on her building is protecting it like it’s a museum piece — with hired guards, plexiglass and a rolling metal gate.
The surprise piece of street art could fetch more than $1 million at auction.
A metal gate went up on Friday night over the wall on Graham Avenue in Williamsburg, where the British tagger spray-painted two geishas and a bonsai tree.
Building manager José Goya said the gate will cost more than $2,000 — not including the $200-a-shift security guards hired to keep round-the-clock watch over the Japanese-themed mural, which the building’s owners also had also covered with bolted-on plexiglass.
“We still haven’t 100 percent decided what to do,” said Cara Tabachnick, whose family owns the five-story building that is home to a storefront and apartments. “But we do have the instinct — and are trying — to preserve it for the public so it can be viewed and enjoyed, and not destroyed in any way.”
Some of Banksy’s concrete canvasses have been hacked out of walls and sold to art collectors for six and seven figures.
The geishas are the most babied wall display so far from Banksy’s monthlong graffiti bombing of New York City.
On Thursday morning, before the landlord even got involved, the image was rescued from ruin by baby-wipe-wielding Banksy fans, who managed to swab away a vandal’s attempt to deface the art.
The vandal, who had spray-painted over the Banksy work, was yanked away and shoved to the ground by a crowd.
Except for Banksy’s painting of the Twin Towers in Tribeca, which has been covered by plastic, all of the street artist’s stationary pieces have been defaced by haters or erased by property owners and city crews.
Meanwhile, Banksy put up new work Friday — and this time it comes with its own security.
Installed under the High Line in Chelsea, the work consists of two painted panels, a water cooler, a bench for viewing — and security guards dressed like limo drivers.
One guard who would identify himself only as Irvin said he was hired by the artist through a third-party company.
The 32-year-old man, who was sporting a gold plug earrings and a lower-lip piercing, said security arrived Thursday night and would stay through the weekend.
The exhibit is cordoned off by police tape and set up behind a rolling metal gate that will come down before midnight, said a supervisor for the guards who identified himself only as Derek.
The installment drew rave reviews.
Dan Spellman, 26, a rock-climbing instructor at Brooklyn Boulders, said of Banksy: “It’s pretty rad what he’s doing. It’s awesome. Everyone is so psyched to get out and see it.”
This time-lapse shows Banksy’s Twin Towers piece as it is removed by city workers from the East River Promenade in Brooklyn Heights:
