By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TRIBECA — Analyze this: Shortly after Robert De Niro and Mayor Michael Bloomberg affixed a sticker supporting the 9/11 Memorial to the front door of De Niro’s Locanda Verde restaurant last week, the sticker disappeared.
After DNAinfo's inquires, a new sticker appeared Thursday evening — not on the door, but on a side window, behind a pine tree and several bushes.
Only if passersby look past the shrubs and through the branches can they see the blue, black and white sticker, which is not much bigger than a playing card, from outside De Niro’s restaurant.
Its message reads: “We Support the 9/11 Memorial. Forever Changed. Forever Connected."
De Niro, who is a board member of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, installed the sticker in a ceremony with the mayor as part of the memorial’s “Signs of Support” program, where local business owners get a sticker to place in their windows in return for making a donation.
The purpose of last week’s photo-op was to encourage other businesses to do the same.
A manager at Locanda Verde, who did not give his name, said Thursday afternoon that the sticker put on the front door last week was never intended to be permanent, because it was stuck to the outside of the door, where it was subject to wear and tear and window-washing.
The manager said a new sticker for the inside of the glass would arrive by that evening — and it did. It was installed behind the shrubs.
A spokesman for the 9/11 Memorial Foundation referred comment to Tribeca Enterprises, De Niro’s company, which did not immediately return calls for comment.
