A new work of art is being erected in Philadelphia. According to an Aug. 29 article by Edward Sozanski in the Inquirer, the sculpture Brushstroke Group by Roy Lichtenstein is being installed on 17th Street between Ludlow and Ranstead streets, in what was the public space in front of the Union Plaza Building, whose new major tenant is apparently a law firm named Duane Morris, LLP. This firm, to which the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation loaned Brushstroke Group, is paying for the installation.

I was amazed to see the laudatory comments Sozanski lavished upon those involved. I can only characterize this as the confiscation of public space for the creation of a Fort Apache version of public art. The installation is not yet complete, but it's already bounded by a four-foot wall on the Ludlow Street side and 10-foot walls along Ranstead Street, complete with vegetation screens that obstruct public views by another several feet.

"Brushstroke Group announces rather grandly that Duane Morris is passionate about serious art," notes Sozanski. While Duane Morris may be serious about art, they are not serious about sharing that art with the public, even though the work is being erected on what used to be a space open to all.

Sozanski also notes that Duane Morris is "paying to insure the sculpture while it is on loan." Apparently, the developers of this modern-art stronghold believe the public is hostile to Lichtenstein's work. But why the citadel? In Miami Beach, a Lichtenstein piece sits out in the open, totally bereft of walls, barricades and other fortifications, yet it manages to survive undamaged. Are Miamians to be understood as connoisseurs while we are implicitly portrayed as barbarians interested only in the wanton destruction of art? Just what on earth do the developers of this public inconvenience (and apparently Sozanski himself, based on his uncritical reporting of the Duane Morris effort) fear the public will do to Lichtenstein's work that they haven't done to Alexander Calder's Swan Fountain, Rodin's The Thinker or any of the dozens of sculptures around this city?

Sozanski should get around a bit. There are hundreds of pieces of public art — take Picasso's head of a woman in SoHo, for example — that afford anyone the opportunity to walk up and bite the concrete, or urinate on it, if they so desire. Yet somehow this and thousands of other pieces of art manage to survive, just like the Pony Express rider on MLK Drive, which at last notice has not been melted down for its brass content.

I am all for public art and I fully support the work of donors who make generous use of their money to enhance public spaces with cultural installations. It is what makes a city great. But I do not think there was that sort of generosity here, and surely none worth the front-page Inquirer coverage.

What has been done with Brushstoke Group reduces public access to public space — space the city most likely required to remain open as a condition for the building's construction before Duane Morris ever arrived. Sozanski writes that the law firm has effectively converted the space into a private sculpture garden for employees and executives.

There remain, at this writing, two slots through which the public may see the work, but until the fortress is completed, there's no telling if even that scant view will survive.

Yet Sozanski assures the public that they have not been left out of the picture, noting that people may enjoy the piece "from the windows of surrounding buildings." One can only wonder just how Sozanski envisions citizens getting past building guards to gaze through upper-story windows at their confiscated plaza.

Topping off the irony is Lichtenstein's well-known appreciation for the role of public art, and its power to shape social discourse. Indeed, he is remembered for his generosity in this regard.

Lichtenstein once had a show at Castelli's on Greene Street in SoHo, sometime in the 1970s, if I recall. He painted an enormous mural, maybe 15 by 100 feet, on one of the gallery's walls, knowing full well that it would be painted over at the end of the show. He did it just for those who made the effort to come and look. It was his gift to those who wanted to discuss art in public.

To cordon off his work by destroying public space is to misunderstand and misrepresent the artist and his life. I hope the director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation will see fit to require whoever constructed Fort Lichtenstein to take these fortifications down or give the art work back.

Paolo Pezzotta is president of Integrated Transport Planning.