What happened to Banksy’s graffiti portrait of the Gray Ghost?

The British street art superstar Banksy paid a secretive visit to New Orleans in 2008, leaving behind 14 paintings on walls around the city from the Lower Ninth Ward to Uptown. Most have been destroyed or removed. One of the few remaining artworks, a portrait of an anti-graffiti activist known as the Gray Ghost, could be found on the wall of a townhouse at Clio and Carondelet streets. Until recently. The painting, which depicted a shadowy figure in painter’s coveralls applying a patch of gray paint to the wall, is gone. On a visit Saturday, the site of the painting had been neatly covered with panels and painted pink to blend with the building’s first-story façade. The British superstar street artist Banksy’s 2008 painting of Fred ‘The Gray Ghost’ Radtke has been removed from the wall that held it for 16 years. The stencil painting used to be on the side of this townhouse at the corner of Clio and Carondelet Streets (Photo by Doug MacCash NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune) A 2,000-pound painting Happily, the Banksy is safe, and if all goes as planned, will return to its original location. Michael Heyne, the owner of the building where the Banksy...