"I am the Best Artist" on the West Broadway facade of 500 Broome Street, ca. 1986.

The mural "I am the Best Artist" is the work of René Moncada, a South American-born artist. He created a number of these self-aggrandizing pieces on walls in SoHo beginning in the 1970s. This mural at West Broadway and Broome was the most prominent, completed in 1986, and measuring 10 foot by 50 foot. It became an iconic and culturally important art piece for the neighborhood and within the NYC art scene, propelling the artist into renown in the art world. The street art here is no longer extant, most of his street art was removed or covered up as the neighborhood began to change and gentrify in the 1990s.