Unofficial guardian D. Eroll Cayard paints the Michael Jackson tribute fence. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

Gone is the sky-blue plywood fence on which grieving fans wrote or pasted tributes to Michael Jackson next to the Apollo Theater last summer. Instead, laminated posters on a rusty iron fence announce, “The Michael Jackson tribute wall has been donated to the Apollo Theater for preservation as part of the Apollo Theater Archive Project.”

On the day of Jackson’s death, fans from all over the United States and the world began flocking to the theater, where the Jackson Five performed and won an Amateur Night competition in 1969. The Apollo held memorial events on June 30, including a service and a temporary tribute wall. But fans had already started writing all over the 100-foot long blue wood wall encircling the empty lot next door. “RIP Michael.” “On t’aime Michael.” (We love you Michael) “Forever King.” The tributes, written in blue, black, orange or green, shared space with stencils of the star moonwalking.

Two weeks ago, “We took it down in pieces and labeled them to have their order in case we put the fence up together again,” said the theater’s tour manager Billy Mitchell, nicknamed “Mr. Apollo.” “Then we trucked it to a warehouse where our archives are.” The fence was donated by lot owners Harlem USA, said spokesperson Nina Flowers, adding that the Apollo was still considering where to display the fence. The first piece will go to the Hip Hop Cultural Center in Harlem, she said.

A rusty fence now replaces the sky-blue one. Posters announce the tribute wall was donated to the Apollo Theater. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

In line for an open house at the Apollo this month, dancer Loretta Abbott said she approved of the move. “This is history,” she said, gesturing towards the Apollo Theater, “and he was history. Where else would it go? They created a lot of stars here, and he’s a legend”.

Most passersby pay scant attention to the fence now, except for admiring the portrait of Jackson someone painted on the sidewalk. But only a few weeks ago, the blue fence had its own guardian. “I remember the man who used to guard the fence,” Abbott said. “We talked once for a bit, but I don’t remember much about him, except he idolized Michael Jackson”.

“The man who used to guard the fence” was D. Eroll Cayard, 53, a Haitian-American who could be found every day protecting the tribute and quickly becoming a part of the landscape of 125th Street.

An artist from Miami, Cayard was painting in Brooklyn when he heard on BET that Jackson was in a hospital in critical condition. Cayard’s first thought was, “Oh my God, what a publicity stunt for the tour!”

But it was no stunt. A few days later, when a friend drove him to the fence, Cayard saw hundreds of people stopping by to write tributes or draw farewells for Jackson. “That made me very emotional,” Cayard said. He started painting abstract portraits of Michael Jackson, which drew other mourners’ attention. “They told me ‘Keep it up, man!’ So I decided to start taking leadership of the shrine.”

For weeks, Cayard camped around the corner, under a makeshift tent concocted from a huge multicolored beach umbrella and tribute-covered bed sheets he collected from the wall. Several times a day, he walked from his tent to the fence, wearing a black fedora and a Michael Jackson T-shirt, with a can of paint, or glue, or string in his pocket. “If I see offensive words written in big letters over somebody else’s words, I paint over it,” Cayard explained in an interview at the time. The glue was for repairs, the string to attach flowers or notes left by fans. He also supplied new bed sheets for them to write on without covering previous visitors’ words.

“I’m not the only artist here,” Cayard used to say. “It’s the biggest art piece made by people of the world.

Cayard left for Brooklyn in September and has been staying there since. He had intended to return to Miami, but wanted to stay in New York for a while, “spreading the word about the Michael Jackson fence.

That the Apollo Theater had stored the fence in its archives was “a great thing”, Cayard said, but he still hoped the Smithsonian could acquire part of the fence and exhibit it around the world, making it the “United Nations Wall for Michael Jackson” he always dreamed of.