Banksy does Hustler Club in Hells Kitchen

waiting in vain..

at the door of the club

After a one-day hiatus, street artist Banksy returned today with a stencil on the door of the Hustler Club in Hell's Kitchen.

The work depicts a man wearing a tux and holding a wilting bouquet of flowers. On Banksy's website, it's accompanied by the caption "Waiting in vain... at the door of the club."

The Village Voice interprets the picture as  " a stencil of a guy with a bouquet of flowers waiting for a stripper to leave the club."

The New York Post reports:

Hustler Club marketing director Steve Karel said: “We’re honored that Banksy chose the Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club New York to share his art.”

Karel also said that “while we’d love to leave the work in place, it’s required we lift the gate when we open for business.”

“So after the public has the day to enjoy it, we will remove the door to keep it safe from vandals until we determine where it can be displayed in the future — hopefully inside of the club.”

A Hustler Club source said the place was locked up at 6:15 a.m., but someone came and hung a tarp over the gate two minutes later, then spent 43 minutes behind it.

Beefy guards were quickly posted to protect the potential goldmine.

Earlier this year, a Banksy mural removed from the side of a London building sold for $1.1 million.

Several dancers posed for photos with the Banksy just before workers began removing the gate for safekeeping around 6:30 p.m.

Almost immediately after the graffiti artist unveiled his latest creation on the side of a West Side jiggle joint, a nearby sign company began hawking magnets and prints of the spray-painted image Thursday morning.

Dean Landry, of Certified Graphics on West 51st Street, said he spotted the piece on a rolldown gate at the entrance to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club while walking to work around 8 a.m., then grabbed a camera and snapped some photos.

“We were printing by 8:30,” Landry said.

The rush products were offered at $5 for a 3-by-4-inch magnet, $10 for a 6-by-9 version and $20 for an 11-by-17 print, and got snapped up by many of the hundreds of Banksy fans who flocked to the Hell’s Kitchen site.