The larger-than-life, sunglasses-wearing bagel cutout that long stood outside Bo's Bagels on West 116th Street in Harlem is gone, pulled from the sidewalk after a viral video branded it a racist caricature and the shop's own employees started fielding threatening phone calls. The mascot, with its golden grills reading “Harlem World” and a thick gold ring marked “NYC,” had also doubled as the shop's chalkboard sign for years before the backlash forced it into hiding.
The flashpoint came on Monday, October 12, when Harlem-based Black photographer Carl Broady posted an Instagram critique arguing the sign's features recalled racist caricatures historically used to degrade Black people, according to the New York Post. Discussions criticizing the mascot had already begun accumulating online that same day before spreading to Reddit and TikTok, with users zeroing in on what they saw as hip-hop tropes rendered as racial caricature, according to posts on Reddit. Broady called the sign a disrespectful caricature of Black people, per the same New York Post report.
An Influencer's Video Goes Viral
Arts writer Anastazia X, who produces commentary through Black Star Reviews and leads the civic initiative Harlem Votes, amplified the controversy further, calling the mascot a “blackface bagel” and “problematic,” the Post reports. She said the sign simply was not funny and that other artwork inside the shop struck her as a little askew. Anastazia X also pointed out that the shop was white-owned, the outlet notes.
According to the Post's account, Anastazia X said she confronted the store manager during a visit and was told that complaints had already been made and that the owners were aware of them. She said co-founder Andrew Martinez never responded to her message criticizing the mascot — though Martinez, for his part, told the Post he had offered to respond to her email but was ignored. Neither side's version was resolved publicly, per the same report.
Threats Follow the Backlash
Once the video spread, Bo's Bagels employees began receiving threatening phone calls, and other influencers showed up at the shop to film harassing videos, the Post reports. Martinez told the outlet that people contacted his Black employees directly and told them their owners hated them. He said the threats and harassment that followed the viral video are what ultimately forced the mascot off the sidewalk and into storage.
Anastazia X said she never intended her video to become so widely popular and that she hoped the dispute would spark a civil public conversation instead. She apologized for the harassment directed at the owner and employees and said she does not condone or support it, according to the Post's reporting.
Roots in Harlem's Bagel Scene
Bo's Bagels was founded by native New Yorker Andrew Martinez and his wife, Ashley Dikos, who began selling homemade bagels at Harlem's Harvest Home Farmers Market on Lenox Avenue in 2015 before opening the West 116th Street storefront in March 2017, according to the Columbia Spectator. The name combines the initials of Martinez's children, Brody and Olivia, along with the couple's family dog, Bowser, per the Harlem EatUp! guide. When it opened, the shop was widely regarded as Harlem's first dedicated traditional hand-rolled, boiled-and-baked NYC bagel bakery, filling a long-standing gap in Upper Manhattan, according to the Forward. The business has since expanded to Washington Heights and Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with catering partnerships with Columbia University, the Ann Arbor Observer reports. Bo's Bagels uses a 24-hour dough fermentation process and boils its bagels in barley malt before baking, producing between 4,000 and 5,000 bagels daily, per the same Observer account. The Post notes the shop also donates to schools and gives food to homeless shelters.
The Artist Behind the Sign
The mascot was designed by Harlem-based artist Tom Sanford, who is known for pop-surrealist paintings capturing New York City pop culture, sports figures, and neighborhood street scenes, according to Gallery Poulsen. Sanford told the Post he intended the artwork to celebrate the culture and that he views uptown streetwear positively, describing the chains and grills as positive cultural contributions from his neighborhood that entered the mainstream. Sanford also designed life-sized caricatures of the New York Knicks that were displayed inside City Hall in June 2026, after the team won a championship that month, the Post reports — an installation that followed Mayor Zohran Mamdani's invitation to Sanford in April 2026 to showcase his painted wooden Knicks cutouts during the team's playoff run, according to Columbia College Today. In July 2026, Sanford also unveiled “Uptown Visions,” a 40-foot public art installation on the gates of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library on Audubon Terrace, reimagining historic Spanish murals through an Upper Manhattan lens, according to Harlem World Magazine.
Neighbors Split on the Mascot
Harlem residents had mixed opinions about the mascot, per the Post's reporting. Genisha Metcalf, 39, said she did not think the sign amounted to blackface. But another resident, 43, told the outlet that the mascot's gold chains and other imagery resembled old caricatures. By the time a Post reporter visited the shop on Sunday afternoon, the mascot had already been taken down.
