because the Rockefeller Center's management had not permitted Rivera's team to lay the plaster onto a specially built metal substructure which had been developed by Rivera and his principal assistant Clifford Wight so that Rivera's frescoes could be removed from the buildings they decorated if necessary. The mural remained covered until February 1934, when workmen peeled the mural off the wall. Rivera said that the mural's destruction "will advance the cause of the labor revolution", while Rockefeller Center Inc. simply issued a two-sentence press release saying that the walls had been replastered, resulting in the mural's demolition. The destruction caused widespread controversy, with many artists vowing to boycott any future exhibitions or commissions at Rockefeller Center. Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim created paintings in which figures held up newspapers with headlines alluding to the Man at the Crossroads controversy. The communist New Workers School in Manhattan was one of the entities who protested the destruction of Man at the Crossroads. Its leader Bertram Wolfe was one of Rivera's associates and would later become his biographer. Rivera painted 21 frescoes and gave them to the school as a gift for their protests. The protests largely stopped when Robertson released Rivera's previous correspondence about preferring the mural's destruction. Aftermath Despite the disagreement over Man at the Crossroads, Nelson Rockefeller still admired Rivera's work, and the two had an amicable relationship. Years afterward, he would collect paintings and loan them to Rivera's art shows. However, according to Daniel Okrent, his mother felt "betrayed" by Rivera, and they were not known to see each other again after the dispute had subsided. As a result of the controversy, John Rockefeller saw to it that no artwork would be commissioned for Rockefeller Center without his explicit approval. As for Rivera, Bertram Wolfe wrote that the artist commissioned paintings for movements that opposed the Rockefellers' "continued rule". After Man at the Crossroads was demolished, Brangwyn was asked to exclude Jesus Christ from his own mural in the RCA Building's lobby, which depicted the Sermon on the Mount. Todd reportedly made the request because Christ could have been depicted in many different ways, but unlike with Man at the Crossroads, there was very little controversy. Brangwyn wrote to John Rockefeller to ask for reconsideration of this request. Brangwyn's mural, completed in December 1933, ultimately featured a depiction of Christ with his back turned. At the mural's unveiling, Todd