There’s a really wonderful story by Mark Stryker in the Detroit Freep today about a new piece of Banksy graffiti art posted on a wall of the old Packard plant in Detroit. The tag shows a stenciled little boy with a can of paint, surrounded by the decades of debris. “I remember when all this was trees,” he says.

A photo of the wall is posted on Banksy’s web site, and Flickr photog Detroit Derek also recorded a new Banksy rat on a wall in Detroit.

Last week, after members of Detroit’s 555 Gallery became aware of the Banksy tag, they got a Bobcat forklift and MOVED THE ENTIRE WALL seven miles to their facilities near the Ambassador Bridge — to keep it from being ruined, they said. Of course, that was kind of the point, but let it not be said that entrepreneurialism is dead in Detroit.

The video below shows 555 Gallery founder Carl Goines discussing the effort.

Favorite quote from the Freep story: “This may be unprecedented, because in most other cities, you wouldn’t be able to take a wall home,” said Luis Croquer, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which specializes in cutting-edge art. Well, yes. That is a succint summation of the problem.

Packard plant ruin links: There are many, many photos of the abandoned Packard plant, on Flickr and elsewhere. Here are a few:

• Free Press photo gallery
• Photographer John Penrice photo gallery
• Thousands of Flickr images
• If you look at the “Earth” view on Google maps, you can see fascinating 3D imagery of the ruins. Much detail has been obscured, but you can make out graffiti that says “Epic Decay?” on one wall.