Many an urban internet meme collector can tell you about the 25-year-old Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles—embedded in hundreds of city streets throughout the Western Hemisphere, a cryptic message from an unknown crank: TOYNBEE IDEA IN KUBRICK’s 2001: RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER.

Researchers have traced it back to a handful of tantalizingly vague possible sources: a Philadelphia social worker, a 1983 David Mamet play, etc. There’s even a movie coming out about it, so the above photograph of a NEW Toynbee message which appeared in the middle of Ninth Avenue at 56th Street this morning in Hell’s Kitchen may well be part of a six-figure viral marketing campaign, but after reading about the filmmaker I tend to doubt it. It also doesn’t seem to be of the cheapo “new school” variety the Toynbee Tile scholars have mentioned. This one is very much in the original style, but with an entirely different message:

HOUSE OF HADES
SHOW NO MERCY TO
THE MEAN MACHINE
IN SOCIETY ‘2008…

Framed by the words “PROLETARIOT’S AFFLICTION” [sic].

A message from the Jupiter Liberation Front? The internet offers no leads at the moment, so here’s a first submission.

UPDATE: Justin Duerr of the Resurrect Dead film reports that these “House of Hades” tiles were first spotted up in Buffalo last fall. Here’s a recent sighting.