Monkey Art resided in a park in Harlem for decades. It’s finally over.

At first glance, the metal fencing that adorns a public bathroom in a Riverside Park playground seems innocuous. It consisted of four poles, each decorated with an iron monkey with a long tail.

But there were disturbing details. The monkeys were black. They were connected to the grille by their wrists, which were chained. And the park, known as the Ten Mile River Playground, was in Harlem, a predominantly black neighborhood — a fact that seemed no coincidence to many.

Shiloh Frederick, a content creator who focuses on the history of New York City, first heard about the monkeys while reading “The Power Broker,” Robert A. Caro’s groundbreaking 1974 biography of Robert Moses, the parks commissioner who the city transformed through public works. Mr. Moses oversaw the expansion of Riverside Park in the 1930s.

Mr. Caro wrote that Mr. Moses was known for adding details that made his projects “fit in with their surroundings,” usually with the aim of making people feel “at home.”

Public bathroom gates in other parts of Riverside Park featured more neutral decorations, such as “curly waves,” Mr. Caro wrote. But the Harlem playground, he noted, featured monkeys.

Ms Frederick, 28, set out to see the trellis in question for herself in September, filming her expedition for her followers on Instagram and TikTok. She told them she was looking for something she hoped she wouldn’t find.

After all, it had been almost 50 years since “The Power Broker” was published. Mrs. Frederick assumed that the monkeys had settled long ago.

“And look,” she said in an interview, “they were still there.”

Although widely regarded as a visionary, Mr. Moses was also racist — “unashamedly, unapologetically,” Mr. Caro said in a reflection on the writing of “The Power Broker.” How much racism has influenced Mr. Moses’ projects is a source of some debate.

He destroyed Manhattan’s vibrant San Juan Hill neighborhood, home to a large black and Latino population, to make room for Lincoln Center. He built the Cross Bronx Expressway, a highway that cut through several neighborhoods in the South Bronx and displaced thousands of people. And he built bridges whose clearance was too low for public buses, effectively denying low-income people access to some of his parks.

In the reflection, Mr. Caro noted that Mr. Moses kept the water temperature “intentionally frigid” in pools he did not want black people to use. Mr. Caro declined to comment for this article.

Ms. Frederick grew up in Brooklyn and knows how long change can take in the city. So when she found the monkeys in the playground, she was shocked, but not necessarily surprised.

But the response to her video, which quickly racked up nearly 45,000 views on TikTok, far exceeded her expectations.

She started posting New York-focused videos on social media last year and said she enjoyed sharing the city’s history in a vivid way.

“It’s not just dead boys and words on the page,” she said.

But she worried that people would respond to her video about the monkeys by saying that Mr. Moses was just a man of his time and that nothing needed to be done.

“Just because something is old, it doesn’t deserve to be on display forever, especially if the intention behind it was negative,” she said. “Our cities are not just stuck in amber. We don’t just work with what we have. These are living, breathing organisms, right? And they must be adapted to reflect our needs and values.”

Ms. Frederick returned to the playground more than a month later, braving a rainy day to confirm what some of her followers had told her: that the monkeys had finally been taken down.

Her triumphant video confirms the news, as previously reported by the Daily Point and the Columbia Spectatorreceived more than twice as many views as her first.

Kelsey Jean-Baptiste, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, said in a statement that conversations about the “intent and symbolism” of the monkeys had been going on “long before” the video.

“NYC Parks is committed to ensuring that our public spaces are welcoming to all New Yorkers, reflecting the inclusivity and diversity of our great city,” the statement said.

Shaun Abreu, the city council member whose district includes the playground, said he and the Council President had been preparing to announce a $7.4 million renovation of the playground and that the monkeys came up during the planning process.

“There’s not really enough evidence that this was something special that we needed to protect,” Mr. Abreu said. “So we decided to have them removed.”

Ms Frederick said she never intended to become an activist and would continue to keep people informed about the city.

A history buff and New York native, she also said she had complicated feelings about Mr. Moses.

“I don’t necessarily think Robert Moses is a villain or a hero,” Ms. Frederick said. “I would say the monkeys were one of the more negative contributions he made, but he also did a lot of good things for the city.”