Media Alert: Another Graffiti Arrest

Graffiti artist PINZ was arrested yesterday, the second graffiti arrest this week. This confirms Gothamist's suspicions that anti-graffiti vandalism is a top PR initiative with the NYPD and that this is Mayor Bloomberg's third attempt at stifling all kinds of seedy culture (the other two being smoking and noise). We expect to see about one graffiti story a week for the next month or so, then maybe the Mayor will take on illegal file sharing.

It's sort of funny how the NY Post explains the graffiti subculture to its readers; Larosa was an "All City" tagger, "the title other taggers give people who have achieved the highest level of recognition among their underground peers." But what Gothamist must get our hands on is the NYPD's Citywide Vandal Task Force book.

The book holds some 70 of the most prolific taggers in town, and is being used by cops all over town in a new crackdown. The 70 in the graffiti rogues gallery include four woman and several tourists, who cops say come to New York simply to spray their tags. One of them is French national Raoul Perre, who goes by the tag HOW.

Well, that's not so bad - Gothamist thought the mayor wanted foreigners to come to New York!

Flickr's graffiti photos and, of all things, an eighth-grade lesson plan on how to design your own tag. Really. Oh, and we're using the Hitchcock stencil just because.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on January 21, 2005 9:25 AM

Comments [rss]

booya

graffit IS a crime and its not a stupid culture or tradition and not all vandals shud be considered "artists". graffiti is writing ur name evrywhere u go and saying i was here and leaving ur mark. is that so wrong?

blis

wtf are u talking about graffiti is beautifull who cares if its bad thoes are the ppl who r gonna keep our culture alive

WHAT WE DO ISNT A CRIME, WE EXPRESS OUR SELVES THROUGHT IT

fineasspimp

mr. face was arrested two days ago in l.a. while on manuevers with shep fairey.

helecopters and all that shit. interesting.

ichbinjenny

re: i love you...

i doubt its in the book. s/he's too new. neckface would be a better bet.

toyochin

I wonder if "i love you" is in that book.

Probably.

If they catch "i love you" or neckface, my computer's going to explode from all the excitement among NYC bloggers.

cc

Bad graffiti "artists", i.e. people who just tag their name in ghetto letters, should be arrested. Good graffiti artists who either create beautiful images or write things that make you think, or laugh, or feel something, should be given a grant to beautify the city. I especially loved James De La Vega. Whatever happened to him?

JarJar

That shot does closely resemble the chairman himself, but he's missing his cap.

kk

I wonder if "i love you" is in that book.

S.D.

Lucy, it's possible for SPAMMERS to "harvest" SMTP Email's from Gothamist by programmatically drilling down the links and pulling anything with an @ sign. Me, I use a Yahoo account here instead of putting my normal address.

Lucy

I know this is off topic, but ever since I posted in the comments section of Gothamist a couple of weeks ago, I've been getting an unheard of amount of those spammy-scammy emails which claim to be from people trying to make deposits from South Africa. I wondered if this was a result of posting my email address here. It's incredibly annoying---is anyone else having this problem as a result of a Gothamist post?

Alick

I would think that about 1% or less graffiti "artists" are actually artists. The other 99% spray their damn tags everywhere because it's "cool." I see no cultural value in a bunch of morons spraypainting other people's property.

I always wondered if they spray all over their own buildings. If someone sprayed another graffiti artist's apt. would that be vandalism or art?

S.D.

Yes!!

Just Kidding. Mayor mike must have noticed that "Quality of Life" Crimes help Make the Mayor Guilliani popular.

Is It just me, or does that shot of Alfred Hitchcock bear a passing resemblence to Mao Tse Tung??