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According to new NYPD statistics, graffiti complaints in Brooklyn rose 96% last year, with arrests in the borough increasing by 33%. Citywide, complaints almost doubled from 4,886 in 2006 to 8,866 in 2007, and total arrests rose from 2,962 to 3,786. Williamsburg leads the tagging trend with a total of 186 complaints.
“It's so expensive here, yet it looks like a dump,” long-time Williamsburg resident Mel Costello, 63, declared to the Daily News. “It's ugly. I don't care about someone's initials I can't make out. [The police] need to clean it up and catch these silly kids.”
But NYPD Assistant Chief Michael Collins blames the statistical surge on a new policy requiring officers to fill our a written report for each and every graffiti complaint. “We believe the increase in graffiti incidents is due to increased reporting, not an upsurge in the crime itself,” Collins explains.
Try telling that to Barbara Caporimo, owner of Shear Ecstasy hair salon in Bay Ridge: “I've had to paint over my [security] gates about 20 times in the past four years.” Her neighborhood took the number 2 slot in graffiti complaints, beating out other heavily tagged hoods such as East New York, Cypress Hills, Bensonhurst, Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay.
Queens D.A. Richard Brown fears the city is slipping back to the early-80s era of graffiti saturation, with a particular increase in gang tagging used to mark territory. At the same time, tagging on subways has decreased 45%; officials say the improvement is thanks to the NYC Transit "Eagle Team", a new anti-graffiti squad launched last fall. Have you noted any increase in tagging in your hood?
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That 63-year old is complaining about graffiti now? Wasn't he around in the 70s and 80s? The subways looks like one big tag barn, inside and out.
It's kind of unclear what borough we're talking about at the beginning.
The increase in graffiti in willy b and greenpoint is due to the increase of GENTRIFICATION. There's been graff there forever. Ever seen the videograff series of documentary footage? Most of that was shot in greenpoint and willy b.
Anyone know what the "Q" thing is in the top left?
that piece is AWESOME.
Anyone know what the "Q" thing is in the top left?
That, my friend, is Quisp.
http://www.quisp.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisp
"Anyone know what the "Q" thing is in the top left?"
Quisp cereal
www.quisp.com
I remember the commercials from when I was a kid but alas, I was never allowed to eat it.
Hendrx81: QUISP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisp
the photo crops out cap'n crunch's ship going down in flames off to the left - the best part!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatkidrich/1236786070/
That is an awesome mural!
I blame Backfat.
Praise the Lord-- we should be so lucky!
Try telling that to Barbara Caporimo, owner of Shear Ecstasy hair salon in Bay Ridge: “I've had to paint over my [security] gates about 20 times in the past four years.”
Yea that piece is awesome. It's on Wythe around n.12th.
Also cropped out are Toucan Sam, Boo & Frankenberry and that coo coo for CoCo Puffs bird.
bring back the subways!
nyc needs more graffiti,
peter vallone is complaining about all city drinks in a graffiti can, but sports authority can have a graffiti backdrop in the 6th ave window display,
bring back graffiti!
yeah, bring back graffiti, crime, low property values and high unemployment. Or move to Detroit.
any real new yorker knows that the mural depicted is not what 99.99% of graffiti looks like - a scribbled initials crapfest.
I guess I don't get it. I hate graffiti as much as the next guy, but this picture doesn't look like graffiti. Putting your (or your gangs) initials to mark "your turf" is a eyesore to the community and should be dealt with (by removing the hands of the "artist" or whatever). But if the owner is okay with something like the above picture, what's the problem?
Or am I just overstating the obvious?
Praise the Lord-- we should be so lucky!
Still waiting to start with Gothamist headquarters. Please give us the street address and we'll bring the paint.
i agree with you bizzle. stuff like this isn't what most people think of as graffiti, and while supposed graffiti lovers like Jake like to pretend this stuff is representative, everyone else knows that it is not.
That grafitti is a lot better to look at than the usual "Bob+Mary" sort of thing I grew up with.
OK, there are two kind of graf. What you see in the photo in this article is a 'piece' (a production, a burner in this particular case it looks tight). That piece was done with permission, planning and infinite time. It looks fantastic, and it looks like art because it is.
Then there are tags and throwups. Sometime in the early 90's bombing and throwups got huge in NYC. Some of them are art. A lot of them are 11 year old kids with a pocketful of bad ideas and stolen cans of rusto. A lot of what people call 'graf' falls into the 90% of stuff out there that is just vandalism. It's a hard line to draw between the two.
The distinction is important. My personal rule is, if your graf makes the world prettier, go for it. If it's petty vandalism centered on self aggrandizement, keep it in a notebook.
@JakeDobkin:
With a few small exceptions, graf in the 80's in NYC blew. It's romantic hindsight. For every SEEN, BLADE and Futura, there were 90,000 toys that just made the city look like a trash heap. Graf in NYC in the 90's shrunk,the streets got grabbed again with tight throwups and, everyone got tough and got crazy. That's the best era for NYC writing. I think JA hit every water tower in Brooklyn. Now graf is a joke. Some of the artists are brilliant, but really...if its' legal it isn't graf.
I just saw this one when walking to Studio B last weekend, and I think somebody should make a book on Graff--- not just pictures, but it's like: here is graff 101, graff 102.... graff advanced
because some of them are really stunning, they way they do the typo in such way is just adorable
39th street N stop in Long Island city... there's new graf there practically every morning.
"new policy requiring officers to fill our a written report for each and every graffiti complaint"...
as i understand it, the reason this is done is that so each single incident/tag/whatever counts as one count, and counts can be piled up to prosecute writers on felony levels; this draconian scheme was implemented by giuliani's "anti-graffiti task force", which i think now goes by the name "anti-vandalism squad". instead of getting a citation or a general misdemeanor, which can easily be expunged or dismissed via community service, the counts pile up exponentially, making "graffiti vandalism" net you more hard time than being arrested with a quarter of weed on you, or a couple of grams of heavier stuff with intent to resell.
graffiti fan or not, thats absurd policy from a legal/manpower/public-perception/civil-rights standpoint.
also: from an urban-folklore point of view, i always wait for punchline statements like "a particular increase in gang tagging used to mark territory" in mainstream-media coverage of the graffiti phenomenon. if you walked around the city and made a specific, statistically-accurate study of graf, i am certain than youd find "gang/territory markings" comprised a small- if not statistically-negligible- percentage, both in number and in total square-footage of paint/tag coverage. this is classic daily news tripe at its best.
additionally, the statement "tagging on subways has decreased 45%" i dont know, but ive seen subway tagging profoundly skyrocket since the lull in the 90s. particularly in the past 5 years or so. to get this figure, they must be looking at the data selectively, perhaps on certain lines, or perhaps not counting "scratchiti" and glass-etch tags in the total. i mean, look at any train. duh.
i dont know, perhaps im ranting, but generalizations like "graffiti complaints in Brooklyn rose 96% last year" are comparatively meaningless... just because people are complaining more doesn't necessarily mean actual incidents are up. someone mentioned gentrification already... and also perhaps widely publicized band-aid public-relations remedies like the nypd's "Eagle Team" have simply increased awareness, and more people feel like they have an avenue to voice their complaints, if not necessarily more of a reason to complain.
cliche as it sounds, i really wish "new york's finest" would focus less on what is ultimately a relatively victim-less crime and redirect their intelligence, manpower and funds towards more prescient problems, you know, like ones regarding public safety.
after all, its not the graffiti that makes people scared of bad neighborhoods, you know?
If NYC crews covered security gates, walls, and whatever else with pieces, then I wouldn't care. I hate the lazy throw-ups and tags just to get names up. They're ugly as hell.
I'd like to introduce whoever keeps tagging "Colt .45" on Bowery to some REAL .45s...