12/1/2023 0 Comments Julien blanc“And it causes delays and is a symptom of the larger issues that we’re facing as a society and as a system.” “It’s expensive to clean,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent targeting graffiti from 1972 until 1989, when the MTA took what it said was the last train covered by graffiti out of service to be scrubbed clean. ![]() The MTA said it expects to spend more than $1 million in 2022 on graffiti-related costs, as it has the previous two years. “But with the arrival of social media, they don’t really have that as a fighting tactic anymore.” The Cost of Paint “The MTA’s line of thinking was that if you remove the train from service instantly, you never let anyone see it and you take away the motivation immediately,” said Felisbret, the author of “Graffiti New York” and founder of, which chronicles subway graffiti history. The short-lived sizzle driven by social-media photos and videos of spray-painted trains, which the MTA quickly removes from passenger service, has contributed to the subway graffiti resurgence, according to veterans of the scene. “To them, it’s like the holy grail to come to New York City and paint a subway car - they take that glory with them and have that notch on their belt, but they have to understand it’s not as glorious as it seems.” “I’ve seen what it’s done to my friends and also the kids coming from overseas,” he said. Vilomar, who is in his 60s and remains active as a street artist, said he quit spray painting in the subway after a friend was fatally struck by a train in the 1970s. “It’s a risky game to play and I’m sorry their lives were lost.” “It was a hotspot when I was teenager, but getting into that location, you have to have timing and luck, you understand?” he said. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITYįred Vilomar, who tagged trains as “REE” from 1973 to 1977, said the area in Brownsville has been “well known” in street-art circles for decades. “That folklore has gotten to the community in Europe, so for the European writers, it’s a pilgrimage.”Ī Manhattan-bound 3 train enters a tunnel just before the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn, May 5, 2022. “They go to places that were well known in the 70s and 80s,” said Louie Gasparro, an actor and artist whose graffiti tag was KR.ONE. The area near the elevated Sutter Avenue-Rutland Road station in Brownsville where Blanc and Audbert’s bodies were found early on April 20 is near an underground layup area, transit workers told THE CITY, and veteran graffiti artists said it has long attracted people who want to leave their mark on the subway. ![]() “As restrictions on international travel have lifted, we have seen an increase in layup graffiti incidents,” said the spokesperson, Lt. “These acts are costly to the MTA and taxpayers, and often extremely dangerous.” ‘It’s a Pilgrimage’Īn NYPD spokesperson said trains stored in so-called layup areas are primarily targeted “by individuals living overseas.” “The MTA considers acts of vandalism to be unacceptable,” Sean Butler, a spokesperson for the agency, told THE CITY. There were 59 for the week starting April 25, days after the two deaths.Īmong the graffiti showpieces last month was a B train subway car emblazoned with “Let’s Go Yankees” in Bomber colors and pinstripes. The rise in underground artistry is evident on the MTA website, where the agency posts weekly updates for “incidents of vandalism” in the transit system.įor the week starting March 28, the MTA tallied 73 occurrences of subway graffiti, followed by 68 the next week - by far, the highest weekly totals since the MTA began posting the numbers in August 2020. ![]() Young, rich workers are fleeing New York and California-here's where they're goingīut after that number fell again to 208 in 2020, according to the MTA, subway graffiti shot up in 2021 and is on pace to blow past the 300 total reports from last year - with 89% occurring in tunnels and tracks where out-of-service trains are stored.
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