From amNY's daily "Watch It" video, usually on Page 2 in the paper, we bring you Irene Cara and Gene Anthony Ray reminding you to stop the graffiti madness. The memorable slogan? "Make your mark in society, not on society."
Thought you'd never be inside a graffiti-covered train again? Check out this video from 1987. -- Rolando Pujol
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced today that three people have been charged with defacing an "L" train subway tunnel with graffiti. The release follows:
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that three alleged members of a major graffiti crew have been indicted on charges of causing more than $10,000 in damage by vandalizing one of the L line subway tunnels and emergency exits with spray paint. Two of the alleged crew members are also charged with spray painting their tags on two Long Island City buildings a month earlier.
District Attorney Brown said, "Graffiti is a symptom of criminality and negatively affects the quality of life of all citizens through decreased property values, increased taxes and a financial burden on affected businesses and homes. City officials and anti-graffiti activists have done a remarkable job over the years in cleaning up New York City’s image as a graffiti-scarred city. We cannot allow individuals to mar the beauty of our City and threaten to return us to the days when our transit system and our highways and buildings were covered with graffiti."
The District Attorney identified the defendants as Miles Wickham, 22, (a/k/a RESKEW, RSKW and RW), of 404 5th Street; Michael Baca, 22, (a/k/a 2ESAE - pronounced Too Easy), of 545 Meeker Avenue; and Raul Mendez, 35 (a/k/a DRO), of 1738 East New York Avenue, all of Brooklyn.
The three defendants, who are alleged members of ACC (which stands for All City Crew and Another Crime Committed) are variously charged in a 43-count indictment with second- and fourth-degree criminal mischief, making graffiti and third-degree criminal trespass. If convicted, each of the defendants faces up to seven years in prison.
The District Attorney said that, according to the charges, the three defendants illegally entered the "L" line subway tunnel between the Halsey and Wilson Streets station, which borders both Queens and Kings Counties, in June 2006 and videotaped themselves defacing the tunnel walls and emergency exit # 197 by spray painting their personal tags and the tag ACC. As a result, it is alleged their actions caused more than $10,000 in damage to the property. It is further alleged that, a month earlier, the defendants Baca and Mendez caused more than $500 in damage to each of two Long Island City buildings by spray painting their tags on a Pathmark Supermarket located at 42-02 Northern Boulevard and on a warehouse located at 38-30 43rd Street.
The videotape was recovered from the vehicle of one of the defendants when Wickham and Mendez were arrested in Brooklyn on July 3, 2006 on criminal mischief charges.
The three defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment on May 2, 2007, in Queens County Supreme Court in Kew Gardens.
The investigation was conducted by Police Officer Paul Appleton and Sergeant Robert Colon, of the Transit Bureau Citywide Vandals Task Force, under the supervision of Captain Elwood Selover, Commanding Officer, and by Detective Anthony Navarro and Sergeant Kevin Cooper, of the Transit Bureau Special Investigations Unit, under the supervision of Lieutenant Paul Murphy, Commanding Officer.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Michael Brovner of the District Attorney’s Gang Violence and Hate Crimes Bureau is prosecuting the three cases under the supervision of Mariela Palomino Herring, Bureau Chief, and Michele E. Goldstein, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James Clark Quinn and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorneys for Trials John H. Larsen and Robert Masters
It should be noted that an indictment is merely an accusation and that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Just an addendum to today’s amNY story about the subway graffiti publicity stunt happening today.
Five out of the seven graffiti artists could come from Euroland.
Only one is a native New Yorker (who goes by the moniker Jersey Joe)
Skore: United Kingdom
Can2: Germany
Atom: Germany
Scien: France
Smart: Italy
Siloette: California
Rime aka Jersey Joe: Born in Brooklyn, lives in California
I wonder if they’ll be painting the subway cars to the tunes of Kraftwerk.
-- Chuck Bennett
We’re still waiting for Peter Vallone Jr. to come out yelling on this one. He's been oddly silent so far...
Anyway, Tuesday “seven of the world’s most highly respected graffiti artists” will hit full-sized replica subway cars in an Adidas and Foot Locker promotion.
The publicity stunt is on Houston and Lafayette St. from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and we’re guessing the taggers will be all be sporting the latest Adidas sneakers.
It sounds lame on so many different levels.
-- Chuck Bennett
Heaven forbid, Mark Ecko let the news cycle pass without a comment. This just came from his rep -- about his buddy getting busted for subway graffiti.
"I have no knowledge of the case. However, I do consider myself a good friend of Alain's and, as a matter of policy, I don't comment on friends' personal lives. As always, if the city is denying civil liberties or unfairly targeting its youth, I will consider utilizing my personal resources to fight it," stated Marc Ecko, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Marc Ecko Enterprises.
-- Chuck Bennett
Reacting to a news report that an Ecko associate Alain Mariduena, 36, was busted yesterday for allegedly tagging subway cars with spray paint, Vallone renewed his fight with the hiphop designer.
"Maybe this guy was showing off what he learned at his boss's fake subway car graffiti fest. It's clear that neither Mark Ecko nor his associates care about the difference between real art and vandalism. We can see the writing on the wall, or should I say subway: all Mark Ecko cares about is promoting criminal behavior for commercial profit," Vallone said. "Now we know why Ecko's attorney spends so much effort trying to keep graffiti tools on the street: so he can make money defending kids when they are arrested for using them."
Ecko and Vallone are arch-enemies.
Back in August 2005, Vallone railed at Ecko’s “graffiti block party” that allowed folks to tag fake subway cars in Manhattan.
Ecko, real name Mark Milecofsky, repaid the favor. Last April he paid the legal of fees of seven teens who sued the city over a law than banned possession of markers by people under 21. That law was sponsored by Vallone. The kids won.
And what entry would be complete without a mention of either Ecko’s oversized fashions or lame videogames, or Vallone’s political ambitions since he is term-limited out of the City Council. It’s all for the publicity folks.
-- Chuck Bennett
Photo from Ecko’s graffiti party via Kings of New York
This time in the London Underground -- two teens killed while running from security after being spotted tagging.
From AFP:
Two young men were killed by a London underground train while fleeing security staff who allegedly saw them spraying graffiti, police said.
The two, aged 19 and 21, were hit by a westbound train at Barking station in east London around 11:00 pm (2300 GMT) Friday, but they might also have been struck by a second train, a British Transport Police (BTP) spokesman said.
"One train killed them but I believe they came into contact with another moving train," he said.
Two weeks ago, a 13-old-boy was killed by a LIRR train where he may have been painting graffiti.
-- Chuck Bennett
Major hits by graffiti vandals (or artists) are up this year, NYPD Transit Chief tells the Tracker.
There were 90 “layup” hits in 2005 compared to 128 so far this year. A layup hit is when a subway car is spray painted on the outside (typically old school style) when its parked overnight in a tunnel or yard.
Once hit, the MTA takes the cars out of service to be scrubbed clain. Policy prohibits a marked car from running.
Arrests, likewise, have jumped from just 5 in 2005 to 28 this year for those major hits. And yes, some of them are Euros.
“Certainly you have foreign nationals that do come to the city to do this but if you go back 10 years earlier you didn’t have widespread use of the the Internet. It’s really a canvas for them to put out all of the world. Artists are competing with each other to put their product out so everyone in the world can see,” Hall said.
But, to keep the locals in check, Hall said, detectives are being more aggressive in matching tags and styles to the individual writer (or vandal). One vandal (or writer) DOE was recently busted that way, he said.
“Now they can build cases on these guys with multiple hits either in transir or up above ground,” he said.
-- Chuck Bennett
This just came over from NYC Transit -- just how the work crews got to scrub clean the trains every time they are hit by a "writer" or vandal depending on your point of view.
The photos are of NYC Transit Car Equipment Cleaners cleaning graffiti from one of our trains. The photos were taken at the Coney Island Maintenance Shop on March 13th, 2006. Courtesy NYC Transit.
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Reacting to the Daily News story about "eurotrash" coming to New York City to tag subway cars, Transit Bureau Chief James Hall downplayed the role of the foreigners at the MTA committee meeting this morning.
"The most prolific taggers this year are homegrown," he said. So far, 31 people were busted for major hits of subway cars in "layup" tracks in the tunnels or yards. Of those, four were foreign -- Three Slovaks and an Aussie.
"I don't think its wise to put all your eggis in a European basket," he said.
But with vandalism on the rise, Hall said he assigned new "pitbull detectives" to get the offenders.
"Although you did a hit in June they may be knocking on your door in October," he said.
Hall did acknowledge that a new tagging culture encourages people to spray paint on cars and photograph it for the Internet -- even though the "art" will be promptly erased.
"It has a lot to do with bragging rights," he said.
Here's a list of Euro "tagger crews."
-- Chuck Bennett
Those MTA anti-vandalism ads prompted us at Tracker to do a double-take. Stand close to one and you see scratchitti on the big headlines. Our first thought was to savor the vandalization of an anti-vandalism ad. But on closer inspection, we saw the "vandalism" was the ad designer's very own.
And over at Gawker, there's talk about those ubiquitous ads from the School of Visual Arts that ask aspiring artists (and everyone else, really) "How bad do you want to be good?" But just how good are the ads? 
-- Rolando Pujol
When it rains, it floods: The Sun has a good look at the MTA's efforts to pump flood waters from the system. The problem never goes away, as these frazzled people at your left found out as they tried to squeeze into a packed F train at Roosevelt Avenue during an epic September 2004 flood. [New York Sun via Gothamist]
Playing with fire (and water): He allegedly wanted to flood lower Manhattan by destroying tunnels below the Hudson. Now we learn the suspected tunnel bomb plotter also wanted to set California wildfires, according to federal officials. [AP via amNewYork]
Despair and delusion: Curbed has funny photos of signs from the future site of the Fulton Street transit hub. One tenant warns of the pending MTA doomsday, and the other, well, just take a look. [Curbed.com]
The blogging-tagging link: New York magazine's awesome graffiti article prompts thoughts on how blogging and graffiti cultures are similar. [ohword.com] And more on the Brooklyn Museum graffiti show here and here.
-- Rolando Pujol
Photo: Jason DeCrow for Newsday
The subways have come a long way from May 12, 1989, the day the war on graffiti was declared won. But in truth, transit workers have long been spending nights quietly erasing a day's worth of damage. And their work is getting harder with the recent resurgence in graffiti. Since that milestone 17 years ago, most of the train vandalism that I've run across has been in the form of acid etching and scratchitti. But car 2069 on the No. 7 line at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday told a different story, one that had the faint air of the kind of subway experience of a generation ago -- the New York of "Death Wish" and "The Warriors". Virtually every door inside this car was tagged. The photos speak for themselves. Click on thumbnails:
-- Rolando Pujol
The return of subway graffiti, and the MTA's battle to keep the scourge in check, grabbed lots of headlines today. Other stories making news down below:
The Fulton follies: We reported yesterday here on the latest problems facing the downtown answer to Grand Central. The project, a big art of lower Manhattan's resurgence, may be scaled back. [The New York Times]
Break out the hard hats: An overview of the city's seemingly sudden explosion in transit projects. [McGraw-Hill Construction]
Pets in a storm: When disaster strikes, people, not Fido, come first, Bloomie says. [The New York Sun]
Meet your neighbor: Breaking down who's on the train with you in the morning. [graphpaper via Gothamist]
-- Rolando Pujol
Police with the Transit Bureau and Vandal Squad surf the Web daily looking for sites where tagger’s post their work. Sometimes they even pretend to be fellow taggers and try to set up meetings, Transit Bureau Chief James Hall said today at MTA headquarters.
When these kids -- most under are under 25 -- are busted they typically have digital cameras in their bags along with paint and etching acid.
Here are a couple tagger or writer sites:
Although it seems a lot of these guys are legit artists who can do murals, TV/movie sets, clothing etc.
-- Chuck Bennett
Marc Ecko, the former graffiti artist and fashion designer, doesn’t think subway scratchiti is art.
“That is illegal vandalism, there is a distinction,” he said.
Today a Manhattan judge ruled in his favor that the city can’t ban the sale and possession of spray paint and broad-tipped markers to anyone between the ages of 18 through 21. Etching acid is still off-limits.
-- Chuck Bennett
The New York Post has two subway-related crime stories.
A 24-year-old “acid” tagger was busted by cops in Bensonhurst.
“He's known to us as the worst of the worst vandals, and he has a lot of newly painted graffiti across the city,” according to Sgt. James Gueric.
The MTA is studying how to stop the “scourge” of acid etching on the subway.
Also, a “groper” on the No. 6 train was busted for harassing a poor woman between 125th St. and 86th St. yesterday.
At least, New York City isn’t so bad we need pink-stickered “women only” trains to thwart the pervs like in Rio De Janeiro. The Tokyo subway is also notorious for gropers.
-- Chuck Bennett
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