Post by Libyan Sibyl on Dec 20, 2007 8:33:37 GMT -5
There has been some discussions about graffiti and this story was in today's Star Ledger. There is some graffiti in the borough, but the extent I don't know. It was first reported on this site from someone who attending a council meeting. So it is not this site making the story up. I found the graffiti Brian referenced - "AAA" with the middle A upside down. Around the corner of that is another random "A" and some other graffiti. It looks pretty random and not part of something larger, but who knows. This particular graffiti is behind the Remax on the walk between Main Street and the parking area. Marc LeVine would make a "broken windows" comment regarding this.
www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1198128947182250.xml&coll=1
Up against the scrawl
A rash of graffiti tests resources of cities like Elizabeth
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BY JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
In a dark corner of the Elizabeth public works depot is a deep bin, filled to the top with hundreds of graffiti-scrawled street signs on their way to the scrap yard.
Dank and dusty, the pile looks as if it had been accumulating for months, if not years.
\But for a city averaging nearly 100 vandalized signs a week, the heap in the corner represents a few weeks' damage.
Police in towns around the state say the renegade art of the 1980s is making a prolific resurgence, driven at least partially by a force far removed from graffiti's low-tech urban roots -- the Internet.
Like car enthusiasts swapping pictures of their Hondas online, local graffiti writers have used Web sites like MySpace to share their work with the larger graffiti community. The sites provide an open platform for amateurs who would otherwise bomb in obscurity. A quick search on YouTube, for instance, turns up hundreds of amateur graffiti sketches, each with a long list of admiring comments from other writers.
"This is their art, their hobby, and now with the Internet, they can prove their signatures," said Lt. Dan Saulnier of the Elizabeth Police Department. "You can spray it, take a picture with your phone and send it to your friend the minute you do it. ... Now everyone can see your tag, how high it is, how difficult it was to do."
While the Internet has made it easier for writers to gain recognition, it has made it tougher-- and more expensive -- for police and public works departments to keep their cities undefaced.
Authorities say the graffiti trend has shifted from the whimsical murals once seen on New York subway cars to crude, repetitive tags scrawled on everything from overpasses to picket fences. Written in spray paint, marker or even shoe polish, the tags are thrown up in a matter of seconds, with quantity and visibility taking precedence over quality and creativity. In a single night, authorities say a tagger can hit dozens of locations in multiple towns, leaving hours of clean-up work in his wake.
"It's not about just not having space to do your art, it's about getting your signature out there in as many places as you can," said Elizabeth city spokesman Bill Reyes.
Elizabeth has spent more than $135,000 this year on graffiti-removal supplies, including paint sprayers and power washers. Through a state grant, the city has tripled its four-man cleanup crew.
Working six days a week, the crew is tallying 450 cleanup jobs a month.
As two of his men recently painted over tags on the side of an Elizabeth Avenue business, graffiti crew supervisor Tim Misdom said: "This wall has probably been painted a dozen times already and I personally painted it myself two weeks ago. Sometimes I think the guys that do this watch us paint over."
Several days a week, community relations specialist Bob Crumm is out with juvenile taggers who have been ordered to clean up their handiwork.
The city is also replacing roughly 85 ruined street signs a week, at a cost of $50 to $75 a sign. Replacing the signs now accounts for more than half the work at the city's sign shop.
"I've been here 16 years, and it's never been like this with the signs," said city sign maker Joe Cunningham.
CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION
Afflicted towns have combined aggressive cleanup with strict enforcement of anti-graffiti measures.
In Kenilworth, an ordinance passed this year imposes strict fines and community service for taggers, while it requires private property owners to clean up graffiti in a timely manner.
"It's definitely something that seems to be increasing," said Mayor Gregg David. "It's not like any kind of epidemic, but as the current mayor I'm looking to nip it in the bud ... and get it cleaned up quickly when it does happen."
In New Brunswick, the police have enlisted the help of Home Depot, which donates the paint and brushes used by teens ordered to perform community service.
And in Linden, police have started sharing information with neighboring Elizabeth in hopes of collaring taggers operating on both sides of the border. Like Saulnier in Elizabeth, Linden Police Lt. Raymond Tyra said most of the graffiti isn't the work of professional artists or gang members marking their territory, but taggers intoxicated by the potential for fame.
"They're not into hanging out on street corners or selling drugs or doing anything you'd normally associate gang members with. ... They're just out there to be seen," Tyra said. "And now they can throw it up on video, send it out to the world and have people pick up on their style. I guess it makes them feel more powerful."
William Benzon, a culture writer who is working on a book about Jersey City graffiti, said graffiti on the Internet is just a new incarnation of an old tradition.
"Going back to the old subway days, simply taking photographs of your work and sharing them was part of the culture, because you never knew how long something was going to stay on the train," Benzon said. "So when the Internet came along, it was natural for the writers to gravitate to it."
Elizabeth has had some recent success with sting operations targeting stores that sell spray paint to minors, and will soon be distributing signs reminding store owners that such sales are against the law. And Elizabeth and Linden have snared taggers by staking out graffiti hot spots.
But Omar Baker, a member of Elizabeth's graffiti cleanup crew, said the best deterrent is still the old-fashioned can of paint.
"I'll use the words of Joe Clark in 'Lean on Me': If graffiti goes up, it comes down the next day," said Baker as he applied fresh red paint over a light blue tag. "At some point, they're not going to keep spending their salary on paint, because they know they can't outdo the city."
Jonathan Casiano may be reached at (908) 527-4012 or jcasiano@starledger.com.
www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1198128947182250.xml&coll=1
Up against the scrawl
A rash of graffiti tests resources of cities like Elizabeth
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BY JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
In a dark corner of the Elizabeth public works depot is a deep bin, filled to the top with hundreds of graffiti-scrawled street signs on their way to the scrap yard.
Dank and dusty, the pile looks as if it had been accumulating for months, if not years.
\But for a city averaging nearly 100 vandalized signs a week, the heap in the corner represents a few weeks' damage.
Police in towns around the state say the renegade art of the 1980s is making a prolific resurgence, driven at least partially by a force far removed from graffiti's low-tech urban roots -- the Internet.
Like car enthusiasts swapping pictures of their Hondas online, local graffiti writers have used Web sites like MySpace to share their work with the larger graffiti community. The sites provide an open platform for amateurs who would otherwise bomb in obscurity. A quick search on YouTube, for instance, turns up hundreds of amateur graffiti sketches, each with a long list of admiring comments from other writers.
"This is their art, their hobby, and now with the Internet, they can prove their signatures," said Lt. Dan Saulnier of the Elizabeth Police Department. "You can spray it, take a picture with your phone and send it to your friend the minute you do it. ... Now everyone can see your tag, how high it is, how difficult it was to do."
While the Internet has made it easier for writers to gain recognition, it has made it tougher-- and more expensive -- for police and public works departments to keep their cities undefaced.
Authorities say the graffiti trend has shifted from the whimsical murals once seen on New York subway cars to crude, repetitive tags scrawled on everything from overpasses to picket fences. Written in spray paint, marker or even shoe polish, the tags are thrown up in a matter of seconds, with quantity and visibility taking precedence over quality and creativity. In a single night, authorities say a tagger can hit dozens of locations in multiple towns, leaving hours of clean-up work in his wake.
"It's not about just not having space to do your art, it's about getting your signature out there in as many places as you can," said Elizabeth city spokesman Bill Reyes.
Elizabeth has spent more than $135,000 this year on graffiti-removal supplies, including paint sprayers and power washers. Through a state grant, the city has tripled its four-man cleanup crew.
Working six days a week, the crew is tallying 450 cleanup jobs a month.
As two of his men recently painted over tags on the side of an Elizabeth Avenue business, graffiti crew supervisor Tim Misdom said: "This wall has probably been painted a dozen times already and I personally painted it myself two weeks ago. Sometimes I think the guys that do this watch us paint over."
Several days a week, community relations specialist Bob Crumm is out with juvenile taggers who have been ordered to clean up their handiwork.
The city is also replacing roughly 85 ruined street signs a week, at a cost of $50 to $75 a sign. Replacing the signs now accounts for more than half the work at the city's sign shop.
"I've been here 16 years, and it's never been like this with the signs," said city sign maker Joe Cunningham.
CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION
Afflicted towns have combined aggressive cleanup with strict enforcement of anti-graffiti measures.
In Kenilworth, an ordinance passed this year imposes strict fines and community service for taggers, while it requires private property owners to clean up graffiti in a timely manner.
"It's definitely something that seems to be increasing," said Mayor Gregg David. "It's not like any kind of epidemic, but as the current mayor I'm looking to nip it in the bud ... and get it cleaned up quickly when it does happen."
In New Brunswick, the police have enlisted the help of Home Depot, which donates the paint and brushes used by teens ordered to perform community service.
And in Linden, police have started sharing information with neighboring Elizabeth in hopes of collaring taggers operating on both sides of the border. Like Saulnier in Elizabeth, Linden Police Lt. Raymond Tyra said most of the graffiti isn't the work of professional artists or gang members marking their territory, but taggers intoxicated by the potential for fame.
"They're not into hanging out on street corners or selling drugs or doing anything you'd normally associate gang members with. ... They're just out there to be seen," Tyra said. "And now they can throw it up on video, send it out to the world and have people pick up on their style. I guess it makes them feel more powerful."
William Benzon, a culture writer who is working on a book about Jersey City graffiti, said graffiti on the Internet is just a new incarnation of an old tradition.
"Going back to the old subway days, simply taking photographs of your work and sharing them was part of the culture, because you never knew how long something was going to stay on the train," Benzon said. "So when the Internet came along, it was natural for the writers to gravitate to it."
Elizabeth has had some recent success with sting operations targeting stores that sell spray paint to minors, and will soon be distributing signs reminding store owners that such sales are against the law. And Elizabeth and Linden have snared taggers by staking out graffiti hot spots.
But Omar Baker, a member of Elizabeth's graffiti cleanup crew, said the best deterrent is still the old-fashioned can of paint.
"I'll use the words of Joe Clark in 'Lean on Me': If graffiti goes up, it comes down the next day," said Baker as he applied fresh red paint over a light blue tag. "At some point, they're not going to keep spending their salary on paint, because they know they can't outdo the city."
Jonathan Casiano may be reached at (908) 527-4012 or jcasiano@starledger.com.
