Writings
On The Wall:
Keeping Queens Clean
In The War Against Graffiti
By NICK ABADJIAN
As we spend more time outdoors with the arrival of warmer weather,
it’s hard not to notice that flowers aren’t the only things springing up
throughout the borough – graffiti scrawls and tags are cropping up all over Queens
but officials from around town are coming together to fight this scourge of our streets.
A Look Into The World Of
Graffiti |
Last week, NYPD officials held a conference with civic
groups and anti-graffiti volunteers throughout Queens on how to identify the messages of
graffiti and the importance of eradicating it.
There’s no glory in Queens graffiti as neighborhoods and
the police keep covering over the writing on the wall. |
Officer Anthony Mattola from the Detectives Bureau of Staten
Island discussed the different types of graffiti.
"When I talk about graffiti vandals, I
am talking about people that are trying to destroy your community," said Mattola.
"In the old days this how we remember
[graffiti]," said Mattola as he showed a picture of a subway car from the 70s
completely covered with graffiti.
Subway cars have since evolved to become
graffiti proof, yet graffiti is still prevalent throughout the city making its mark on
corner delis with brick walls, in subway tunnels, and recently robbed houses.
Mattola explained there are two types of
graffiti vandals, the graffiti crews and the gangs, but all are linked to crimes.
According to Mattola, investigators use the
language in graffiti to help solve crimes.
The tags — or written nicknames and
aliases of graffiti vandals – belonging to graffiti crews’ tags are usually more
creative and harder to read than those of gang members, according to Mottola who said many
graffiti tags consist of acronyms two to four letters long like the ones belonging to
graffiti crews like the Queensbridge Posse (QBP) and (Killer City Walls (KCW).
Graffiti crews do what they
do for the fame, according to police.
Police at the conference asked the media
not to put graffiti in their publications because that is exactly what graffiti artists
are looking to have done.
According Detective Keith Casey of Queens
Patrol Borough North Newsday recently put a graffiti vandal’s tag,
"CHEZ," on their front cover.
The vandal came from the confines of the
111th Precinct, according to Casey
"The paper made him world
famous," he said.
Spreading
The Gang Message |
Meanwhile gangs use graffiti
to communicate their messages.
Some gangs cross out names of other gang members to put a
contract out on them and many of the gang tags use specific colors, according to police
who advised people to report graffiti right away.
It is also essential to paint over graffiti
within 48 hours of when you spot it, police said.
There is the question of legal murals,
which is graffiti sanctioned by the walls owner.
But Mattola explained that graffiti,
including legal murals, only attract more graffiti vandals, sending a message that
"tagging up" the walls is tolerated.
"These things do not work. Every store
in the community is going to suffer because of one mural," said Mattola.
The Few,
The Proud, The Clean-Up Crews |
Members of the U.S. Marine
Corps will be lending a helping hand to get rid of Queens graffiti on May 19 when more
than a hundred Marines will be spread out among several graffiti-plagued locations
throughout the borough to help clean–up.
Since October, the Borough President’s
Office has given more than 300 gallons of paint to civic groups, police department,
volunteers and the Dept. of Probation to paint over graffiti.
Police and community posters
like this one send a clear message
to Queens teens.
|
Police in Queens Patrol North have
made 186 graffiti related arrests since January, accounting for 30 percent of arrests
citywide.
Frank Castro, president of the Parents
President’s Association and city council candidate said he has been at war with
graffiti for seven years.
Castro said he often spends his weekends
with other volunteers in western Queens painting over graffiti and says it is a good
workout.
"My dream is to clean up all the
graffiti in Queens," said Castro who has become an expert on reading graffiti tags.
"By looking at the tag I could tell
what gangs are in the neighborhood," he said.
Many graffiti vandals use
spray paint to spread the word.
Since spray paint is not to be sold to
children under 17 in New York City, storeowners often keep their shelves locked up.
But some of the graffiti vandals who are
being locked up are in their 40s, police said.
Besides spray paint, vandals use indelible
markers and stickers.
Another prevalent problem throughout the
transit system is "scratchiti" — where graffiti is scratched onto surfaces
like subway windows.
In cases of scratchiti, culprits use jagged
objects like a lava rock or keys. Some vandals even use acid in which Q-tips are dabbed,
and windows are burned into for etching.
The Tribune caught up
with David, a successful computer programmer, who used to tag up in the early 90s. This
retired graffiti vandal, or "bomber" as he refers to it, used stickers as his
graffiti medium of choice.
David explained that he would walk into the
main post office and eye down the stack of post office mailing labels. Then he would walk
by and stuff a huge load of labels into his jacket. "Then I’d go home and
fill’em up [with his tag] and slap’em all over the place," said David.
He stuck them on lampposts, mailboxes,
telephones, wherever they could stay the longest. Sometimes he would give them to friends
to stick and his tag was spread out of Queens into Manhattan and the Bronx.
"It’s for recognition," he
said. "Someone can say I saw your sticker up in Forest Hills."
He added, "You get props [respect] in
your own neighborhood."
David recalled when two of his friends were
caught red-handed by police officers tagging up with markers.
According to David, one of the officers
took the markers and wrote expletives on both their foreheads and let them go. It was a
walk of shame on the way home. When they got there, the two bombers had to do some massive
scrubbing, to the point of redness.
This practice has not been adopted
officially. Instead Queens police have opted for a community service program.
Taking
Prisoners In The Graffiti War |
Many Queens graffiti vandals
are sent to the 104th Precinct to paint over or scrub graffiti in the neighborhood —
sometimes to clean their own tags.
Called "Prisoners of the Graffiti
War," the vandals also sweep up the street and polish brass. The Glendale Civilian
Patrol (GCOP) supervises them.
The program was started by Casey in 1992,
and was resurrected by Chief James Tuller, who was enamored by its success.
"I am sick and tired of seeing kids
locked up for this," said Frank Kotnik, president of GCOP and a 12-year veteran of
"the war." According to Kotnik, GOCP and the 104th Precinct have supervised over
2,500 vandals since the program got started.
"Graffiti is degenerate behavior. It
leads to crimes," said Kotnik. He strongly objects when someone refers to a vandal as
a graffiti ‘artist.’
"If it was Michelangelo painting the
Sistine Chapel on private property, it would still be vandalism," said Kotnik.
Kotnik reported that graffitied doors from
the old-school days of the 1970s are being sold on internet auction sites.
About graffiti, Kotnik said it
wouldn’t be considered art if it was put on a canvas.
Another anti-graffiti hero is Tony Avella.
He started painting mailboxes with fellow
volunteers and it snowballed into the North Shore Anti-Graffiti Volunteers.
The North Shore volunteers get most of
their paint from the mayor’s office and have adopted 50 commercial locations.
"If you don’t give them the
opportunity to see their handiwork they’ll give up," said Avella.
Two weeks ago, the North Shore volunteers
kicked off the Anti-Graffiti Rogue’s Gallery, a series of graffiti mug shots on a
poster. Posters of tags are put on streets hoping to lead to the arrest of the graffiti
vandal.
Yet Kotnik doesn’t think the posters
will help the fight against graffiti.
"He’s giving the vandals the attention they
want," said Kotnik. |
