Graffiti

[AmeriKenArtist]

I used to visit friends just south of Yorkville. As you well know, each neighborhood has its own feel, and each building can be quite different from the next. Early one morning, a long time ago, I took the Lex Av 6 train to 103 ST. When I got to the street, I headed toward the park. My walk was anything but a straight line! Homeless people were sleeping on the sidewalks and streets, everywhere!

I frequently went to 86 ST on my way to the Guggenheim...

[Jungle George]

Originally Posted by AmeriKenArtist

I used to visit friends just south of Yorkville. As you well know, each neighborhood has its own feel, and each building can be quite different from the next. Early one morning, a long time ago, I took the Lex Av 6 train to 103 ST. When I got to the street, I headed toward the park. My walk was anything but a straight line! Homeless people were sleeping on the sidewalks and streets, everywhere!

I frequently went to 86 ST on my way to the Guggenheim...

86th street when I was growing up was filled with German/Czech shops, restaurants & bars!! The neighborhood was a German/Czech/Hungarian barrio!!

You couldn't walk a block w/o hearing "oom-pa-pa" or "polka" music blaring outta some shop or tenement window!! I used to love the old Woolworth's on 86th & 3rd...best lunch counter (besides the Automat & Papaya King up the street) in Manhattan!!

That's all gone now, & I guess the neighborhood's now what you call "gentrified", but growing up poor in those wonderful surroundings, I'm right PROUD of my white-trash roots!!

[Jungle George]

Originally Posted by AmeriKenArtist

My walk was anything but a straight line! Homeless people were sleeping on the sidewalks and streets, everywhere!

In our tenement, you walked into a vestibule where the doorbells & mailboxes were, & then key-opened the next set of doors to go upstairs to the apartment.

In the winter when I'd come home from school, there was always someone (my folks back them labeled 'em "bums") passed out in the "warmish" vestibule from being drunk. I'd just calmly step over them to get into the building...

I have many fond memories of the old German super's wife (using German & English expletives in a loud, booming voice) running down the street with a corn-husk broom chasing the "bums" outta the hallway!!

[blip]

Originally Posted by EnyaGirl

Um, I highly doubt we have the next Michaelangelo on our hands here. I mean, it's not like Bansky is out here in the Poconos doing his latest works. (For those of you who have never heard of him, see some of his work here: Banksy - Outdoors (http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm - broken link))

Thanks for sharing that banksy link-- great stuff.

Originally Posted by AmeriKenArtist

The quality and subject matter is of utmost importance in regard to how graffiti is accepted. If the artists are talented and adept in creating a sophisticated scene, it can be attractive and help the passerby appreciate the talent. If it is simply a tag with the typical exaggerated wrriting style, then it shows possession of territory and is profoundly negative. etc. etc......

Well put.

[AmeriKenArtist]