Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thanks for your replies. Boulevardofdef had an interesting analysis.
I was expecting more, "Well, why don't you stop complaining and do something about it?" Or, "Get a hobby...there are much more important things!"
This whole tagging culture just sickens me...but I am 54 now. Are some people my age enamored and excited by all this nonsense? Seems some young twenty-somethings and others like viewing it because it's "art." Back in the 70s, I don't believe graffiti was in full force yet, even in NYC. It was primarily confined to the outside (and inside) of subway cars? Not on trucks, vans and U-Hauls seen rolling through the streets! At least in the better parts of Manhattan, it was rare to see? Possibly it had already started on the walls of Brooklyn and such, on abandoned buildings facing the tracks and highways, etc. But now it's a year-round sport.
But NOW? It is seen more and more on TOP of small neighborhood buildings, up against the wall of an adjacent building. Big, chunky letters and images...in dazzling colors to boot. Yes, some people may catch a glimpse and smile, feeling good about the world. Hey, these are ambitious kids (and twenty and thirty-somethings) out expressing themselves, right? At least they're not building pressure cooker bombs, throwing bowling balls onto highways, tossing eggs at cars...
One friend's friend 22 years ago, while we walked in Copley Square in Boston and looked up at a huge tag four stories above across from historic Trinity church, exclaimed, "All the power to them...if someone is so passionate about tagging -- and uses a ladder to paint on top of a building...wow!"
Meanwhile, the landlord must paint over this garbage, or likely needs to hire someone to professionally remove it...and at some danger due to the height. Most often, it will just be left there. Boston's GraffitiBusters team has height restrictions, understandably.
How would people like their flower shop or bakery tagged? Seems pretty personal when it happens to you, but to some, it's just art when it happens to someone else's storefront.
Now they're doing the rooftops in Boston's North End... vandalizing while just steps from Paul Revere's house. Sad. Even parts of Cambridge's rooftops are a mess. I am sure PVD is the same...haven't been down in a year.
Oh well, just venting. I take plenty of photos during the week and submit them to the Citizens Connect app in Boston. I often get a good response and see the graffiti gone; other times, it takes awhile, if ever. Before using the app two years ago, I called the Mayor's hotline. I am NOT allowed to clean it myself because I need permission, whether private or public property. Believe me, I would clean the simple stuff, even buying the paint.
Thank you Bostonguy! Agree 100% ! We have a "tagging" report line too through the mayor's office. It is disgusting to me to see so many try so hard and spend so much money to make things better when there is a small army of idiots going around destroying what others have created. To me, that is height of hubris- to think that one's crappy "art" actually improves public and private structures.
Uh, first off, I'd say "art or vandalism" is a false choice. Something can be both art and vandalism.
If you don't own it, don't paint it.
Quote:
Now, is what he was doing on the streets right?
A criminal act.
Quote:
It goes hand in hand with hipster bakeries and underground music venues and pop-up restaurants that serve dishes like "pork and clams/coconut milk, peanuts, fermented shrimp."
Providence is worse than it was years ago with this and it is sickening. But last fall I was in Paris and talk about graffiti out of control. It was even on every nook and cranny in most of the city all the way up to the airport. Providence, Boston and even NYC have nothing on it! I wonder why Europe allows this to fester?
I just returned from a three day trip to Providence. I spent most of my time walking around Federal Hill, Downtown, and the Brown/RISD area, and I didn't see much graffiti. Compared to Atlanta (where I live) and Boston (where I also visited) there was virtually no graffiti in PVD. Everything's relative, I guess.
We had a great trip, by the way. You guys have a lot of amazing food and architecture, and I thought the people were very nice.
And I agree about it all being relative. My husband is from Montreal, which is a wonderful city if you don't go in the middle of winter. Lots to do, lots of great food. But the graffiti took my breath away the first time I visited. Providence, by comparison....I don't even see it.
Providence is worse than it was years ago with this and it is sickening. But last fall I was in Paris and talk about graffiti out of control. It was even on every nook and cranny in most of the city all the way up to the airport. Providence, Boston and even NYC have nothing on it! I wonder why Europe allows this to fester?
Yeah, I kind of suspected it is out of control in cool and not-so-cool areas of Paris, Berlin, Prague (?). etc., and in probably South Ametican metros as well.
I read 5 years ago in the Boston Herald about European taggers on their way to Boston to graffiti-bomb red line trains in the Braintree yard...probably jumping a fence, stealing spray paints cans, etc. Apparently, word got out and they were ready and able to arrest them. No surprise then that Europe is marred with graffiti "art." So is supposedly lovely Montreal marred: a couple years ago as I was stuck in highway traffic near the city -- I saw large and vibrant tags up on the rooftops of apartments and small businesses...this 10 years after driving IN the city and seeing it all over the rooftops. Seems there are international TAGGERS who travel to NYC and elsewhere just to tag!
I realize some find it cool and intriguing, others have told me they're indifferent (because they claim, understandably, that there are so many more important problems).
In Boston, the city won't clean graffiti on rooftops; they have height restrictions.
As I said, I'd be willing to clean the small tags for free, or spray over them -- in any city -- but I legally need permission, even for city property. I could damage a monument by trying to cleantypo it, true.
Does Providence respond to tagging complaints on their hotline? Boston is rather good, but can't clean USPS mailboxes or MassPort and MassPike issues, though they claim to refer the complaints to them.
I feel selfish for notifying the city of Boston so often, and now here in Quincy, about this issue, but I don't want it to get as bad as Paris! Hey, it's my hobby and I won't stop.
Tagging doesn't really bother me unless it's obscene or on something of mine, but the dumpster on N. Main that says "LOBSTA" cracks this transplanted midwesterner right up
Tagging doesn't really bother me unless it's obscene or on something of mine, but the dumpster on N. Main that says "LOBSTA" cracks this transplanted midwesterner right up
These vandals never scribble on their own property. It's always defacing someone else's. NOT ok as long as it's not mine! None of it "cracks this transplanted Midwesterner right up."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
