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graffiti vs vandal squad New York old school - YouTube
I may be a lil off here but here is one of the videos about graffiti, and i wonder in the end if i crossed the tracks like that today 1 i know ill have mta transit police on my door or PANJ and NY and a stiff fine . but how much of a fine ill get for crossing tracks like that criminally trespassing? $500 buck i guess? surprise me how much?
that kid in the graffiti video is a complete idiot
yes he is, also besides that the subway trains were painted white ( which supposed to be "graffiti resistant" big mistake only attracted more vandals) only made the graffiti situation worst
I was born in Lincoln Hospital and raised in John Adams projects. I went to Saint Anselm and saw a couple of my friends turn to crack. Thing was I didn't know what was going on. I was a witness to crack when it was very new in the urban community. I remember one of my classmates would stand in the street at night and get into strangers cars. Also another one of my classmates would ask everybody and anybody for money. This is probably normal activity for some but the scarey thing was, we were 6th graders. I saw people get robbed, raped, beaten. Mothers sold their children as trade for crack, some children were sold for sexual purposes or sold to other people for adoption. Teachers, politicians, mothers, fathers, white, black, or Brown; if you fell into the traps of crack you stayed locked. Some of us were lucky and some of us just simply feared becoming zombies like the rest of them!!!!!! I saw sex performed for drugs in the street with cops passing by. It was truly a mess. It was all light and fun when cocaine was popular but when crack came on the scene it was "take all prisoners". I seen chains snatched and earrings ripped straight out of the ears. A couple of years before crack came out gold was very popular to have. When crack came out it was a thing you tried to hide. If anyone wants to see what NYC was when crack was popular I advise to rent the movie "New Jack City". It wasn't just a movie, it was reality. But dont ever throw all that up in the face of someone who is from the BX cause we will defend our hometown to the end. Anyway we didnt make the drugs, we simply grew up there!!!!!! I think it was all topped with the most ultimate destruction when HIV/AIDS followrd right behind crack. That was the beginning of the end!!!!!!
As for the graffiti on the trains it was an expression. We were not exposed to Bernini and Michael Angelo. We probably didn't even know what art was!!!!! Some of the graffiti was actually very good. Since i lived right near the 2 and 5 train I got to see some of the best art right outside my window. Not to say it was right but the right graffiti artist would delight you with their new creation.
VERY interesting thread.
It was jacked back then, i have NO IDEA how i pulled it off but i was a punk ass overconfident 17 yr old white kid from LI living in Bed Stuy and working in the EV in the very early 90's and i can tell you that **** went off pretty much every single night. Crack was literally EVERYWHERE, i would NEVER leave my apt after dark when all my hipster manhattan friends would call me to come DT to see whatever band was playing that night, it was always a bummer being sort of held hostage by your nabe when the sun went down and the freaks came out. Cops didnt give 2 ****s and there were seemingly no good samaritan types to step in when someone was being robbed, hassled, etc.
One poster mentioned the notes people would tape to their car windows, things like 'no radio' and 'doors are all unlocked PLEASE dont break glass' those were literally in every single car on some blocks.
While i do miss the character, the grime and general visceral feel of the city back then i for one don't miss the crap that came along with it but it is nice to reminisce about having a cig in a bar, buying a dime bag in Thompkins or Wash Square, watching new graffiti pop up every morning on the J train, walking down the street with a beer, etc.
The PR kids at the basketball court on E5th would literally smoke joints on the steps of the 9th precinct. things were crazy back then for sure.
oh and i just assumed that power still blinked on and off on the trains. hahaha
one thing no one has mentioned yet is where the crack came from, my uncle was a private pilot and as the story goes used to run 'night missions' from central America for the cia in the mid to late 80's..remember Iran Contra anyone? In my opinion there were 2 major reasons for the crack craze, firstly Robert Moses's 'pen of destruction' destroying working class nabes and then our very own federal gov stepping in after on a dark and destructive mission either to simply get paid or much more cynically poison the communities of cities. Im not much for the conspiracy theories that get floated around the interwebs but a lot of this is documented as fact and really really troubling.
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