Last October, I rode my bike all over the 49th Ward of Chicago. I was seeking out grafitti. To my surprise, I found only one small bit of grafitti in several hours of looking for it.In November I found a few scrawlings in the alley behind Alderman Moore's ward office, but that was minor and, again, seemed to be isolated.
Within the past few days, I have seen a virtual explosion of grafitti activity within several blocks of the Loyola CTA station. I documented it in the collage here (click the collage to see a larger image).
There's increased gang tagging, too.
ReplyDeleteOn Saturday, a friend's house was tagged by Gangsta Desciples, on the alley side between Morse and Farwell, east of Wolcott. It was scrubbed off immediately.
There's been gang territory claiming/intimidation activity in my neck of the woods, too, near Howard and Eastlake.
People should be aware that all of this needs to be reported ASAP to 911 and 311.
911 - mention gang intimidation
311 - ask for it to be removed asap
I've haven't seen so much big, wild-style graffitti since the 80s. It isn't just around here- it is all up and down the north lakefront, especially building situated close to the el tracks.
ReplyDeleteSomeone put a mural-sized spread of garish wildstyle allover the beautiful brickwork of the Uptown Theatre. I see similar spreads on new condos in Lakeview, townhouses in Lincoln Park, everywhere there is a flat wall presenting an opportunity.
CTA needs cameras out over the rails between stops, because (at least it appears to me)the perps are using the tracks as a work platform for their nocturnal self-expression, thus the prevalence of graffitti close to the tracks.
Not only would more surveillance of the right-of-way help catch the "artists", but it would SAVE THEIR LIVES, because the red line is an especially dangerous right-of-way for someone untrained and inexperienced in being on the tracks. It is one of the easiest places to get killed you ever saw. Trains every 10 minutes at night. It has two third rails side by side with only a narrow space to stand between them, and NO clearance between the outer (Purple Line) track and a sharp drop-off to the street about 30' below. I'm afraid that one of these little punks is going to either get stung on third rail, which you usually get to touch only once, or fall to his death on the street below. Very steep penalty for scrawling a bunch of visual noise on a wall; jail is preferable.
Perhaps a photograph of someone who has just been peeled off the third rail or scraped up off the street following a 40' fall would be a better educational device and deterrent than lectures about civility and how graffitti is illegal blah blah.