Grafitti Comments

Yesterday's post about a seeming increase in grafitti activity (Increasing Grafitti Activity in 49th Ward) in Rogers Park elicited a number of comments. Here are a couple:

The North Coast has left a new comment on your post "Increasing Grafitti Activity in 49th Ward":

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.

Someone 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.

AND:

Sofi has left a new comment on your post "Increasing Grafitti Activity in 49th Ward":

There's increased gang tagging, too. On Saturday [June 23], 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.

Sofi recommends that folks should report this kind of activity immediately to 911 and 311. She recommends that when you call 911 you mention gang intimidation; when you call 311 ask for it to be removed as soon as possible.