Graffiti In Nyc

"If you've ever walked down the street, seen a name, and wondered what that marking meant, I'll tell you what that marking meant" (Powers 6). Graffiti writers put their names up on walls using markers, spray paint, or what ever can mark the surface. Often called a tag, the marking signifies that "somebody is telling you a story about who they are and what they are prepared to do to make your aware of it" (Powers 6). Graffiti is about your name and "fame". The more your name is up the more "respect" and "fame" you get. When getting involved in the graffiti game, obstacles you encounter are cops, fights, and risking your individual reputation with society. Graffiti started in New York City in the subways in the 1960s. Graffiti was at a climax throughout the 70's up until the 80's when New York City went through a revitalization period and the trains we buffed. From the early 90's to present graffiti has died out, but many [graffiti] writers are determined to keep the culture alive.

People of all ages, cultures and backgrounds have been influenced to write graffiti from the beginning of its popularity. Many of them start in their early teens looking at other graffiti writers work on the streets, trucks or rooftops. Often, writers are exposed to graffiti at childhood. Noticing the street influenced art and recall being amazed by it; the same way children are hypnotized by a new toy. Usually graffiti writers have mentors and kids start off becoming sort of an apprentice. Most time the mentor is and older brother, cousin or someone in their life that does graffiti and shows them the inner workings to an urban art culture.

Typically they start out writing "marker tags" in their neighborhood streets, lamp poles; phone booths or whatever is in their line of sight and within arms reach; sometimes out of reach as well. Writers such as KORN, NATO, SAME, MADE and SEMZ, one of New York City's most notorious graffiti writers from the 1990s, recall how they got started. "I had a cousin who wrote META, KORN recalls. He has some game in the graff game and I really looked up to him. In 1995, I heard of a band named KORN and a friend and I became huge fans. We though it would be funny to write the band's name wherever we went and by the end of the year KORN was up all over Queens. We though it was hilarious. People actually noticed it and we got our taste of Ð''street fame'. I was hooked." (Sutherland: Titles). NATO recalls how he rode the 7 train and saw all the graffiti at a different aspect towards graffiti than KORN. "I got into graffiti as a wee lad riding the 7 train high above the streets of Queens County, knees of the seats, face pressed against the glass, I would ask my mother, how do they get on the roofs and do that? And so it began my life as a graffiti writerÐ'...but eventually rooftops would become my specialty" (Sutherland: Titles). Many writers started out like KORN and NATO did, their impact to graffiti was very enormous, NATO and KORN must be one of the most influential graffiti writers out their today.

Graffiti all started in the New York City subways in the 60's; teenagers from New York City would write their names on walls. Instead of their real names they would choose a mark that they would put up anywhere other teenagers could see throughout the New York City transit system, in which these acts became known as graffiti. "TAKI 183 began to tag his name on trains and public buildings all over town" (Cooper 14). TAKI 183 was one of the first graffiti writers of New York City in the 70's. He worked as a messenger and rode every subway the city had while putting his name all over. This act of writing became an explosion for graffiti. It was "modern graffiti art that originated in New York City and it was known first as New York Style" graffiti (Stowers 1). The style that TAKI 183 developed was called "Broadway Style", which was long skinny lettering. In the 70's graffiti had reached its boom when writers started doing pieces on trains. Writers started experimenting with the size and colors of the lettering, which emerged as "piecing", "As time went by, letters became larger and a variety of styles came about simultaneously as writers from Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens competed with each other" (Cooper 17). Paintings grew as many more piecing styles emerged as the "top to bottom" piecing emerged, it mean that " the entire side of the subway car, windows and all, was covered in the first top to bottom whole car was painted in 1975" (Cooper 17). In the 80's graffiti was as popular as MTV, everyone had to have a tag, but it was that era when graffiti was supposedly "dead".

After the birth of graffiti in the 60's, the explosion of graffiti in the mid 70's to early 80's graffiti culture was still on a rise and the MTA was putting all of its resources into eliminating it. Many writers hated the fact that the MTA had a major campaign to stop graffiti. "It's been a 10 year fight against graffiti, the MTA has tried a number of defenses, but one of the most dreaded by writers is the chemical wash or the buff" (Cooper 99). "Writers such as BLADE will never forget how, in the span of a few weeks in 1978, he lost dozens of his whole cars by this means" (Cooper99). Other writers took their views and opinions by painting retaliating messages to the MTA. In 1982 SEEN put out pieces that said "FUCK THE BUFF" and "GRAFFITI DIED" making him one of the most influential rebels against the MTA's buff campaign. The buff consisted of fifty five gallons of chemical per train. This flawed technique made it very difficult to clean and resulted in high costs to the transit system.

Writers such as SEEN, LADY PINK, QUICK, BLADE, ZEPHYR, DONDI, are some of the most famous writers in New York City history however there isn't any real way of telling who was the most famous of all. "graffiti writers often top their tags and pieces with a crown, symbolizing one of their goals to be king, others compete with rivals and means to claim territorial rights over a certain line or other property"(Cooper 54). A famous graffiti writer by the name of "Iz The Wiz" once quoted "a king is a writer that everyone wants to write with or fight with" (Cooper 54). In order to be a king or a fame writer is to put up your name on walls everywhere, either it's a throw up a piece or even just a tag, "a writer must succeed over and over again in order to maintain his position" (Cooper54).

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