Research Question: What social and historical significance does graffiti hold in New York City and how has it evolved as a subculture?
Graffiti in New York City (NYC) has remained the most common form of expression since the 1960s. The question is, how did this start and how has it grown into the subculture we know it to be today? When graffiti first appeared in NYC, it was mainly serving as a form of protest, which would be directly related to the civil rights movement and Black empowerment. Specific graffiti fonts became popularized, like Bubble Letters which has its own insider phrase known as “Wild Style” among the artists. Contemporarily, graffiti has been accepted by society and overall acknowledged as a part of art culture, making its appearance in refined areas such as museums and exhibits. However, after examining the history, New York has had its fair share of criminalization of the subculture, especially due to its extreme racial undertones when pointing blame. Writers of these times refer to this as the “Golden Age” of New York. Just like the roaring 20s, it became a historical point of reference despite how drastically different it was described in terms of public news and creative writers.
When one of the first graffiti writers, such as TAKI-186 and Cool Earl, introduced this new wave of expression to public transportation, it became criminalized in NYC and labeled as vandalism. Past NYC mayors have called notorious legal actions against graffiti and the artists themselves. In fact, it was Mayor Lindsay who proclaimed “the first war on graffiti in 1972,” which triggered the first-ever public negative acknowledgment of the act (Ehrlich). It led to the city’s president of Transit Authority, David L. Gunn, putting his energy towards cleaning graffiti off the streets and subways, creating the Clean Car Program (CCP) in April of 1984. His attempts to prevent graffiti artists from vandalizing subways also included fencing the subway cars and training canines. Additionally, he hired “2,000 maintenance workers to scrub the trains clean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week” (Admin). Ed Koch himself has said in the documentary, Style Wars, that graffiti has “destroyed our lifestyle.” where he self-proclaimed jokes, “If I had my way, I wouldn’t put in dogs, but wolves.” This negative standpoint certainly put towards a narrative that graffiti artists were ultimately irresponsible social deviants and caused division. Their image was very heavily tainted in the eyes of the media, making it so that the artists started doing it in secret and in hidden areas, to avoid penalties.
Graffiti has turned into a more popularized media in contemporary society. Why is this? In Richard Goldstein’s “In Praise of Graffiti: The Fire Down Below,” he states, “the real mystery about graffiti is why this generation has chosen to express its ambitions in pictorial terms. The answer may lie in the changing nature of prestige in New York.” This is directly correlated to the popularization and capitalization of graffiti and hip-hop culture in general. In 2021, graffiti is its sub-category in the street-style subculture, where teenagers utilize graffiti to enjoy it as an aesthetic and even profit from it when designing clothes and participating in graffiti themselves. Capitalism plays its own role here because once profit became possible, it has not been viewed as criminal behavior like it was in the 1970s. In fact, it’s seen as a beautiful form of art that celebrates hip-hop culture.
While the popularization of graffiti continues, it is simultaneously policed. The demonization of artists was addressed by the 1979 conservative critic Nathan Glazer who states, “while I do not find myself consciously making the connection between graffiti-makers and the criminals who occasionally rob, rape, assault, and murder [subway] passengers, the sense that all are part of one world of uncontrollable predators seems inescapable.” Undoubtedly so, he strings a connection between outlaws and “graffiti-makers,” painting an image of the kind of criticism that graffiti artists were and still are put against. Graffiti in lower-income neighborhoods are still treated as though they need to be renovated, or in other words, removed to upkeep a more civilized, expensive community. A historically known moment that indicates this is the 5Pointz urban graffiti center. This was a center that included an immense amount of graffiti art and small businesses that brought attention to a community of low-income artists and was utilized as a unification of artists to share their interest in graffiti. The most well-known artists were seen here. Once it gained enough public traction, devastating news was released that it would be removed for renovation. In 2014, it was officially demolished and turned into a commercial area that the city spent over 400 million dollars on, for condos and general tourist attractions (Anapur). This resulted in an outcry from the community, viewing it as another attack on graffiti and the removal of a place that had so much culture embedded into it.
Gentrification, according to the Oxford American Dictionary of 1982, is the “movement of middle-class families into urban areas causing property values to increase and having the secondary effect of driving out poorer families.” For better understanding, we can look at the more modern effect of gentrification as an example to illustrate its everlasting effects. The community around 5Pointz, greater known as Queens, remains a target of gentrification to this day. Places like Astoria, Flushing, and Long Island City have all experienced the same fate as 5Pointz. The fate where low-income families and local businesses that contributed to the culture of the neighborhoods are pushed out due to the increase of rent and are ultimately replaced with a wealthier community. Let this circumstance with capitalism and gentrification speak for itself, as it resembles a fraction of how graffiti progressed in New York City.
The definition of subcultures is constantly changing. New York City is esteemed for its artistic and energetic population. As time went on, graffiti became widely known as artistry, better associated with abstract art. With current events concerning social justice matters, such as the Black Lives Matter movement back in March 2020, graffiti has been used as a tool to amplify the voices of the oppressed. It has grown as a marketing tool for street brands, which further pushes the point that graffiti is being capitalized on so bigger corporations can profit from it. T-shirts, filled with graffiti letters, are being sold and marketed as a trend.
Works Cited
Admin. “The Surprising History of Graffiti on NYC Subways Cars and Tunnels.” Milrose.com, 2018, www.milrose.com/insights/the-surprising-history-of-graffiti-on-nyc-subways-cars-and-tunnels. Accessed 16 May 2021.
Bachor, Kenneth. “Preserving New York’s History of Graffiti Art.” Time, Time, 20 Apr. 2017, time.com/4743207/martha-cooper-subway-graffiti/. Accessed 19 May 2021.
Banes, Sally. “Physical Graffiti: Breaking Is Hard to Do | the Village Voice.” The Village Voice, 19 Apr. 2020, www.villagevoice.com/2020/04/19/physical-graffiti-breaking-is-hard-to-do/. Accessed 18 May 2021.
Chan, Sewell. “A Sociologist’s Look at Graffiti.” City Room, 9 July 2017, cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/a-new-look-at-graffiti-writers-lives/. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Dimitri Ehrlich, and Gregor Ehrlich. “Graffiti in Its Own Words.” New York Magazine, New York Magazine, 22 June 2006, nymag.com/guides/summer/17406/index1.html. Accessed 15 May 2021.
Donner, Jack, and Mark Anth Neal. That’s the Joint! : The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. 2004.
Goldstein, Richard. “In Praise of Graffiti: The Fire down below | the Village Voice.” The Village Voice, 24 Dec. 1980, www.villagevoice.com/1980/12/24/in-praise-of-graffiti-the-fire-down-below/. Accessed 15 May 2021.
Nielson, Erik. “Part of the Art Practice Commons.” 2013.
“The Legendary 5 Pointz – History and Legacy | Widewalls.” Widewalls.ch, 2016, www.widewalls.ch/magazine/5-pointz. Accessed 16 May 2021.
Wickman, Forrest. “How Hip-Hop Will Remember Ed Koch.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 2 Feb. 2013, slate.com/culture/2013/02/ed-kochs-legacy-in-hip-hop-how-the-new-york-city-mayor-will-be-remembered-in-rhyme.html. Accessed 12 May 2021.
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