By: Kevin Mendez

Graffiti in our community!

The only thing you can see is a big art work, it was so colorful, but I was concerned that the one that did this art paid to do this cool art. I was thinking about if you wanted to do a art who or where should I go to tell them if you wanted to do the artwork. I was talking to the teacher that if it was illegal to do artwork without paying, and she said if you don’t pay for the “artwork” it's gonna count as graffiti. I told her that what is the difference about graffiti and artwork, but I wanted to investigate it by myself so I went to a computer and looked up for responses.

When was graffiti made and by who?

The History of graffiti started in 1967. The first that started the graffiti was a man name, “CORNBREAD” The father of modern graffiti. It was a nice way for people because the “graffiti” as you call it was being show. People that did the graffiti used to use permanent markers, but then the people started using spraycans because it was easier. According to the website “Tagging and More,” using spraycans was easier and faster because “ writers didn't want to get caught by the police or people working for the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority).” In the 1970s, although people from other countries liked the graffiti the MTA didn’t like it and they started calling the police, so the artists had to be careful with police.

Why should people care about this problem?

According to “Is New York's Latest Graffiti Crackdown Backfiring?” by John Surico, “the first eight month of 2014, graffiti arrests rose 4%, to 1,080.” This shows that if you don't pay to do the artwork you can get in big trouble and people should care because you don't know if it’s your friend you should fight for what's good and the graffiti is an artwork. So if graffiti becomes illegal kids will not care if they do it in a house in the side and the person’s house will get pissed.

What is the current status of graffiti in NYC?

The current status of graffiti in New York City is that police department don’t like graffiti and they always have to deal with it every single day. For example, according to John Surico, Bratton (the head of Police in nyc), said, “Graffiti is a constant battle,”... “It’s one of the issues I’m going to be focusing on. I’ve already spoken to the mayor about my sense that graffiti is growing in the city now again.” This means that the police department do care about the graffiti because it can get worse and it going to be like vandalism.

What could or should be done to fix the problem?

So people real love graffiti because they think it's like a beautiful artwork. So what I think is that they should leave the graffiti alone if the people promise to pay for it. There was places that you could do graffiti. According to John Surico it says, “5pointz was a place in Long Island City's 114th Precinct, where graffiti writers of all ages could spray in new york city without being subject to arrest”. This is a good solution to the problem because you can’t get arrested because it’s legal doing it in that place.If there are no legal places for kids or older people to do graffiti in there can be a problem, According to a women named Florida said, "The kids will be very upset if they can't do anything with their art. They're gonna get pissed off, and they're gonna start vandalizing. Then you'll just see more and more." This means that the people who don't want graffiti to be legal don't recognize that kids do love graffiti and if they don’t have a place to do it, kids can get violent.