Talk Bronx New York

Graffiti Not Something We Want in The Bronx! Says Residents..

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in economic development and rising property values in the Bronx, complaints of graffiti in the borough increased by 58% last year, costing business owners and taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Bronx police are responding with greater enforcement, cuffing 780 people for graffiti crimes last year, second only to Brooklyn in arrests citywide, according to the NYPD’s comprehensive year-end GraffitiStat report, obtained by Bronx Boro News.

Police say graffiti has not necessarily increased, but that people are more vigilant and the NYPD’s reporting system now requires cops to file an incident report for each graffiti complaint.

But the new reporting system does not account for the consistently steep increase in complaints over the past three years. Bronx residents filed 1,416 complaints in 2007 compared with 892 in 2006, and 338 in 2004.

In response, community leaders, politicians and the district attorney’s office all say they are developing creative solutions to attack the problem — including more arrests, harsher sentences and holding building owners responsible for cleaning up graffiti as soon as it happens.

“It’s in my face, there’s no way to ignore it,” said Fernando Tirado, district manager of Community Board 7 in Kingsbridge, which had the most graffiti complaints — 191 — in the Bronx. “Business owners become exasperated from the amount of work they have to do just to maintain their property.”

“It sends a horrible, horrible message,” said state Sen. Jeff Klein, who runs a graffiti hotline and cleaning service through his office.

“It shows that the community is in disrepair, on the decline.”

Klein (D-Bronx, Westchester) echoed what many, from the district attorney’s office to local shop owners, say - graffiti needs to be cleaned up quickly.

Frank Fitts, community council president for the 45th Precinct, which had the most - 311 - graffiti complaints in the borough, said he tells residents to report graffiti even after the painters are gone, so the city has a record of it.

Arrests of those caught in the act and kids with graffiti paraphernalia in school were up by 61% last year over 2006, from 484 to 780.

But police say that no matter how many officers there are, graffiti is simply a difficult crime to stop.

“It’s not so much understaffing. It’s a crime you really have to be lucky to catch the kids, it’s done so fast,” said Officer Vic DiPierro, community affairs officer of the 49th Precinct. “Kids can tag up a store gate in seconds.”

The district attorney’s office held a summit meeting with transit officials last week on how to prosecute graffiti vandals not initially caught in the act.

Earlier this month, the office prosecuted a teen who was arrested with a camera filled with photos of works he admitted creating.

Punishment for first time offenses includes community service or restitution to property owners.

In the past, the community service may have included sweeping streets, but under an experimental program in Bronx Criminal Court, called Bronx Community Solutions, offenders specifically have to clean up graffiti. Repeat offenders face jail time.

Wilfredo (Bio) Feliciano, a former street graffiti artist turned professional mural artist, argued criminal convictions are not the answer.

“For these kids, this is the way of letting the world know, to say, I exist,” he said.

“If they would use half of the money in finding outlets for people, you’ll maybe cut that number of complaints in half.”

Klein “wholeheartedly” disagrees.

“I would like to see more arrests being made,” he said.

“It’s a crime. There’s a very small percentage of vandals that eventually become artists. You see the garbage scrawled on buildings, it’s not art.”

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com

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South Bronx: Graffiti, Underground and Above

BEGINNING in the 1970s, city kids swept up in the new trend of scribbling graffiti on the outside of subway cars gathered on a bench in the 149th Street-Grand Concourse station in the Bronx to appraise each other’s work as trains rumbled by on the tracks. The site became known as the 149th Street Writers Bench, and it is legendary in graffiti lore.

“You would sit there watching for new talent,” recalled Freddy Miteff, 48, a former Bronx graffiti writer. “If you saw something real exciting, you’d chase the train to see who it was.”

Mr. Miteff was among the many young people who were arrested for defacing subway cars, and the spray painting of trains largely ended by the late ’80s. But two decades later, there is a continuing dispute over graffiti — and its center is at Hostos Community College, directly upstairs from the fabled 149th Street station.

The setting is a fall seminar on graffiti taught by James Cade, a graffiti writer who himself came of age spray-painting subways in the ’70s.

On Tuesday evening in the college’s white-walled art gallery, Mr. Cade explained the importance of teaching graffiti to today’s students.

“A lot of students are young and didn’t see the trains back in the day,” said Mr. Cade, now a graying man in his 40s. “This gives them a chance to learn about the first element of hip-hop, which is graffiti.”

Mr. Cade stopped spray-painting illegally in the ’80s. He has since been a tireless booster of graffiti as a legitimate art form, even urging that the subway bench be declared a landmark.

But in the eyes of some, like City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who has criticized Hostos for offering the course, graffiti is part of a ragged image that the borough is trying to shed.

Others say graffiti deserves attention — especially in the neighborhood that some consider its birthplace.

“It’s an important part of this area’s cultural history,” said Wally Edgecombe, director of the Hostos arts center. “Graffiti style has been appropriated by Madison Avenue. It’s in museums around the world.”

SOURCE: NYTimes.com

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