Buffalo Rising Online

Fudgeworth, Please provide me with your home address so that I can express my art using spray paint all over your walls and car. After which we may sit and discuss my artistic talent and/or message.

What the hell, we still haven't cleaned up the ATAK and METH tags all over the city, even the most blatant ones. This is a true sign of decline for the city, the first thing that many people see when they visit or drive through is all the graffiti. We gave Meth and ATAK a slap on the wrist, why should these vandals be any different?

I don't see providing large billboards as sanctioned graffiti canvases as the answer. I do see forcing the vandal to clean-up every piece of painted excrement around the city as an answer. If you are caught tagging, then you will clean-up the tags wherever you are asked. Let ATAK and METH put their painting skills to work cleaning up this abortion of 'artwork', let the property owner sue them for punitive and compensatory damages. Something like this could easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Let some punk ass 20 year old deal with that for a few years, maybe he will think twice before defacing the landscape of the city that we are working so hard to improve.

Too bad "Buffalos finest vandals" are probably its worst artists. If you think you're a good enough artist to write something huge on some one elses property at least take a few art classes and put some effort into it. Pretty lame stuff. Graffiti can be pretty amazing but this stuff is weak.

I actually find some amusement in ATAK... I don't typically agree or support graffiti because it does affect private property and often is quit ugly. But sometimes atak as a sort of subtleness to it. Example, there is a random pole sticking out of the ground on Allen next to a building near main. On it there was a hoop with a master lock on it. You flip over the lock and in the smallest type face legible was ATAK written on it. I laughed and thought to myself how many people are really ever going to see this. I thought it was fun.

I don't like when they go and damage private property and do feel they should get punished but at the same time maybe some of these buildings need attention brought to them. Owners often let them sit and fall apart, which promotes much more of a negative connotation than a little graffiti.

Then again you go to Rome and the graffiti is utterly pervasive. To think that graffiti = negativity is a purely American thing. Most places it is viewed as a means of expression when people get fed up with government. People have been doing these types of things as a means of protest for hundreds of years. I walked by a corner along the original Papal route where residents would write and post problems and grievances for the pope to read.

Maybe if they had an agenda more than just "tagging" we wouldn't find it such a problem. Unfortunately most of it is just crap and needs to go away.

I had to go to Madrid, Spain a few weeks back. The amount of grafitti that was everywhere was staggering. There were tags like the one above for continuous miles-long stretches on the privacy walls out to the airport and all over the CBD. I was told it was because there is a high unemployment rate along with a "nothing better to do" attitude. Some was truly artistic but most of it was trash. Don't dismiss Fudge so fast, LA has had public tagging locations for quite some time. The city periodically whitewashes them when they totally covered and the cycle starts over. I guess it's cheaper to do that than what they were spending trying to fight it.

Isn't there a wall down by the Larkin District that has a bunch of murals on it?

Overall, I agree that creating spaces for these artists to do their work would be beneficial rather than negative. I'm sure these guys could make decent art if there was an alternative outlet. But then again, why paint on space provided when there is already an abundance of space because of abandoned building dotting dt buffalo. Maybe the answer here is to more closely regulate property owners who feel they can just leave a building to rot.

Not all buildings attacked are abandoned or neglected. I have had two of my properties permanently damaged by graffiti. It is particularly damaging to brick. It cannot be completely removed -ever. A ghost image will remain particularly on old historic brick. Typically in the case of historic brick, the thin fire-skin is permanently removed by the cleaning attempt. This is a reason why we see so many historic brick buildings painted over.

These criminals easily cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage to a single historic building and the damage can never be properly restored.

It has been explained to me that their motivations have been furthered by video games such as Grand Theft Auto. Is this true?

I do not subscribe to the "free range" mentality of trying to patronize this behavior by providing them an “outlet”. Instead, these culprits should be publicly humiliated and embarrassed as a part of their criminal sentencing and community service. They are obviously the most self conscious of criminals because they are exhibitionists. So I believe that orchestrated embarrassment and humiliation components added to their felony sentencing would serve as an effective deterrent to others.

Perhaps we can figure out the best way to make them look like fools to their followers rather than heroes. Hmmmmm… Use your imaginations. What would really embarrass them? Here is one idea: How about painting them up before they do their community service?

Buffalo takes another hit in the QUALITY OF LIFE category.

I remember METH getting locked up, but I don't recall ATAK. Gee, I hope I didn't miss the opportunity to testify against him and then speak at his sentencing hearing.

From a similar BRO thread posted in June, 2007: An update on the maggots who feast on our urban decay.

Eric P. Osborne, 23 of LIMA (Kirkwood), NY was sentenced to 5 years probation, paid a $360.00 fine and supposedly spent 40 hours removing graffiti. He was a landscaper and college student in Rochester when he was caught spray painting "METH" around our city. He would like to "move on and put this whole thing behind him", fair enough except that there are over 100 buildings "left behind" with his tag.

Want to see how remorseful he is? Here is a quote that he posted to "Lounge 37" as nevergonnacatch_me... yea....not fun man...not fun. i got off with a 90day sentence, that I am not done serving. 5 years of felony probation, and community service and about a grand in fines. Bullshit for real.......Buffalo is a fucking joke....but for a 4 year run...90days...eh...hahaha i still have more then a throw or tag for each day of that ammount of time running in that city.Fuck it GOONS/GQ for life.But yea, def got fucked hard. The city of buffalo was trying to set a harsh example because of the ammount of graffiti that is in the city. Bigger named writters are just ruthless, and I fucking love it. BUMPS TO ATAK nsf/bf, HERT/bf, LIONS/nsf/bf, REK GOONS/gq,TRON GOONS/gq and the rest of my GOONS boys...keep shit real.

Christopher A. Fargo, 24 formerly of Dewitt St, Buffalo received probation for tagging "Zen" on the Ferguson Electric building. His tags are seen on some of the highest profile and most visible buildings downtown.

Derek Thurlow, 31, tagged "Merk" all over the city. He was fined $1,250 and 150 hours community service when he was finally caught in 200.

Fernando Godinez,27, was fined $1,250 and 150 hours community service for painting "Lions". To his credit, he assisted with the colorful children's mural on the side of the Gloria J. Parks Center. Such a nice kid from Amherst.

Graffiti is vandalism not art. It is sad that some of you attempt to put a positive spin on criminal activity. I will say however that if property owners took some initiative to secure their facilities if would reduce (not eliminate) the vandalism taking place on their property. The first ATAK that i noticed was the abandoned projects visible from the 33. In that case it is Buffalo's fault for supplying the paint can coward with a canvas. I know there is "planned development" for the site but who knows when the old folks will move in. I bet their Buicks will be getting some new paint jobs compliments of these "troubled artists"

Review these comments from ATAK to see how completely disassociated he is from the crimes that he commits. As Kelly and others can attest, he is full of shit!

I hate the cliché response "maybe we should spray-paint their property and see how they like it". Very witty, but very...stupid. I'm not vandalizing your cars, or your houses...unless perhaps you own one of the many dilapidated buildings that I have painted on, in which case I owe you a personal apology. I would understand most of your hostility if I was painting your personal homes or your places of worship or something like that, but this is not the case. A majority of the work I do is on buildings that are either owned by the city, a business, or completely uninhabited. Nothing that I do is causing irreparable damage to the surface itself. These articles honestly are comparing paint to something like a grenade, making it seem like what I am doing is crippling the structure and wounding the onlookers. Complete fiction. Paint can be painted over.

Isn't this one of the Quality of Life concerns that Justin Azzarella recently petioned the city to correct along Elmwood? I recall reading that he was upset over the condition of city operated parking lots along Elmwood that were heavily vandalized with graffiti, smelld of urine and garbage, and were being used by drug dealers and users.

I know that Justin reads BRO, maybe he could provide some perspective on how the positive asset that graffiti is to the Elmwood Community. I'd like to know if he embraces this form of artistic expression or if he sees it as a hiderance for his neighborhood.

Carl,

It can be argued that shooting graffiti artists on site would be a form of activism too. The realty is that we live in a society of laws. We are not afforded the luxury of either form of self expresson.

If they want to be activists they can join the neighborhood garbage clean-up.

As my personal experiences as well as the experiences of the other posts demonstrate-It is a myth that they only attack neglected buildings. It is also a myth that it does not cause expensive and permanent damage to the buildings. They will find this out to the exact penny when the civil suits start landing. It also does expensive and permanent damage to the perpetrator because eventually they get caught and their college degree is useless with a criminal record.

An attribute of a graffiti artist is that they are someone who doesn't own a house yet. They feel immune to retaliation. They cannot relate to responsibility. So far, many have had parents with suburban homes. Maybe the parents should be required to have their homes decorated as part of the plea deal, as a way to pressure the vandals who feel untouchable.

Bravo Crazed!

People seem to be making all sorts of assumptions about 'taggers' psychology and motives. I wonder where Crazed_da_Loon gets his information - what actual studies has he done, or at least read on the psychology of taggers? What I see is a lot of projection - we dislike taggers, so we project on to them all sorts of negative assumptions. They're losers, they lack self-esteem, they're closeted homosexuals, etc. etc. You can see the same exact arguments in just about any community when dealing with people they do not like. The purpose seems much more to vilify and even dehumanize the object of hatred than to find any sort of solution or some to any sort of understanding. (If one were to be snarky, for example, one could make the same arguments about internet forum trolls like Crazed_da_Loon as he makes about taggers.) Of course, trading insults does us no good.

I find the whole idea of making a public spectacle rather ineffective - such obvious publicity could easily backfire and turn taggers into even bigger celebrities. If taggers want attention, giving it to them doesn't seem like an effective means of combating the problem.

Personally, I do not think there is a solution to tagging and other forms of graffiti. it is simply part of the urban fabric, along with panhandlers, road construction, traffic jams and other nuisances. While certain prolific taggers may be stopped, there's legions of opportunistic ones armed with a Sharpie and an impulse to leave their mark. I suspect the same people who carved crude slogans in the public baths of ancient Rome are now leaving their illegible tags scrawled on building walls.

Queenseyes - If I come and tag your house will you post some cool photos of it so I can get some publicity? How about your car? I'm an artist, you know. Thanks!

Umm yea Dasein, so what exactly makes Crazed_da_Loon anymore of a troll than yourself? Because you do not agree with his opinion? That's the only thing I can think of to justify your juvenile logic. I like how you are purposely extremely vague in your justification with making graffiti acceptable. Graffiti was never, and is never intended to be part of any "urban fabric" which you are blabbering about. The only thing you have nailed so far is traffic and construction. Would you care to explain what exactly you mean by "panhandlers" and "other nuisances"? So far you are 2/4, which is pretty weak description of what "urban fabric" is. Carry on, troll.

"Umm yea Dasein, so what exactly makes Crazed_da_Loon anymore of a troll than yourself? Because you do not agree with his opinion?"

Ah, this old argument. Read Crazed_da_Loon's posts. His attitude and style are clearly inflamatory, and his second post, simply saying 'ATAK has a small penis' is your textbook definition of a troll. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with his views or not - I take issue with his presumptions about taggers mostly because I find that sort of argument style entirely dishonest. It is not uncommon to see people making sweeping generalizations - usually negative - about certain types of people, but those claims are often presented with virtually no evidence to support them. marm0lade, do you find Crazed_da_Loon's posts appropriate? Do you think making statements about ATAK's genitals, 'liberal, panty-waist judges' or the sexuality of taggers promotes constructive discussion?

Further, I do not argue that graffiti is acceptable, only that it is not something we can not stop. It is endemic to urban living, and has been for millenia. I fail to see what is controversial about stating that graffiti is part of an urban fabric; it is one of those things one finds in virtually every city across cultures and time periods. You argue that graffiti is not intended to be part of the 'urban fabric', yet it is clearly placed with intent by someone, and that person is contributing to the creation of the urban fabric. Crime and criminal elements are as much a part of cities as legitimate businesses. This is not to say they should be allowed to persist unopposed, but that crime and the criminal element helps define cities and their respective cultures.

I have no objection to making taggers and other vandals pay restitution, but I do not see any public benefit in creating so sort of spectacle where these taggers are trotted out, in drag, before a jeering (or applauding) audience, and made to engage in some act of public contrition. At best, this gives the taggers free publicity - far more than they could get simply through tagging. At worst, it turns our justice system back 500 years to the era of the auto de fe.

If tagging is just part of the urban landscape that we should grow to accept and cherish, then we should probably learn to accept the defunct factories with their broken windows, the chemical waste in brown field sites, the hundreds of properties that were flipped by speculators then left to rot, or the properties that were stripped of all salvageable material then left by "urban prospectors". Yes, these are all part of the urban landscape, and these are all controllable variables that keep people from living in the City. We have to improve the quality of life in Buffalo, it starts with cleaning up our image. The large ATAK on the vacant and dangerous Kennisington Heights projects has been there for at least 3 years. We should have gotten rid of this the day it appeared, instead it has become a landmark and a joke. We have parks, like the one between Division streets featured here 2 weeks ago, that should be cleaned up. I walked by this park today and it was populated with homeless sleeping on the benches and a guy in a wheelchair who was begging for change. Like it or not, excused or not, this detracts from the quality of life of our residents and workers, and it gives the city a bad image. If we want to improve Buffalo, then we need to begin to take these things seriously and demand action from the police and elected officials.

Many of you anti-graf people need to get out, travel and research about how culture emerges in contemporary cities.

TK1 - BIG DIFFERENCE between a billboard and graffiti. One sells space on private property that they own, while the other defaces private property that they do not own. One has permission to use the space, the other does not. Graffiti is as much a part of the urban landscape as prostitutes, drug dealers, street gangs, and homeless beggars. I guess we should just accept all of these as they are.

Graffiti is part of our urban culture. We should encourage it and rejoice it. The people who create this type of art are not criminals, rather they are soon to be Picasso's. We should provide grant money (federal, state, and local) to encourage their efforts. We should provide spary paint cans on every corner.

There is nothing more that I would like to see than a slow stroll by City Hall and/or one of Frank Loyd Wrights Houses and see a giant "@#$% Me" sprayed painted all over it in pink paint. If you read some of Olmstead's work it was clearly part of his design. He would be rolling in his grave if he read some the comments opposing it. This is urban and we should rejoice this particular asset in our village. If you oppose it you are clearly a republican, Bush loving yuppie.

I think we miss Pam Beal(Graffiti Hurts) and UB center for community policing. Has anyone stepped in to continue the work she started? "The difference between graffiti and art is permission"

count me as another who finds the cellino & barnes billboard more bothersome than any graffiti

It looks like someone had a second helping of Liberal-O's this morning.

Crazed:

Not to critique your post but crack was not around when Olmstead spewed his brillance. In his earlier work he does refer to a hard white substance, so I understand how you could infer the reference. You're right though. Dead on digger.

Phabio - Any self-respecting graffiti artist will tell you that the crap that is tagged across Buffalo is not graffiti art. There is a big difference between tagging and art. I have seen magnificent graffiti in Miami, Philly, DC, NY, LA, and other cities. Then you have the amateur spray painting that you see around Buffalo and Boston. Big difference between Bansky and ATAK, they aren't even in the same game, much less the same league. Comparing the two is like saying that the woman who sells macramé and crochet at the local craft fair is in the same league as Warhol or Renoir. Bansky is an artist who uses spray paint as his medium. The taggers in Buffalo are vandals using that same medium, but it is not art.

Graffiti vandalism leads to jail By Matt Gryta NEWS STAFF REPORTER Updated: 01/15/08 6:54 AM

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Buffalo graffiti vandal Christopher Fargo was sentenced Monday to up to nine months in jail on his latest graffiti-related arrest, which violated the probation he was granted two years ago.

State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang warned Fargo, 24, of Linwood Terrace, that he faces “much longer” time behind bars if he gets in trouble again.

Fargo was arrested in the Central Terminal on Nov. 11 while allegedly with a group of other graffiti suspects. He has been in jail since his Dec. 13 arraignment.

One of the first vandals seized in a multi- agency crackdown on graffiti throughout the city two years ago, Fargo spent 35 days in jail then before pleading guilty to felony criminal mischief for defacing the Ferguson Electric Construction building.

He was placed on five years’ probation by Wolfgang on July 17, 2006, prohibited from carrying paint cans or shoe polish and ordered to pay Ferguson $360 in restitution.

Assistant Erie County District Attorney Thomas D. Kubiniec, the county’s chief graffiti vandalism prosecutor, said the jobless Fargo pleaded guilty Monday to the probation violation count of failing to lead a law-abiding life and that he still owes the $360 in restitution.

Fargo apologized “to the court, the city and everyone I have harmed.” He said the court-ordered substance-abuse and mental counseling he has been receiving since his Dec. 13 arraignment has helped him accept responsibility for his actions.

But the judge sternly told him that after having given him “a break” two years ago, her fear now is that he “will try to do the same thing again and destroy the property of other people.” Should that happen, she guaranteed he will be sent to state prison instead of the Erie County Correctional Facility, where he will serve out his latest jail term.

Eugene P. Adams, Fargo’s court-assigned attorney, told the judge Fargo remains “despondent” over his latest graffiti- related arrest.

Adams said he has found since representing Fargo that, while graffiti vandals are generally perceived to be hell-bent on just destroying the property of others, there seems to be something of an emotional “impulse” on their part to find a way of “being recognized by society.”