5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center - The Institute of Higher Burning

[Roxy Poodle]

I got home yesterday from a week's vacation in Hilton Head, SC. If you've ever been there, you know that it's beautiful and more or less the most civil place on the planet. As such, coming home to NYC was a bit of a shock to the system, and I figured I'd better get myself somewhere that would remind me why I choose to live in this loud, crazy, dirty place. So I grabbed my camera and headed to the 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center a few neighborhoods over from mine. It's always a great vibe there -- there are always grafitti artists working and tons of people watching -- but it turned out there was also an outdoor hip hop dance party going on today. Just a great, great afternoon, and my love affair with NYC is back intact! I also got to give my new fisheye lens a bit of a workout!




























I posted a few more to my Flickr account.

[moroccangirl]

Love these pics and the vibrant colors!!!!

[badger]

Nice!

I wonder what the etiquette is for painting over an existing painting....

[Roxy Poodle]

Nice!

I wonder what the etiquette is for painting over an existing painting....

Sadly, there's no etiquette anymore: Toward the end of last year, the building's landlord won his long-standing battle to demolish the building and build … wait for it … condos. To trot out a quote that I've trotted out far, far too many times since the first time I read it:

"What’s most important is to build, no matter how thoughtless or dehumanizing the results. It is the kind of logic that kills cities -- and that has been poisoning this one for decades." ~ New York Times' architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, writing in 2009 about the Atlantic Yards

The building's still there, but the landlord painted over all the graffiti. I went to a holiday market in the neighborhood at Christmas-time and found myself hanging around the building paying my respects. I didn't have the heart to post my pics of the 5 Pointz white out to my Flickr account, but I did post them to Tumblr. They're here if you can stand to look at them.

But yes, in the good old days, the building was treated like a museum. An organization managed it, provided permits for painting, and determined how long different murals stayed before they were painted over. I imagine it was a weird balance: The whole point of graffiti is that it's temporary, but they had art from world-renowned graffiti artists there. You could see the portrait below of the Notorious B.I.G. (not my photo) from the 7 train, and I recall that picture being there for years. Other murals would last only a few days or weeks.

[moroccangirl]

That portrait is amazing!!! I scared to look at your tumblr.

[badger]

It's an interesting story. Sad that some people ruin what so many love.

[Roxy Poodle]

That portrait is amazing!!! I scared to look at your tumblr.

All the local blogs -- Gawker, Curbed NY, Daily Intel -- posted pics immediately when they discovered it the morning after, (Of course, they white-washed the place during the overnight hours.) and I got chills when I saw them. In fact, I just got chills again thinking about it now. It's really such a terrible loss. On one hand, I understand it -- I cannot imagine what that piece of land is worth, and it's not absurd that the landlord wanted to cash in. (I don't know the specifics of the situation. I know he got some of the money from photo shoots and movies, etc., that used the location. But I'm sure he was still losing money on the deal. In addition to not being able to fathom what the land is worth, I'm sure the taxes were unfathomable as well.) But at the same time, it was a world-renowned graffiti museum and a real community gathering place. That kind of thing is rare in the world and priceless. I have to believe that there could have been a solution that would have at least semi-satisfied everyone.

And I do so miss seeing Biggie from the 7 train! The portrait really was out of this world. Here's Tumblr's page of photos tagged with the artist's name, Owen Dippie (OD). Some crazy stuff there -- all work safe to the extent that I've seen!

[moroccangirl]

Seriously, amazing work. I can't believe he's doing that with spray paint! Where do they get all of that spray paint?