What's the deal with all of the graffiti off of Hwy. 40, around the old Armory? It looks horrible!

Back to topic…I too have wondered what has been up with what appears to be an increasing amount on graffiti, especially by some idiot named Onion. Can't the city pursue the people who continue to do this? I find it infuriating when new construction like the River Des Peres Greenway is already targeted. We need a police chief with some balls that will fight nuisance crimes, one only needs to look to New York to see how effective this strategy can be.

I don't always mind "good" graffiti. I know it's labor intensive work, but I've wish the city would make it a point to paint over graffiti within 48hrs. If this was done along 40/44/55 etc., I think people would move on and paint in less noticeable places where it would stay up for awhile.

The tagging is getting worse it seems in the midtown area, but it's spreading throughout the St. Louis area.



Whoever the taggers "AGES" and "GUER" are need to have one of their thumbs cut off so they think long and hard about using the other on a spraypaint can again. I've recently seen their tags down by the 270/55 interchange, along 44 in Webster and up by the 170/270 inetrchange.



IMHO St. Louis is starting to look like the rotting New York City of the mid 70's with all the graffiti and tagging going on. Like the buildings in Choteau's Landing with all the tags are great to look at as people enter the city.



I ride Metrolink every day to/from work and can usually count on a new tag every week. Especially the last few weeks the taggers have been painting the buildings the have their backsides to Metrolink. I think since the new year the taggers have hit the Metrolink overpasses in Forest Park: at least Metro paints them over within a week.



Then again I brought this same subject a few months ago and was basicly told to shut up: if the tags are on private property it's the owners responsibility to clean it up. If they don't then just deal with it.

I always enjoy the Jesus themed graffiti. Nothing spreads the power of the gospel like green spray paint scrawled across an overpass reminding me that "Jesus Saves." Sometimes I wish he would take a page out of the old testament and do a little more smiting.

I like "Amos 'n' Onion"; I see it along the CC metrolink.

I don't mind graffiti. I actually really like it. It adds to the urban experience. Go to any great city in the world and it's all over the jizzoint.

JivecitySTL wrote:I don't mind graffiti. I actually really like it. It adds to the urban experience. Go to any great city in the world and it's all over the jizzoint.

BULL$HIT. Melbourne has a ton of it, and it looks like $hit. It's the human version of a dog pissing on every tree it sees. It makes the nicest communities look like slums. There's so much graffiti on the train lines that if I ever saw a blank wall I'd be shocked. The graffiti "art" that people like to call it lasts about 3 seconds before some punk tagger comes along and ruins it. It's so bad here now hardware stores have to see building plans before giving anyone under the age of 30 a can of spray paint.



Graffiti is the scourge or quality urban buildings, and all offenders should be forced to swallow a bucket of lead paint.

Ive never actually seen grafitti on "quality urban buildings". its usually on abondoned buildings and highway bridges. If every quality urban building as you say were inhabited by an active resident or business I think the graffitti would disappear. Cant help the highways though...

I went to Germany some 8 or 10 years ago, and came away with a very differant impression. At that time, graffiti seemed to be EVERYWHERE in the old, decaying Eastern portion of the country, but the West seemed clean, modern, and beautiful. Like people had some respect for their built environment. Maybe things have changed since then, I don't know.



Fortunately, the graffiti problem in St. Louis is nothing like it is in some other American cities. I remember Denver, in particular, looking like a pig-sty.

Anyone here ever heard of Banksy from England. He's pretty famous for doing graffiti "art" in very visible public places. They even arrested some chaps for graffitiing his graffiti! (which stay put on the walls etc. when they are found.



Check out his website...

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

In Chicago, they prohibit the sale of spray paint in the city limits. Is this done in St Louis as well? I mean, I suppose it doesn't matter as much in an auto-centric environment where the city limits are actually quite small proportionally.

dweebe wrote:The tagging is getting worse it seems in the midtown area, but it's spreading throughout the St. Louis area.



Whoever the taggers "AGES" and "GUER" are need to have one of their thumbs cut off so they think long and hard about using the other on a spraypaint can again. I've recently seen their tags down by the 270/55 interchange, along 44 in Webster and up by the 170/270 inetrchange.



IMHO St. Louis is starting to look like the rotting New York City of the mid 70's with all the graffiti and tagging going on. Like the buildings in Choteau's Landing with all the tags are great to look at as people enter the city.



I ride Metrolink every day to/from work and can usually count on a new tag every week. Especially the last few weeks the taggers have been painting the buildings the have their backsides to Metrolink. I think since the new year the taggers have hit the Metrolink overpasses in Forest Park: at least Metro paints them over within a week.



Then again I brought this same subject a few months ago and was basicly told to shut up: if the tags are on private property it's the owners responsibility to clean it up. If they don't then just deal with it.

Whoever started this post. Good job and good topic! Though I think it should be renamed to City Graffiti.



I have started my own campain to rid graffitti from our buildings. I call on the CSB when I see a building spray painted though my idea may be fruitless, I have to try. It truly angers me to see more and more tagging going on. I'm with you guys. I have noticed a surge in this sh*t and it needs to stop. I thought the Guer thing was funny at first but it is getting ridiculous. Shame on those of you who think this "adds" to the urbaness of a city! That is such a small minded point of view. My ideal urban city is clean, modern, and beautiful!



I understand that most of the tagging happens at abandoned buildings but I have seen peoples homes tagged and active businesses. This is not cool!



I know I am only one person, but I hold out hope that the more I call the more the CSB (city) understands that we need to stop the graffitti...or somehow remove it within a short amount of time.



Has anyone seen the Powell Square building? I mean come on! This is the first building you see coming from the Ill side and it reflects poorly on us st. louisans. Dweebe, you're right. Chouteaus Landing has rotted dramatically in the past few years. You hit the nail right on the head. The area just looks bad - it is rotting and getting tagged all over!



I know I am always trying to suggest ideas on here (like calling your officials) but please. Report any graffitti, new or old, to the CSB. Any other suggestions?



RH

kind of ironic that Chivvis sponsored a "public art" day for his first phase of the Chouteau's Landing Development. The Powell Square building is pretty gross though. Does anyone know how much it would cost to paint over such a substantial amount of graffiti as is on PS? It must be alot or else Itd probably be gone by now, that stuff has been up there for months...

wheelscomp wrote:kind of ironic that Chivvis sponsored a "public art" day for his first phase of the Chouteau's Landing Development. The Powell Square building is pretty gross though. Does anyone know how much it would cost to paint over such a substantial amount of graffiti as is on PS? It must be alot or else Itd probably be gone by now, that stuff has been up there for months...

Perhaps the PS should receive the same fate as the Switzer Building. I say this because the Powell lacks any historical or architectural significance, is a major eyesore, and is a graffitti magnet. But wheels, the area has gone to the graffitti artists since that art day. I wonder if it is planned that way: http://www.chouteauslanding.com/neighbo ... artery.php



(I wish the graffitti people would stop tagging.)

I appreciate the fact that most of you disagree with my views on this topic, and you're certainly entitled to your opinions. I am of the mind that graffiti is a fact of life in a city, just like buildings and traffic. On certain forms of infrastructure, I believe graffiti is harmless and sometimes...gasp...actually interesting. It's all a matter of taste though, and if you like spotless, pristine, "modern" cities, St. Louis probably isn't for you anyway. Certainly the great cities of New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and London aren't either. That said, I DO NOT like graffiti everywhere, especially on private property. But on freight trains, on the sides of bridges, under viaducts, etc what is the big deal. At least it's something to look at. This city has A LOT bigger fish to fry. Plus, St. Louis probably has a lot less graffiti than the vast majority of major cities in this country. It's actually one of the few "urban ills" that we don't have in abundance.



I remember when Paint Louis transformed an otherwise mundane floodwall into a mile-long slab of urban art in what was the largest graffiti celebration in the WORLD. You have no idea how much a festival like that makes St. Louis sound like a cool place to others around the world, like we're not a bunch of tighta$$es, and we can appreciate alternative forms of expression. The floodwall actually appears in some offbeat and underground art books throughout the world. But leave it to St. Louis, it had to stop because of VERY FEW stray taggers. That sucks.



Again, I'm not in favor of defacing everything in the city with spraypaint, I'm just saying that the presence of graffiti doesn't bother me nearly to the extent that it apparently bothers a lot of you. You look at every single exciting, vibrant city in the United States and I guarantee it's going to have a lot more graffiti of St. Louis. Why? Because graffiti is an indicator of an active, creative urban youth. I know that opened a can of worms, but it's my opinion. I guess I'm not easily offended by this kind of thing.

I hear you Jive. By the way. What are you doing up so early? you poor little bastard. Anyway. Graffiti is a diverse and ancient phenomenon. I agree that some of it is legitimate artistic expression. Some of it also seems (to me) to be almost an obsessive compulsive disorder that compels moronic kids to write their name over and over again. There is also a significant amount of graffiti that is gang related. They use it to mark territory. They use it to warn people who have a price on their head. They use it to mourn. They use it to taunt victim's families. Also, I have been fortunate enough to travel fairly extensively and have seen historical graffiti that has absolutely blown my mind. For example. I visited the ruins of a 6th century Christian Monastery in the Sahara Desert outside of Aswan Egypt. The monastery was along an ancient caravan route and was abandoned by about the year 900 (if I remember correctly). Anyway, people continued to use the buildings as they passed through and there was thousand year old muslim, christian, Jewish, and secular graffiti etched into the walls everywhere. Also, on the pyramids you can see the names of Napoleon's soldiers carved into the stone. In the Tower of London there is graffiti that ranges from simple names to poems and elaborate carvings from medieval prisoners. Out west we have newspaper rock (and many other examples) with ancient native american carvings right alongside 19th century pioneer messages and names. Though urban graffiti is annoying, rejecting it all as trash outright is a position that should be tempered with a little bit of perspective.

Thanks, RH. The fact that Powell Square is the giant "Welcome to St. Louis" sign for tens of thousands of motorists every day speaks volumes about how the City allows itself to be portrayed.



bonwich

one of the last people to have had an office in Powell Square

Powell Square is slated to be rehabbed isn't it? I personally think the huge "ABORTION KILLS BABIES!" sign posted right in front of Powell Square along 55 is a far more offensive welcome into the city than the building itself.

JivecitySTL wrote:It's all a matter of taste though, and if you like spotless, pristine, "modern" cities, St. Louis probably isn't for you anyway. Certainly the great cities of New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and London aren't either. That said, I DO NOT like graffiti everywhere, especially on private property. But on freight trains, on the sides of bridges, under viaducts, etc what is the big deal. At least it's something to look at. This city has A LOT bigger fish to fry.

Exactly!

Doug wrote:Grafitti has been around since the roman times, at least, as pointed out by TGE. Fighting graffiti is really a waste of public dollars. Maybe we should focus on trash removal, slumlords, and crack houses first? Quality of life issues should take precedent. Really, if all you have to complain about is graffiti then you probably need to visit some of the needy neighborhoods in our City.

Personally I completely disagree with your statement that "fighting graffiti is a waste of money." You say the money could be better spent on quality of life issues. While I agree those listed above are important but I think fighting graffiti is a quality of life issue. It can't be all that expensive to paint over graffiti. Seeing graffiti everywhere can be demoralizing, especially on new construction.