Politics of Graffiti

In 1972, graffiti spreading throughout New York City (more importantly subway graffiti), became an important issue for Mayor John V. Lindsay. It was said that during this time, more than $300,000 was being spent each year to erase graffiti. One council president told reporters that graffiti may be “one of the worst froms of pollution”, and a monthly anti graffiti day was created to reduce graffiti. Mayor Lindsay started creating plans to reduce graffiti and prevent it from happening with anything from arresting and fining anyone with and open spray can, making it illegal to carry spray paint in public, to keeping records of those who purchase spary paint or markers. Other organized groups like the Kings County Council of Jewish War Verterans and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts organized graffiti clean ups. The budget of all new task forces was estimated to cost $24 million to deface the “paint pollution”. Months later New York Magazine published an article suggesting that graffiti brightened up the city from its normal black and white boring look. After all the money spent on policies and graffiti removal efforts, the city still looked the same and no one complained about the lost cause. The pollution problem was then blamed on numerous sources: judges, social services, and train yard gaurds. From 1975 to 1980 the issue of graffiti died down. In September of 1980, Mayor Lindsay put fences and guard dogs around one of the train yards, and after three months no graffiti was found on the trains. He proposed to create more fence barriers around other train yards, which would cost him $22.4 million.

From reading the quotes from the Mayors and graffiti artists, there seems to have been a miscommunication in what the public likes to see, and what’s really best for the city. To me this article showed that the government really just wants to take things into their own hands, and it seemed like Mayor Lindsay was more interested in his personal belief than what the city wanted. He didn’t bother to try to compromise with artists to find a better solution to the graffiti issue, and instead he ended up wasting money that could have been used on more pressing issues, like violence and poverty.