The Tides of March

"Thank god we still have a system that rewards accomplishment, and that we can live in places where we want to live, without having apartments and the scum of the city pushed on us."

How's that for an opening? Apologies for the extended absence; been devoting most of my energies to the fam, the work, and the Urban Political Processes class, which is where I read the above quote.

It's from a story called "The End of the Exurban Dream," which ran in New York Magazine back on December 13, 1976. It was quoted in a paper about the suburbs I was tasked with reading, and what I love about it is it was spoken by a fine young asshat from Westport, Connecticut, which is just a skip and a hop from Norwalk, where I was living at the time (I was 2 1/2, for what it's worth).  Living in Brooklyn, it's some what bracing to read the things that were said about the city back in the day. Now we all LOVE the city, right?

Anyway, this is neither here nor there concerning graffiti, except that a key distinction between suburban environments and urban environments is randomness that comes from the city. Now, it's not fair to say ALL suburbs are bland and predictable, when I was growing up in Rowayton, I found plenty in that first generation suburb (there are three generations, if you must know, including what are called exurbs—those are are bet noire of urbanists) to be a fascinating place, full of history, a sense of place and a feeling of community.  Why, to this day, I still look back fondly at days at summer camp, picking blueberries by the train tracks, riding my bicycle to.......

Sorry, I almost got on a Nostaligia Train coming in on the express track. Where were we again?

Right, graffiti. So I spotted this back in January:

I walk by this building just about every day of the week, as it's next door to my office, which is across the street from Carnegie Hall. It looks like this from across the street:

I know, it's not an ideal match up, but basically the window above is behind the FedEx truck. Oh, trick question: Can you spot the arrow inside the FedEx logo?

Anyway, something looked familiar. Something I'd seen on other buildings nearby:

There was the one on the door of a building across the street that's slated for demolition (The Morton Williams moved down the street, but we're supposed to get a Nordstrom in the building that will replace it. Woo!)

And another on the side of the building that used to house Jekyll & Hyde Restaurant that's currently being gutted. God, that place was horrible, so glad it's gone. Amiright?

Then there were the twins over on Broadway, just south of Columbus Circle

And Jesus, are those miniatures that have spawned on a signal box on 57th Street?

In case you haven't figured it out, this is EKG. This one, which seems to have drawn the ire of a critic, is actually in downtown Brooklyn, near Metrotech. It is decidedly not near Midtown.

But then again, neither is this, which I saw in December in Greenpoint. The two other tags here are pretty meh as far as I'm concerned, but you know what?

I kind of like EKG, who is here again in Greenpoint, along with a random assortment of tags and two jellyfish. Mmmmmm, jellyfish.....

From a strictly stylistic point of view, his/her thing is nothing to get worked up about; it's just a couple of straight lines, probably done with an orange marker. And as you can see, there's no strict uniform to the lines; it's obviously done very quickly. But like the jellyfish, it stands out among the tags as a pictograph, and its uniform color and yes, straight lines, make it show up better. Not too much, mind you, as the one on the front of Lee's Art Shop is still there, nearly a month later.

And it seems to be everywhere, like the a constant pulse of the city. Which is alive, thank god. If I ever see an EKG that's a flat line, I may need to leave that neighborhood ASAP. Maybe I'll move to an exurb. ;-)