5 Pointz (Part I)

Aaaaaaaand, we're back to the graffiti. Woo!

So, just as I dedicated my last few few entries to the final paper for my last class, "Urban Political Processes," these next three come to you via "New York City Arts and Urban Expression," which I took in the fall.

I'd written a good chunk of it for "Issues In Urban Studies," the first masters class I took at Fordham, in the fall of 2010, but wasn't entirely satisfied with how it turned out. So I added a lot more theory, some excellent ruminations from Rem Koolhaas, and more details about the planned demolition of the site. This is one of the unintended perks of spreading studies out over five years-you get to revisit past projects and build on previous work.

Unlike the piece on public housing, I was able to include this paper my thesis as sort of a bonus chapter. It's very different from the other case studies in my thesis, but I think that's just as well. 5 Pointz is in a class of its own in the NYC graffiti world, so it deserves its own treatment. Hopefully you'll think so too.

Enjoy!

Five Pointz

Fifteen minutes. That’s the amount of time it takes to get from Carnegie Hall, in glitzy Midtown Manhattan, to 5 Pointz, in gritty Long Island City. On a weekday afternoon, the 500,000 square foot former warehouse colloquially known as the “Institute of Higher Burnin” can be visited from Carnegie Hall during lunch hour, via the E train, which drops one off all of two blocks away, at the 23 St/Ely Ave stop.

5 Pointz, as seen from under the elevated 7 train

The M train, which passes through Rockefeller Center, likewise stops at 23 St/Ely Ave. Or for those who are closer to Grand Central Terminal or Times Square, there is the elevated 7 train, which slowly creaks around the buildings’ southeast corner on a serpentine track and stops at Court Square, also two blocks away.

Fifteen minutes by subway. In the scheme of New York City real estate, and the dreams, visions and fantastical amounts of capital cycling through regions in such close proximity, 5 Pointz never stood a chance. In July 2001, the city government signaled as much, when it included the building in a 37 block rezoning, adding it to the three block area that was rezoned in 1986 for the high density development that facilitated the construction of the 1.25 million square-foot Citibank tower.

At the time, the plan was such:

In the Long Island City core, the rezoning replaces existing low density light manufacturing zones with higher density, mixed commercial and residential zones to allow as-of-right developments, including office buildings with large, efficient floor plates.

City planners at the time were not thinking strictly in vague terms that would be sorted out by the forces of the market; as the second page of the aforementioned document contained a graphic that helpfully identifies sites ripe for development. In the bottom right corner is a figurative bulls eye on 5 Pointz.

5 Pointz can be seen in the lower right corner.
From "Long Island City Rezoning: Executive Summary."

And so, some 12 years later, 5 Pointz, which began its current incarnation as a graffiti magnet as the “Phun Factory” and for a spell housed a vibrant artist colony called Crane Street Studios, has a date with the wrecking ball, destined to join countless art meccas cleared out in the name of progress.

But I digress. Although the fate of 5 Pointz has seemingly been sealed, the space is still worth a critical look, both in terms of its contributions as a node of a global graffiti community that still practices a great deal of its craft in the shadows, and its relation to the city’s larger fabric. Before going into greater detail about the building, some theoretical framing is useful.

For starters, the French philosopher Michel Foucault addresses something that is often left unsaid when assessing the merits of public spaces: It is not important that a building or space is constructed in a particular fashion; what matters most is how space is experienced by people. He writes:

Our life is still dominated by a certain number of oppositions that cannot be tampered with, that institutions and practices have not ventured to change—oppositions that we take for granted, for example, between private space and public space, between family space and social space, between cultural space and useful space, between the space of leisure activities and the space of work. All of these are still controlled by an unspoken sacrilization.

The Citicorp tower looms over the diminutive 5 Pointz

Oppositions that separate 5 Pointz from the surrounding neighborhood are numerous, and helpful to mention, because they locate the building within its context. There is the obvious, in the painted figures, glyphs and texts that cover well over half the surface of the complex. This opposition is in fact its defining feature within all of New York City—there are spaces dedicated to graffiti scattered all around the five boroughs, but none rise five stories from the ground and wrap around 3/4ths of a city block. But there are other less obvious oppositions. There is purpose: This building was constructed for light manufacturing; as noted above the area has been rezoned to exclude this kind of space.

More preferable are structures like the 50 story Citigroup Building. There is the chaos of the space, when compared to PS 1, the satellite of MoMa that is stationed across Jackson Avenue. Whereas P.S. 1 sits seemingly in calm repose, behind clean concrete and a simple white façade, 5 Pointz is a garish mish mash of the low brow, high concept, simplistic and astonishingly complex. It also functions as a gallery turned inside out—whereas most spaces exhibit art inside, 5 Pointz’ exterior is the gallery.

P.S. 1, ensconced safely behind concrete walls across the street
from 5 Pointz

Additionally, the building is—thanks to its mass, color, outlet and location—a bone fide landmark that draws visitors from around the globe to see it. Although the art at PS 1 is no doubt impressive, and the architecture of the Citigroup Building is visually arresting (mostly because it stands so freakishly out of proportion with everything else), neither can compare to the uniqueness of 5 Pointz, with an exterior that changes almost as often as the seasons. It is akin to a chameleon, a living creature that alters its skin as it sees fit.

Unfortunately, one final opposition also exists, which is to say official recognition. PS 1 has existed since 1971, and has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since 2000. Citigroup is a multi-national financial services company with 260,000 employees that was founded in 1812. The former institution is lauded as the type of culture inherently desirable to the city, whereas street art and graffiti get little to no official support from the city. The latter? As noted before, in form if not function, its space represents the high water mark for the city, which is to say maximum capital exerted from the space.

Next: Rem Koohaas' "Manhattanism" and the folly of the Wolkoffs.