On Broken Windows and Quality of Life Crime

"Broken Windows" is really enjoying a renaissance, isn't it? I mean, I'm no criminologist, but it's fascinating to see how a grand theory about fighting crime has held such an iron-clad grip on the hearts and minds of leaders for two decades, even as the level and severity of crime has dropped in jaw dropping fashion.

Even Bill DeBlasio, an unrepentant liberal mayor the likes of which New York hasn't seen since the days of dial up modems and flannel shirts, has embraced the notion that you can stop major crimes before they happen by unleashing the wrath of the state on anyone who jumps a turnstyle, drinks in public or tags a building.

He showed his support for it by hiring Bill Bratton to be his police commissioner, and he's stood by it even in the aftermath of Eric Garner's death in Staten Island. Garner was confronted by the police for selling "loosie" cigarettes, the exact kind of "quality of life" crime that falls under the Broken Windows purview. Hizzoner has made notable exceptions when it comes to marijuana and "Stop & Frisk," but otherwise, the message has remained the same: Order = Prosperity, therefore Order must be upheld.

When Yoshi starts showing up around town,
you know all hell is breaking loose.

Except, maybe sometimes not? As has been documented voluminously, members of the NYPD have followed the lead of their reprehensible union leaders and all but rebelled against the city, first with disrespectful displays directed at the mayor, and then in a brief slowdown. One astute commenter noted at the time, this latter action could result in two possibilities:

1) There is a corresponding spike in crime, in which case the NYPD has purposefully put us all at risk to make a stupid political point.

2) There is no corresponding spike in crime, which means "Broken Windows" is a failed strategy and the NYPD's aggressiveness was never necessary.

Now, I have zero tolerance for grown men who spout cartoonish gibberish like "The mayor literally has blood on his hands," and even this guy, who starts out reasonably well, loses me when he slags "anti-police protesters." Um, Steve? They're anti-bad police protesters, not anti all police, ok?

Delores Jones-Brown, a criminologist at John Jay, nailed it recently when she said, somewhat inarticulately, “There is a way in which whether to say anything against the existing policing regime, it gets interpreted as anti-police.”

And eye for an eye, and we'll all go blind.

But while Steve Osborne and his ilk may be blinded by their seething hatred of Al Sharpton, I wholeheartedly support this latter thought, which I feel obliged to print in full:

Most cops I know feel tired of being pushed to do more and more, and then even more. More police productivity has meant far less crime, but at a certain point New York began to feel like, yes, a police state, and the police don’t like it any more than you do. Tremendous successes were achieved in battling crime and making this city a much better place to live and work in and visit. But the time has probably come for the Police Department to ease up on the low-level “broken-windows” stuff while re-evaluating the impact it may or may not have on real, serious crime. No one will welcome this more than the average cop on the beat, who has been pressed to find crime where so much less of it exists.

Makes sense, right? If I were a cop, I'd be annoyed as fuck that I had to spend my time harassing people for minor offenses while simultaneously blamed for inflaming tensions. especially when the city just recorded yet another record low of homicides (328! compared to 2,245 in 1990). People smarter than me have been questioning its effectiveness since 2001 (side note: Dreadful day to have published this op-ed, amiright?) Clearly, something has to change.

The hellhole that is Williamsburg

 The city's never ending war on graffiti is one head in the Broken Windows hydra, so if there is any serious reckoning with the policy, I hope it's would be part of any review. This isn't to say I'm in favor of letting vandals trash residential houses, render signage unusable, and wreck public parks. I'm thinking something more along the lines of asking, why is it that Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick, arguably the three most graffiti-filled neighborhoods in Brooklyn, are also at the heart of the "Manhattanization of Brooklyn?"

If graffiti is such a gateway to crime, what the hell are all these rich people doing there? Might some of that vandal squad energy be better served somewhere else?

Speaking of which, "Graffiti Murals: Examining the Impact of Street Art" will hit the streets in August. Be sure to reserve your advance copy here.

Happy New Years y'all!

To be unexpected

Editing of text? Check.  Foot notes converted into end notes? You betcha. Academic jargon stripped? Well, sort of. There's still a lot left in the manuscript, and that's how I likes it. Gotta say more than just "Graffiti murals are cool, here's how some of them came to be," right? It's always painful to revisit words written a long time ago, even if that "ago" is less than five years; and indeed, some of what I wrote for my thesis, I can't even begin to wrap my head around. Needless to say, that was the easiest stuff to scrap.

Now I'm in the middle of a much less fun part: Pictures. Ugh. Along with a manuscript, I have to turn in a disc with all the images titled properly, along with a spreadsheet with corresponding captions, and if necessary, photo release forms. The rule for the latter is that if a picture was taken by me on private property, or if the picture belongs to someone else, then I need to get permission. If it was taken by me on public land, then it's mine to do with it what I please. Thankfully, roughly 75 percent of the images I want to use fall into the latter category. But I'm still going to have to wrastle up a few forms from folks.

Then there's the issue of photo quality. Some images aren't high res, and some, like this one, just aren't as good they should be (chain link fence in the front, shadows in the back). What can I say, I never really imagined I'd be considering this sort of issue when I embarked on the thesis four or so years ago.

So I'll be making a few trips to Inwood and possibly Staten Island in the next few weeks to snap a few more pics. I won't bore ya'll with the ins and outs of securing permission from folks to use their pictures or get proper captions; needless to say, I feel like I'm really close to being done. Formatting the text properly and making sure the new art goes where its supposed to is going to be very un-fun, but I've got a whole month left to make it happen.

Anyhoo! Saw this little guy earlier this month on a run through DUMBO:

 

If you've read much of my blog, you know I'm a sucker for figures in graffiti, and this has the added value of being somewhat cheeky and cute at the same time. And low and behold, Luna Park has written about him on her invaluable Street Spot blog. Apparently many pieces from Art is Trash are literally assembled out of trash, which makes them especially fleeting in nature. I like that notion; it's very much the way that New York City works. It can be jarring to see things come and go so quickly, especially when they're restaurants or stores that have been around forever (ahem, J&R, Pearl Art), but it's also what keeps things fresh.

But with all due respect, I'm not sure I agree that there's a need for an antidote for permission walls, at least not down this way. Mind you, I understand where her rationale from. A visitor to Williamsburg, Greenpoint or Bushwick these days can easily become overwhelmed by street art of all stripes; I know this because when I visit there, I hardly know where to look first. It's fair to say northern Brooklyn, the epicenter of NYC street art, is close to a saturation point. And this is coming from someone who likes this stuff.

Y'all sure ya didn't miss any spots there, eh?

It's an unfortunate reality of New York right now: Some places are filled to the rafters with street art, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, and others, like say, Sunset Park, are pretty much barren. Even down my way, Gowanus has a pretty sparse selection of inspiring graffiti. Sure, we get interesting entries here and there, like this, but rarely anything that makes you just go 'Whoah."

 

Well, until now. A few weeks, ago, I went for a run along Nevins Street, and stumbled on this, on the side of the Lower East Side Ecology Center's e-waste warehouse. Yes, I know the Lower East Side is in Manhattan. Haven't you heard everyone's moving to Brooklyn? I've dropped off various electronic gadgets here, and always thought this wall would be a great one for a mural; It's large, flat, blank and it's often tagged by random writers.

Apparently the good folks the Wallnuts thought so too. 

Werc Hernandez

I haven't been down to the wall since June 2; in that time the wall has had much, much more added to it. I can't wait to get back down there to see the finished product. I would imagine many people will be stopping and lingering awhile to see what is a bit of a rarity here, and which, for me, was as pleasant a surprise as the Art is Trash piece. Which just goes to show, as long as you don't overdo a good thing, it can retain the ability to amaze, impress and inspire.

Bad v. Good

Just poking around the old hard drive, looking for a picture I'm sure I took of a mural that Groundswell did on the side of a jail in Boerum Hill, and I stumble across two images, circa August, 2011. When I take pictures that don't fit into any particular folder (say, Greenpoint, or Thanksgiving), I dump them into folders called "Everything Else." It's not perfect for locating things, but I do know in advance that when I look inside one, I'll find a smorgasbord.

Here are two images that were in this particular folder. Can you guess which one qualifies as "good" graffiti, and which one was obviously done by an amateur?

The first one is at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, and comes courtesy of How and Nosm of the Tats Cru, and rrobots. The latter? Can't remember where it was, though that's probably just as well, as I'm sure it's long since been buffed.

-PV