Marc Ecko Enterprises plans to sue the city Friday in federal court in Manhattan, to fight Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to shut down the graffiti-art street festival it planned for next Wednesday.

The announcement of the lawsuit yesterday afternoon at the company’s Chelsea headquarters came two days after the city revoked a permit issued a month ago for the event, saying it “would incite criminal behavior.”

“In my 13 years of business, I have never held a press conference in New York City,” the company’s founder and namesake, Marc Ecko, said yesterday. “That said, I’ve never been told by the government how and under what circumstances I can create something.”

Mr. Ecko said the city sees graffiti as a “gateway crime.” For him, though, graffiti has been a “gateway to entrepreneurship” and the inspiration for his business, which claims annual revenue of more than $1 billion.

At the graffiti event, about 20 renowned graffiti artists were supposed to use hundreds of cans of spray paint to decorate 10 full-size replicas of the sides of subway cars, created by a metal worker, Metal Man Ed, in California. The company has spent months and about $150,000 putting together the event, which the city originally approved.

Standing in front of a panel of one of the replica subway cars, the lawyer representing Mr. Ecko, Daniel Perez, said, “reasonable people would look and say that’s not a real train.” He said he expected the matter would be resolved by Wednesday.

The mayor’s spokesman, Ed Skyler, said yesterday: “The city isn’t obligated to permit an event on a public street that encourages the vandalism of subway cars in the name of selling T-shirts and video games. The courts should uphold our ability to protect New York City’s quality of life.”

Officials have said the city has cleaned up 10 million square feet of space marred by graffiti in 2005, and more than 67 million square feet since 2002.

One of the artists who was supposed to participate in the event, Julius Cavero, who goes by T.Kid170, said it’s a shame the Bloomberg administration revoked the permit, especially since he has been encouraging children for more than two decades not to write graffiti on public surfaces. In 1981, he started a group called No More Trains, which encouraged children to create murals with spray paint on approved surfaces, rather than on subways.

Now, Mr. Cavero works for the city as a painter. He also is the creator of murals around the city, including one near Yankee Stadium, which includes portraits of famous ballplayers.

“I think it’s unfortunate what’s happening,” he said. “I think it’s a travesty that this is going on.”

Another artist, who goes only by Wane, said the Ecko event was not designed to encourage youngsters to vandalize city property.

But he said graffiti had a positive impact on his own young life.

“It kept me away from gangs,” he said. “It kept me away from drugs.”