Internet May Be Sparking Revival For Graffiti Tagging in Subway System

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The New York Sun

Graffiti tagging is experiencing a renaissance in the subway system this year, and the Internet may be to blame, with sites such as YouTube.com changing the rules of the subway-vandalizing game.

The MTA instituted its zero-tolerance policy toward graffiti vandalism in 1989, meaning no trains that had been marked overnight would run.

These days, taggers are painting trains not with the idea that their work will be seen on the rails, but viewed online. Camcorders and digital cameras are as essential to their craft as cans of spray paint.

“With the Internet, you get your work out there,” the New York Police Department’s Transit Bureau chief, James Hall, said yesterday.” It provides documentation of your work.”

So far this year, 162 cars have been taken out of service, or “layed up,” because of graffiti-related paint damage, compared with 85 in 2005 and 49 in 2004.

This year, 53 lay-ups have been reported in Queens, 39 in Manhattan, 18 in the Bronx, and another 18 in Brooklyn, Chief Hall said. The no. 7 and N lines were the worst hit, he said.

At an MTA committee meeting, Chief Hall said the police department is changing its tactics to keep up with growing damage to its fleet.

The department has hired new detectives, described by Chief Hall as “real pitbulls,” to improve the department’s follow-up investigations of taggers not caught in the act. “Although you did that hit in June, they may be knocking on your door in October,” Chief Hall said.

Police have increased surveillance of train yards and tunnels, as well as begun matching images of graffiti in other parts of the city with “hits” on trains to make stronger cases against vandals.

The police department has arrested 28 individual subway vandals this year, compared with seven in 2005. Some were arrested more than once. Chief Hall emphasized that the perpetrators weren’t just teenagers, but included men as old as 35.

The cost of cleaning subway cars totaled $187,000 last year, according to an MTA spokesman.


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