We’ve written about graffiti in our area a couple times now, including a recent spate in late December. And we’ve added a page telling you how to report it to the city and track it on a public map in a crowdsourcing experiment.
We are now working with the Seattle Times and its news partners on a graffiti-related piece, so we’re putting some questions out to you: What are your thoughts on graffiti in Greenwood and Phinney Ridge? Where are the trouble spots? Is graffiti becoming a growing problem? What can be done to stop taggers?
Post your thoughts in comments below or email us at tips@phinneywood.com.
[Photo courtesy Artman1951]
22 responses so far ↓
1 jm // Feb 17, 2010 at 8:14 am
The vandalism doesn’t inform or improve the community at all.
2 jlw // Feb 17, 2010 at 8:51 am
my alley gets hit often. i am @ right off of greenwood by the post office. i have a can of my own black spray paint and when my garbage and recylce get’s hit i cover it up right away. seems to keep them away at times
3 Reason // Feb 17, 2010 at 9:35 am
It’s unfortunate that graffiti lumps in talented public artists with taggers. If it weren’t for taggers, graffiti would be encouraged and enjoyed. Thanks a million taggers (aka. no talent hacks).
4 jw // Feb 17, 2010 at 9:50 am
@Reason: agreed. Public artists (of all types) produce great works, some of it is graffiti. Tagging is just plain destructive.
5 JBW // Feb 17, 2010 at 9:55 am
I know that we got tagged and the company we hired, Goodbye Graffiti, totally botched the job. They wound up replacing our Plexiglas window.
6 liz // Feb 17, 2010 at 9:59 am
Each time I walk underneath Aurora near N 63rd I’m bothered by graffiti on the mural and, even more, by the fact that the mural never seems to get repaired even after the graffiti is “removed”. Why can’t we maintain our murals?
7 RR // Feb 17, 2010 at 10:51 am
I despise vandalism. What’s going through someone’s mind when they paint all over someone else’s property?
8 seattle mike // Feb 17, 2010 at 10:58 am
The conventional wisdom seems to be true that the best way to discourage tags is to remove or cover them as quickly as possible. That takes away the tagger’s incentive.
9 Tim Hogg // Feb 17, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Do some traveling through Germany and see what doing nothing about graffiti does. It’s all over the place and makes everything look dingy. However, if you can’t get car theives locked up, how can you expect them to lock up vandals?
This is where education comes in– you have to teach people that art is about beauty and there are places for it. People get into gangs and tagging for a reason– it is there that they feel like they have a voice.
We need to address this in our community.
10 tiktok // Feb 17, 2010 at 12:44 pm
I think taggers are attracted to blank space. Tagging over a tag isn’t very satisfying, so if you paint over a tag….you’re just providing a nice blank canvas for the next guy.
11 another neighbor // Feb 17, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I think the giant hot dog figure outside 85th st cafe and deli is much worse than any of the graffiti in the neighborhood.
12 liz // Feb 17, 2010 at 5:04 pm
I also dislike the hot dog, and often find graffiti to be artful. But it’s vandalism that is detestable (usually).
13 Jamps // Feb 17, 2010 at 5:39 pm
@another neighbor
HAHA! Agreed! That thing is spooky!!
14 Hinto // Feb 17, 2010 at 6:40 pm
The last time we caught someone tagging a was a bunch of white preppy kids that looked like pretty wealthy judging by their clothes, skateboards, hats, backpacks. I think it’s important to realize that it’s _our own kids_ that often do these things, not somebody from somewhere else, or a gang, or whatever. Education starts at home.
15 Mike // Feb 17, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Have to agree with Hinto. There is a lot of crime in the neighborhood that you can blame on the tweekers coming off Aurora and the van camp by the zoo but the tagging is often going to be the work of otherwise middle class kids from the ‘hood’ who think it’s fun to play tweeker for a dumb night of vanalism. Even good kids are going to go out and TP a friend’s house but some of them cross the line and turn acting like a stupid teenager it into something that causes real property damage. These are probably the ones most detered by removing tags right away, the less they see it the less ideas they get and the less acceptable it appears.
16 Corwin // Feb 17, 2010 at 7:11 pm
@Hinto
You’re absolutely right. I’ve never seen anyone but preppy white kids tagging things. Raise your kids properly, people!
17 Iron City Mike // Feb 17, 2010 at 7:59 pm
I find it ironic that the hot dog place on 85th and Greenwood is called “Slum City” – seems to be the direction Greenhood is taking.
18 SPG // Feb 17, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Bookmark this link:
http://www2.seattle.gov/util/forms/graffiti/graffitiForm.asp
When you see graffiti, report it. If it’s city property they’ll clean it up within a couple days to a week. If it’s private property, they’ll send a notice to the owner explaining they must clean it up.
As others have said, tagging is almost entirely the work of YOUR KIDS.
19 Ben // Feb 18, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I’ve lived in the neighborhood for 10 years and my feeling is that there is quite a bit more tagging going on now than a decade ago. Also a lot more kids “hanging out” in the parks at night. I enjoy public art in the right place, but tagging is neither. Not sure what can be done besides staying on top if it.
20 Dan // Feb 19, 2010 at 1:17 am
Oh no, parks where kids can hang out at night! My goodness, what’s this neighborhood turned into?
21 John // Feb 21, 2010 at 11:20 pm
I know many of these “preppy white kids” they are normal kids of all races, incomes and living situations. Real graffiti writers don’t just write profanity, leave that to immature kids with permanent markers. graffiti writers are normal people with jobs and money… just because they act like a rats doesn’t mean they have to dress like rats.
22 preppy teenage vandal // Feb 28, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Nothing’s gonna stop graffiti, period. QQ
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