Vandals Butthurt Over Whitewashing Graffiti

In Queens, NY, there is a section of town called 5Pointz, which, until recently, was considered a haven for vandals who practiced their art. Then the building’s owner painted over all the graffiti. Even the NYTimes seems sad.

From the Times here:

Graffiti is often denounced as vandalism, but the deliriously festooned, sprawling warehouses at the western edge of Queens rose far above that. Blanketed with giddy images, drawing street artists from around the world, 5Pointz was a decades-old legal haven considered both a “United Nations of Graffiti” and a semi-rebellious statement in a city some feel is growing too antiseptic. “Save 5Pointz,” the infamous British street artist Banksy urged in his final message to New Yorkers, after he wrapped his monthlong spree clandestinely decorating the city’s streets in October.

But early Tuesday, under the cover of night, painters quietly blanketed much of the walls of 5Pointz with whitewash, erasing the work of hundreds and seemingly putting the final nail in the long battle between the building’s owners, who plan to erect luxury apartments, and the artists who fought to save it.

“This is the biggest rag and disrespect in the history of graffiti,” said a teary-eyed Marie Cecile Flaguel, a spokeswoman for the group behind 5Pointz, which sprang like a rainbow from the gray sidewalks near Jackson Avenue in Long Island City. “He’s painted over the work of at least 1,500 artists.”

The owner of the buildings, Jerry Wolkoff, however, said painting over the artwork was the humane thing to do. A recent order by a federal judge allows him to move forward with his plans to demolish the buildings by year’s end, and, he said, watching the art-covered walls be pulled down piece by piece would be “torture.”

Liberals always cry when the squalor their policies create gets covered up by the progress of capitalism. And their tears make me giggle madly.