Michael Martin is no more. Perhaps some of you can comment on his work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06...martin.html?_r=1&hpw


"In 1975, in the 68th Street Station of the Lexington Avenue line, he saw a poster for the Broadway play “The Wiz” with the slogan, “The Wiz Is a Wow.” It had a certain ring. “He said, ‘If the Wiz is a Wow, why can’t Iz be the Wiz?’ ” his friend and fellow graffiti artist SAR (real name, Charles Sar) recalled in a telephone interview last week.

With the graffiti artist Vinny, Mr. Martin mounted an intensive throw-up campaign on the A line. In the late 1970s he branched out to other lines, spray-painting top-to-bottoms (graffiti displays extending from the top of a train to the bottom), burners (complicated works intended to dazzle the competition) and fully realized scenes, like his homage to John Lennon, painted after Lennon was shot to death in 1980. It was a two-car scene with a portrait of Lennon and a graveyard filled with tombstones."

that's sad; perhaps from inhaling all those fumes, the article alludes

Wish he'd have instructed taggers in the finer points of graffiti art; most looks like trash but he's the man

I'm sure he's up there somewhere painting

r.i.p.

I don't consider tagging an Art however... there are exceptions that have themse such as this:










TALK about an early form of a "car wrap!"



IMHO would be impressed if CCRIDER can pull off a paint job like one of these!

When you highlight the outstanding examples of this artwork, it's easy to admire. I remember when the first hints of graffiti appeared on station walls. It was "Taki 183". But I never dreamed how bad it would ultimately get.

New York in the '70's was a scary place. Graffiti added to that feeling. I rode in subway cars and walked through stations covered inside and out with ugly, undecipherable scrawls, blotches and smears of spray paint and did it 5, 6 or 7 days a week in the 1970's. As I rode the number 1 line through the underground yard at 137th Street I could see the track littered with spray cans just a few feet away from the control tower. I wondered how it was possible for people to tag entire cars right under the noses of the TA personnel.

Some of you may find it hard to believe just how much graffiti there was everywhere you looked, and it made ordinary people feel uncomfortable and out of control. Most of it was not outstanding, pretty to look at or well done. Paint runs streaked down car doors and windows. It was hard sometimes to know what station you were in, especially in a crowded train with no PA system. Station walls, signs, doors, almost any available flat surface would be tagged. Only the advertising posters stayed graffiti-free because they were replaced regularly.

An ugly era that thankfully has passed on.

quote:

Originally posted by prrhorseshoecurve:
IMHO would be impressed if CCRIDER can pull off a paint job like one of these!

been there,done that,been graffn since 1980.i lived it

quote:

Originally posted by West Side Joe:
New York in the '70's was a scary place. Graffiti added to that feeling. I rode in subway cars and walked through stations covered inside and out with ugly, undecipherable scrawls, blotches and smears of spray paint and did it 5, 6 or 7 days a week in the 1970's.

so did i,but i wasent SCARED TO DEATH.

I grew up in NYC. Graffiti was a disgusting blight on the city. Too bad the vandals couldn't channel their "creativity" in a legal way instead of defacing public property.

I lived in the Bronx in late 50s and throughout the 1960s and can't recall grafitti.

It really hadn't begun yet. More like early 70's.

In extensive searching of photos, I narrowed down the graffiti explosion to May 1972. Prior to that - nothing. May '72 started scribbles, which progressed to full blown top to bottoms in '73. I've asked in several places, but never got a good answer as to what happened in May of '72. The thread from here is long gone, but found this old one I posted on another site a couple years ago.

May 1972

Chris,

Your link to May 1972 with photos is fascinating; thanks for posting.

The answer of who was first is Taki 183 or Tracy 168. Probably the latter, king of wildstyle. Stay High 149 might be close.

I actually saw a TV documentary on this very question. There's a high positive correlation between the beginnings of Hip Hop and Graffiti, which took off simultaneously.

Here's further documentation from Wiki:

"Hip hop is a cultural movement which developed in New York City in the early 1970s primarily among African Americans and Latin Americans[1][2]. Hip hop's four main elements are MCing (often called rapping), DJing, graffiti writing, and breakdancing. Other elements include beatboxing, hip hop fashion, and slang. Since first emerging in the Bronx, the lifestyle of hip hop culture has spread around the world.[3]

When hip hop music began to emerge, it was based around disc jockeys who created rhythmic beats by looping breaks (small portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables. This was later accompanied by "rapping" (a rhythmic style of chanting). An original form of dancing, and particular styles of dress, arose among followers of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture.

The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture arises from the appearance of new and increasingly elaborate and pervasive forms of the practice in areas where other elements of hip hop were evolving as art forms, with a heavy overlap between those who wrote graffiti and those who practiced other elements of the culture. Beatboxing is a vocal technique mainly used to imitate percussive elements of the music and various technical effects of hip hop DJs."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_culture

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SE18,

Some examples of the ugly side of graffiti.

I would agree that it was just a symptom of the general lawlessness in the city. This was also the era when the south Bronx (my old stomping grounds) began to have its most serious problems with deteriorating neighborhoods and widespread arson.

After leaving the city in 1968 for upstate New York and a teaching career, it was sad to see the rapid decline of my old Bronx neighborhoods. Truly a case of, "You can never go home.", or at least not home to what you remembered.

Jim

In my opinion it was caused by a multitude of things. There was a very large migration of the middle class to the suburbs and elsewhere. New highways destroyed old neighborhoods. Economic times were hard. Crack showed up. Old ways of doing things and keeping order just couldn't adapt to all these things happening at the same time.

The good news is that things have changed so much since then. The South Bronx has no "Fort Apache" neighborhoods any more. Harlem has gentrified. Real estate was in such demand for a while that any industrial neighborhood was in danger of being invaded by condos, bistros and bakeries. Subways are mostly clean. Now we have to see how long the current economic climate lasts and how badly it will affect the city.

Crime seems to be way down there but I don't care to visit the place. My 3rd Av el is gone and the waterfront sucks; used to be stevedores, barges, rail warehouses, all sorts of ships and so on. It really sucks

All the seaport activity has moved across the river to Port Newark / Port Elizabeth. Although it's nothing like the old industry, it's still fascinating to drive through there. The container cranes are lined up like giant Star Wars battle walkers. The straddle carriers zoom down rows of containers. There are so many trucks going through there during the day the noise is deafening.



No, it's not the same. But it's really interesting nonetheless.

Now the biggest thing on the Hudson riverfront is Chelsea Piers, a large health and sports club.