New York City’s Art Subculture — The Bowery Wall
They have credited modern graffiti to a graffiti artist who went by the name Cornbread from Philadelphia in the 1960s. By the 1970s subways, they covered cars in New York City in graffiti works by artists such as TAKI 183 and JOE 182. Their name or nickname with the street number they lived spread throughout all five boroughs via the subway until Mayor Lindsey announced in 1973 an anti-graffiti initiative that would subsequently lead to the last graffiti-ed car cleaned in the 1980s. In 1982 social scientists George Kelling and James Q. Wilson conducted experiments on the Broken Windows Theory, expanding on 1969 research by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. A major criticism of this theory is that it inherently discriminates against neighborhoods in lower socio-economic conditions.
New York City in the 1980s saw an overall revitalization of public spaces in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. It formed city agencies and foundations to beautify and maintain the city such as the MTA Art and Design agency, the renovation of Bryant Park and Tompkins Square Park. In the 1990s, the success of these programs became visible, which led to an acceleration of real estate which led to an influx of new residents who invested in the neighborhood, some allured by the charm of its grittiness and history. However, on the Lower East Side, the new residents ended up in a moment of tension with those who still cling to the former freedom that the Lower East Side offered.
In 1983 Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, A-One, and Daze collaborated on a piece that was eventually tagged over by other graffiti artists. Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties owned the next year in 1984. Despite owning the property and wanting to use it for mural space with his longtime friend and art consultant Jeffrey Deitch, the tagging of the Bowery Wall continued in 1990, in 2006. In 2008 Goldman Properties and Deitch Projects paid tribute to Keith Haring with a recreation of the original mural, working with the Keith Haring Foundation, Deitcher Projects matched paint colors based on the foundation's extensive archival materials for the recreation. A question emerges of, how can we navigate the role of public art to pay homage to a grassroots movement, while being aware of cultural gentrification to promote urban recovery. For the Bowery Wall, because of the Lower East Side’s rapid gentrification, the choice to capitalize on graffiti in 2008, after having the property for many decades, is an example of a cultural shift. With the association with criminality fading for graffiti art the connection to culture becomes clearer.
For more information about the topics I mentioned in this post check out:
Jane Rosen, "Graffiti Spreads over New York City"—Archive, 29 March 1973”, The Guardian
George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, "Broken Windows," The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/.
Dorothy E. Roberts, "Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order-Maintenance Policing," The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-) 89, no. 3 (1999)
