Graffiti in New York

We lived in New York in 2005 and 2006.  Right at the end of that stay (14 December 2006) the New York Times had a story about a famous graffiti'd house at 11 Spring St in NoLIta.  The linked article gives the background and some details on the people involved.   Here is a map of the locale, courtesy of Mr Google, with the house in question marked with a nice red blob!
This being New York we expected that the herd mentality (and love of something-for-nothing) would get a few folk along.  Did it what!  The entrance was actually on Elizabeth St and when we got there on the Saturday the crowd went from the (security guarded) front door back to Spring St out to the Bowery and along that to about Rivington St.   That is a distance of about 150m according to Google Earth.

The image shows the mob on Spring St.  Looking at the speed at which the queue was moving we decided that we didn't want to spend an hour (on our 2nd last weekend in the city) standing in line.  So I took a few images and wandered off to other places (details of which escape me, at 4 years distance).  The next day we happened to be wandering up the Bowery - I think about 3pm - and the crowd now went at least as far as the western end of the block face on Prince St: this is 350m!

Herewith, some of the photos starting with an exterior shot on Spring St.
As might be expected this had become a bit of an event and there was work in progress.
Despite the fact that this was done with the permission of the owners of the property other artists chose not to reveal themselves quite as blatantly as the guy up the ladder.  Either that or they were a pseud posing as a serious baad guy.
Although we couldn't be bothered queueing, and the bouncer didn't look like the sort of person it would be wise to argue with, I was able to get a couple of shots inside the front door.  It almost made me reconsider joining the queue!

At the 'higher art "end of interest in graffiti and street art in June 2006 we attended an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum covering a few of the main men (and women) whose work is being collected.  We have a few images we took there - recognising the inevitable, photography is permitted in US Museums - and a heap that we took around the city as we noticed it.  I may do future posts about these.

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