[Image via Facebook]
On Friday evening, the circa-1832 white marble stoop of the Merchant’s House Museum was hit with graffiti.
In July, someone tossed high-staining ink in the same location here on East Fourth Street between the Bowery and Lafayette.
[Image via Merchant's House Museum]
"We are heartbroken, as you can imagine," Margaret Halsey Gardiner, the Museum's executive director, told us via email.
She said that the cost to remove the latest tags will cost the Museum upwards of $4,000.
That's terrible! Hopefully they can apply some kind of protective, clear plastic shield over it. :(
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrible crime, because it is so senseless. What connection does the tagger have with the museum? The tagger is a criminal and owes the museum $4000. Why in god's name does the tagger think they have any right to touch that,stoop? I suppose the answer has some antisocial rationalization to it. I did it because i could get away with it. I did it because I have just as much right to that stoop as anyone else. Maybe 1000 hours of community service as punishment would serve as a proper punishment.
DeleteThe equivalent of smearing feces on a wall. I hope the camera reveals who did it.
ReplyDeleteAt least the ink ones look like they are dripping out of the stone. I know, it does not solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteI hope there was a camera mounted somewhere close by that recorded the low-lifes that did this.
ReplyDeleteThey should set up a video camera to tape that. Easily could cost $4k. That plus a sign that said "this wall is being video taped" could save this in the future. Also, it would help to have more night time foot traffic on this street to get some more eyes on the street. The next door building that is currently going up could use some ground floor retail, in my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteidiots tag every surface in the city, it's never going to stop. there might be some repellent coatings they can apply.
ReplyDeletehere we go again with another shitty side-effect of the hipster tourist invasion of the EV.. the scourge of inexperienced transplant TOY writers. they move to nyc trying to be down (with their wack handstyles and lack of flavor) but don't even know the basic rules of graffiti.. firstly, freshly painted walls are a BUFF.. you'll get painted over within a day or two. and above all else YOU DONT TAG SOMEONES HOUSE OR CAR! that's a MAJOR dick move worthy of a beatdown! these assholes are so TOY they don't even realize how copping a tag on some person's marble steps to their home marks them as TOY scrubs to the entire grafitti world. bunch of suck-ass chumps need to be thrown the fuck out of NYC! REAL writers stay away from buff spots and instead go for old store gates, parking lot walls, construction walls, closed down store fronts, subway tunnels, and legacy spots that are guaranteed to run for years. you get respect for knowing what spots to hit. thats why the most respected cats still have tags running with dates like 93 next to their shit.. because it's out of the way just enough that no one need buff it, yet visible by all looking.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anonymous @12.04PM!
ReplyDeleteI, for one, have been schooled in the etiquette of graffiti art and appreciate that there is an honor code in place.
The "perps" better get ready for some ghost action as spirits of some of the original occupants of the Merchant House supposedly still roam through the house. Sweet dreams....
ReplyDeleteThere are no restrictions when tagging -- everything is a fair target -- if you want to keep the gentrifiers out. Otherwise, it's just decoration.
ReplyDeleteI've experience their ghost, there is something there, but not for dumb cable TV shows to do a series about. A fantastic museum.
ReplyDeleteTOY MOVE. CORNBALL young iPhone toting thug cat.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThere are no restrictions when tagging -- everything is a fair target -- if you want to keep the gentrifiers out. Otherwise, it's just decoration.
September 29, 2015 at 2:21 PM
there should be restrictions on tagging - it has nothing to do with keeping gentrifiers out or rents low
there are some folks that think it's hip to have graffiti - there was an apartment that featured a graffiti wall, down here, i think grieve, you had an item on it some time ago
gentrification will only stop when the powers that be restrict how much a landlord can steal from tenants - and that would be never
re: cameras - You can buy a trail camera for fairly cheap at any better sporting good store.
ReplyDeletenot even good graffiti.
ReplyDeleteI am all FOR Museums, but if the museum director is horrified by a tag on the steps of her building in the East Vil AND if it is going to cost her $4,000 to clean it up, than something ain't right!
ReplyDeleteA) From a graffiti writer's perspective, if you're catching a tag, it's typically at NIGHT, and a graffiti writer is not going to note if the surface is standard concrete or some rare marble of a row house that happens to be a historic museum. I'm not going to argue the ethics of graffiti as the reasons and ethics are actually complex. Realize that there are HUNDREDS of tags on EVERY BLOCK in the East Village, and these steps weren't targeted.
B) Given (A) above, and this isn't the first time the steps have been hit, you should probably do a little bit of homework and purchase a Sealer that will allow spray-painted tags to be washed off almost completely with soap and water. The $4k cleanup is absurd any way you slice it.
Peace!
~G
put a planter next to the steps and plant ivy.
ReplyDeletenatural graffiti barrier.AND it looks GOOD?
@11:24 p.m.: The ethics are not complicated, the rationalizations for defacing an historical site are.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete@11:24 p.m.: The ethics are not complicated, the rationalizations for defacing an historical site are.
September 30, 2015 at 9:38 AM
you are correct - however ethics regarding defacing should not be limited to historical sites - this illegible, ugly, destructive graffiti is not sending any message other than "i'm a fearful, insecure, and stupid low-life".
there are enough street poles and empty storefronts to post a message, should you have one, and glue and paper are more thoughtful and possibly a sign of a brain at work
I am so pleased that there's still graffiti here. Shame it's on those beautiful marble steps. I'm sure the dumbass who tagged them thought nothing other than: "wow - an all-white surface at knee height - my lucky day!"
ReplyDeleteThere should be a term for how awful it is when popularity, then shortly after that, gentrification, occurs in a formerly rough graffiti-strewn neighborhood. For when it occurs precisely because it is a rough area and people who want realness in their neighborhood move in because it's way cooler and cheaper than safer spots. And then uncool, boring people move in when it becomes safer and all the graffiti and people living on the streets and tiny businesses disappear and huge buildings go up and nobody wants to live in the equivalent of what they were trying to escape from so they all move out and the damned place looks like Midtown.
The opposite of "Broken Windows". Maybe "Artisanal Broken Windows".
Hahahahaha. Damn I'm silly before breakfast!!!!