Saturday's opening shot

Someone tagged a window at the new office building going up at 1-3 St Mark's Place at Third Avenue. Somone also called 911 to report it last night, per the Citizen app.

NEKST Forever on 9th Street

Top photo last week by Steven 

We noted on Thursday the arrival of plywood over the entrance to the closed Little Man Parking garage (also known as LaSalle Parking) on Ninth Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. 

There's no new development news, and the plywood is apparently here to keep people from squatting inside (thanks, Notorious!). 

Meanwhile, the first wheat-pastes showed up late Friday...

The backstory to this for anyone interested... last month, two graffiti artists filed a lawsuit against Guess for putting their tags directly onto a new line of "graffiti-inspired" clothing without consent. 

One of the parties to the lawsuit is Patrick Griffin, brother of Sean Griffin, brother of the artist Nekst, who "achieved a kind of remarkable underground ubiquity among followers of street art before he died in 2012," per Hyperallergic, who first reported on the legal action.

Someone has now taken two classic Guess ads — with Claudia Schiffer and Ann Nicole Smith — and added images of the late graffiti artist with "NEKST Forever." These wheat-paste tributes have been appearing around the city ... and elsewhere. 

Macy's, one of the many vendors in the lawsuit, reportedly pulled the product from their website, though the line is still available via various online merchants.

And given the short lifespan of wheat-paste ads, this one has likely already been covered.

Saturday's opening shots

For the second time this week, Con Ed had the graffiti power washed from its substation on Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street. 

After the early Monday scrubbing, the tags returned in less than a day...

Noted

A little after 6 this evening, sanitation employees shut down Sixth Street between First Avenue and Avenue A...

... so that workers could powerwash off some street graffiti...

... oh...

... and as seen on Friday night...

A message for the 'graffiti guys'

Photos by Stacie Joy 

A message to the "graffiti guys" on Avenue B near Second Street... large photos and a warning that the police have been notified...

Last weekend for 'City of Kings' at Howl! Happening

Photo from November by Daniel Efram 

This is the last weekend to see "City of Kings: A History of New York City Graffiti" at Howl! Happening on First Street (6 E. First St. at the Bowery).

The ambitious and detailed two-part show was put together by Eric Felisbret, Mariah Fox and Al Diaz (pictured above). The First Street exhibit focuses on the chronological framing of the history of graffiti in NYC. 

Meanwhile at Howl! Arts/Howl! Archive, 250 Bowery near Stanton Street, you can check out canvases by graffiti artists such as Crime 79 and photographs by Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, David Gonzalez and others who helped document the scene over the years. This exhibit is up through Jan. 29.

Both Howl! spaces are open Wednesday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Details here.

You can read Dan Efram's feature on the show for EVG at this link.

Saturday's opening shot

Who's your favorite moose? Sixth and A...

Thursday to Friday on 5th and A

Workers spent a good part of the day yesterday powerwashing the graffiti off of the Con Ed substation on Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street...

And by this morning... (pic by Stacie Joy) ...

Before yesterday's big scrub...

Thursday's parting shot

EVG reader Garrett Rosso points out that for the first time since its arrival in late 2014, the "Alphabet City" mural has been tagged on the SW corner of Avenue C and Sixth Street ... on the (rather mysterious) RCN Cable building. 

The ABC mural is the work of Brooklyn-based artists The Yok and Sheryo. And there was a little bit of controversy when this mural first arrived.

Saturday's opening shot

Good morning from 141 E. Houston St., where a worker is power-washing the graffiti off the new 9-floor boutique office building here between Eldridge and Forsyth.

Con Ed puts more energy into power washing its substation on Avenue A

Con Ed deployed another early morning power-washing crew to buff the graffiti-filled substation along Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street. 

This was the second time in less than two weeks in which Con Ed decided to scrub the building, maybe about 80 percent effective as the tags are still visible. (And they missed the POTATO that was sprayed on here over the weekend.) 

After the last washing, the graffiti returned within 24 hours...

This isn't quite reminiscent of the brown paint wars that dominated local headlines from 2012-2014 at the Verizon building on 13th Street and Second Avenue. Tags would fill up the wall. Someone would cover them with brown paint. The tags would return. So did the brown paint. And so on. Eventually, Verizon just gave up.

Thursday's parting shot

An EVG reader shared this photo from early this morning ... 4:50 a.m. to be exact when Con Ed had two workers spend two hours or so power washing the graffiti-filled substation along Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street... 

Updated 10/1 

About 12 tags arrived less than 24 hours later... a sampling...

My So-Called tag

As seen on Fifth Street near Avenue B... Rayanne Graff — aka best friends with Angela and Rickie in the long-gone (but often lamented!) TV series "My So-Called Life" and forever waiting for a ride with Tino.

Noted

Spotted on the Bowery this morning... Good morning!

Noted

Someone spraypainted this message overnight on the Con Ed substation along Avenue A.

There were reactions to it on Twitter...

If Joker was in a pandemic https://t.co/G2eExCsMua

— John-Michael Jalonen (@John_Mike_) April 7, 2020

Everybody wants to be FDR https://t.co/ahkxqqoXrL

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 7, 2020

this is sort of what Cuomo was saying for a while early on, then he stopped https://t.co/J5R4o7gCoe

— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) April 7, 2020

I don’t know, i don’t think No Fear’s rebrand is going to work https://t.co/UPgXwP6o9H

— Chris (@ThunderPittRoad) April 7, 2020

Noted

As a follow-up to our post earlier today on the unveiling of the new residential building on the site of the deadly March 2015 gas explosion... EVG regular 2ndAvenueSilverPanther points out that the condoplex on Second Avenue and Seventh Street has already been tagged...

Stargirl 2020

You've likely seen these flexing, amorphous figures around on various buildings, construction sites, sidewalk cellar doors and at least two USPS trucks in recent weeks.

Here's just a sampling from the past week-plus...





People recall first seeing these in early to mid January...









The figures are growing in popularity, at least among a few Instagram users who have referred to the character as Super Girl (or Supergirl) and Power Puff Girl. We don't know who the identity of the artist, but the person calls these figures Stargirl.



The spray-painted drawings are pretty consistent — a smile, flexing arms and a star on the belly. Sometimes she is alone. Other times in packs. She has been spotted on the Lower East Side. We've had a sighting via a reader on 14th Street and Sixth Avenue. We haven't spotted many, if any, east of Avenue B...



Once she did the splits...



Several times the name Gwen appeared nearby...



























The photos of these on Third Avenue and St. Mark's Place are from late January. They've been painted over.





But there will be many more, no doubt.