SoHo, Manhattan

SoHo has changed drastically over the last 30 years - it used to be full of empty warehouse space. Then, the artists came into parts of the neighborhood and rented the warehouses as work spaces. After that, the entire area was on the upswing and practically became trendy overnight. Now, buildings in SoHo are home to famous designers' stores and wealthy New Yorkers (the area has some of the highest rents in the city). And yet, people rarely discuss how much graffiti is in the area.

Upon first glance, these images hardly look like graffiti - they fit with the trendy atmosphere of the neighborhood.

However, these other images look like classic graffiti tags (like the ones that were scrubbed off subway cars day after day in the 1990s when the NYPD was practicing "broken windows" policing strategy). And yet, here they are - in SoHo, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan.



What is even more interesting is how people who shop and work in the area have embraced the graffiti culture. Not only are there no signs of anyone scrubbing it off, there are people all over the street selling t-shirts and hats with graffiti art sprayed on them. These shirts below sell for $20 each!


Graffiti in this area is not only accepted as part of the character of SoHo. It helps bring tourism and more shoppers to the area, and allows these street entrepreneurs to make a lot of profit. Could this, perhaps, be replicated in other areas?

Series One - Graffiti Art: Introduction

The first series for this blog is on graffiti art. I've become interested in graffiti as an issue in urban politics. There are a number of local politicians, particularly in New York, who have devoted their political careers to combating what they refer to as graffiti vandalism in the city. They see graffiti as a symptom of urban decay, and something that needs to be destroyed before an area or a neighborhood can thrive.

On the other side of the fence are people who actually make graffiti art. They have different names - some call them taggers, some call them artists. But I'm not interested in any artistic distinction between the two groups of people - I'm focusing on why a certain piece of graffiti is called art, and why another piece of graffiti is called a symptom of urban decay. I also want to try looking at the difference between taggers and artists in terms of how they are portrayed, either by politicians, the media, or people who live in the neighborhood. I also want to see if the difference between types of graffiti has more to do with where (geographically) the graffiti is. For example, if something is displayed in SoHo, is it automatically seen as something that is artistic? Or at least something that is more artistic than a tag on the subway?

I don't know the answers to these questions, so I'd like to try to use the blog to figure it out. Again, I'm not trying to look at graffiti through an artistic lens (I'm not nearly talented enough to do that) - I'm trying to examine how graffiti is viewed in an urban politics context. At the very least, I think it will be a fun project.

Pam