For years I used to love taking the number seven train through Long Island City just to see the amazing 5 Pointz building and its amazing graffiti. Some called it “The United Nations of Graffiti” because of the international artists who created the art there. Other people dubbed it “the world’s only graffiti museum.” The owner, Jerry Wolkoff, had given the artists’ permission to use the building as a canvas for “aerosol art” and the building was covered in multicolored murals and tags, making it a tourist mecca as artists and fans of graffiti art from around the world traveled to see the former industrial building in Long Island City that artists had decorated for two decades. Continue reading →
This bone collector lives just around the corner, as does his creepy collection of deformed cats. He also has a preserved monkey, a 2,000 year old mummy head, and an a “two-bodied pig”, which he “pickled” himself. Still have your appetite?
WTF is Quooklyn? One New York Times writer ventured to Ridgewood and coined a horrible new term.
In a tragic turn of events for the street art community worldwide and the general soul of NYC, 5Pointz’s exterior walls and the works of over 1500 international artists was completely white washed under the cover of darkness last night with protection from the police – all for the development of high rise luxury towers in Long Island City, despite rallying against demolition and an effort to get landmark status for the building.
In a comment to Hyperallergic, 5Pointz curator Jonathan “Meres One” Cohen called the landlord Jerry Walkoff, “the biggest art murder of our time.” Enough said.
There will be a candlelit vigil at 5Pointz tonight according to the Save 5 Pointz Facebook page.
Too often cultural institutions (see CBGBs) are wiped off the map because of one thing: GREED. Those big ugly towers that are coming to Greenpoint – there is one reason why they are 40 stories high: more apartments equals money. There is not enough concern over the effects new developments have on communities, especially when a lot of money is to be made.
Over the Newtown Creek another battle wages against the Manhattanization of the outer boroughs – the HUGE international effort to Save 5 Pointz, an underground art institution, which makes the ride on the 7 train to Manhattan so visually appealing and so not Manhattan. Continue reading →
