Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
Well its in Queens not Brooklyn and to me 5 Pointz is a gallery not a building anyway. This critical mass of graffiti piecework should migrate to the Bronx anyway, where it makes more sense not just geographically but culturally. How long will it be before someone rich in the music industry proposes a hip-hop museum in the Bronx, its' birthplace, with all the elements on a full display? A giant graffiti "hall of fame" would work great at such a place or a site a stones throw away...
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This was created by Queens artists, layered one over another on a Queens building... how on Earth does this belong in the Bronx? Besides, if we want to be technical, the graffiti element of hip hop began in Philadelphia with prolific taggers such as Cornbread. DJ Cool Herc, a Caribbean musician based in the Bronx, was arguably the spiritual founder of contemporary hip hop, but he had very little to do with graffiti in any capacity. Graffiti, for better or worse, is a form of "street art" and is inseparable from the environment where it was created; a sterile "hall of fame" where graffiti would be forcefully relocated for tourist enjoyment defeats the purpose of this controversial art form.
Graffiti aside, these buildings are as historically/architecturally valuable as half the stuff that is cherished and preserved in many former industrial areas of the city, prime material for, say, artist studio or loft conversion. Is there REALLY no fiscally viable way to preserve these structures, even if brand new condo towers are erected right next to them? Where are the outcries from the artistic AND preservationist communities when we need them most? Or do they consider such structures beyond salvation if they have been "desecrated" by such acts of "urban vandalism"?