[Eug]

I took this picture yesterday:

This was on a building on Bloor Street just east of Bathurst. They installed a nice piece of art on the side of the building, and the art was on boards so as not to damage the brick face with paint, etc… and then some @#$%^@#$ tags it. Nice. I suspect the real artist here would agree that somebody deserves to be strung up by his (or her) nads.

 

[ducati0000]

EUG I seen that also...I thought taggers have unwritten laws to not paint over murals?...I seen a few nice murals tagged by a holes also around little italy...I guest those lowlifes respect for other works is also ignored.

 

[Eug]

Do some of you people yell at neighbourhood kids that make "too much" noise as they play?

Apologists like you are just too fracken much. Yes, when rowdy drunk teenagers with beers in hand are disturbing the peace in the middle of the street at midnight you can damn well be sure I will call the police.

Graffiti vandalism isn't even remotely similar to 8 year old girls running lemonade stands or 12 year old boys playing street hockey so quit with your ridiculous comparisons.

 

[Bruvyman]

While I'm not a fan of tagging anywhere in the city, it expecially bothers me in places where it is more out of place and out of context such as city parks. Some ugly tags on alleys on Queen st are a lot less worrisome than the ones in our green spaces and parks. Again, its the out-of-place context that really bothers me. This has become quite a problem in Canoe Landing park (especially considering its only a year old). I took the following pictures about a month ago to document this issue. Most disturbing to me is the tag on the side of the rock that holds a Terry Fox tribute and plaque (first picture).

I can happily report that the city has worked to remove some of the graffiti in theis park over the past few days. Most of it was just painted over with grey paint, but they also made an effort to remove the tag on the above-mentioned rock. I will try to get pictures of the "after". Here is what it looked like before:

 

[gabe]

I took this picture yesterday:

This was on a building on Bloor Street just east of Bathurst. They installed a nice piece of art on the side of the building, and the art was on boards so as not to damage the brick face with paint, etc… and then some @#$%^@#$ tags it. Nice. I suspect the real artist here would agree that somebody deserves to be strung up by his (or her) nads.

That beautiful mural has now turned into an eye sore. Those taggers truly are pathetic human beings.

 

[Bruvyman]

truly dispicable ... sure hope these cretins don't call themselves "artists" after defacing a real artist's work.

 

[SunriseChampion]

I didn't even dare write on the walls at home....I knew what I'd be in for, don't you worry about that.....and please don't assume, if in fact some of you are, that I am a street artist of any kind. All of my work hangs on my walls, thankyouverymuch! I just happen to ENJOY graff and have a few friends who partake (to varying degrees of artistic excellence).

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the masses here: tagging of others' art is pretty flippin' lame as is tagging of public art or monuments. I won't defend that. I'm simply saying that dreary walls deserve some.....colour and character and that a lot of you are beyond overreacting. Especially with some of the ludicrous suggestions on how to combat this oh-so-bloody-serious-the-sky-is-falling-save-the-children "problem". You'd think we were dealing with violent crimes or environmental degradation.....you know, ACTUAL problems.

God, some of you people make me want to buy houses just to cover them in graff so I could post pics on here and pretend to be as terribly offended as you folk about the blight upon our urban landscape. I'd rent them out to tenants, of course....oh my word....I'd rent them out to the very artists I call friends. They'd become graff communes and wage an eternal war against Rob Ford's spittle and rage.
Lovely, this gave me an idea for a short story and an awesome graphic novel...toooodles!

 

[adma]

Funny thing is, one *could* paranoiacally (and paradoxically) view tagging as something emanating from a lunkheaded Ford Nation mentality; and picture taggers defending themselves on libertrollianesque grounds...to the point where, might it be a Ford Nation conspiracy? A GM-vs-the-streetcar-like deliberate degradation of graffiti?

 

[Long Island Mike]

This is probably going to help Ford legitimize everything he's doing in regards to graffiti and various crackdowns. I'd love to catch the degenerates who did that and tag their face with 'FUCK YOU VANDAL'.

Filip: This tag shocked me! Whoever this tagger is he had the brass balls to tag up this "Toronto" mural...Is this along the Gardiner Expressway in the vicinity of the Exhibition grounds/Humber Bay?

I have been wondering how the graffiti in Toronto has grown...and this is a classic example of a political message to Mayor Rob Ford...

What happens when the TPD catches up to this guy? What are the penalties for vandalism like this?

I also wanted to look up some history on vandalism-as many know cities like NYC in the 70s became known for its graffiti...

I found these interesting news reports by veteran CBS and ABC reporter Harry Reasoner from 1972 at YouTube...
See: www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+Vandals-Harry+Reasoner&aq=f

These reports are in three parts and date from 1972...included is some NYC Subway graffiti from the year it became prevalent...

Also note how some NYC neighborhoods were deteriorating...NYC in 1972 had suffered from 15+ years of exodus and "white flight" to the suburbs...

NYC would go even further down in the 70s...bottoming out during the mid 70s fiscal crisis and events like the riots in the aftermath of the 1977 Blackout...

As a comparison I have seen posts mentioning that Toronto's quality of life has changed in recent years for the worse as some say but I never want to see
Toronto become the dangerous place many parts of NYC became in the 70s...

Thoughts and observations from Long Island Mike

 

[tkip]

There is just no justification or excuse for graffiti. Tagging or not.

If parents raised their kids to have respect for others and their property and we had a culture that supported this, then this problem wouldn't exist. If me or my brother was caught vandilizing, my mother would have slapped us silly. End of problem.

Alas, in north america where the individual and their right to do anything combined with a complete lack of personal responsibility runs so rampant, is the reason we're in the grips of such obivous social decline. I know others disagree but the signs are everywhere.

Graffiti isn't the most important crime but it does show the lack of respect that's so prevelant out there now. But until we're willing to take another look at how we raise young people, sending them out into the world with a sense of entitlement and no respect for authority and others.

Then graffiti along with all the other signs of decay will continue.

 

[SlickFranky]

So here's the 'war on graffiti' battle plan:

1. fine the victims
2. beat our children (to teach them respect), thus halting the general decline of society

 

[tkip]

Yet another whiny response for even suggesting physical discipline for children. God forbid, these precious snowflakes couldn't possibly handle the occasional smack on the bottem let alone hearing the word "no". We've become such a society of wimps, we really have. People from my parent's gen were so much tougher.

 

[SlickFranky]

Please beat your children. Your kids are annoying as shit, and if I hit them I'll go to jail. But I don't see how that's a sensible solution to the graffiti problem.

 

[tkip]

Please beat your children. Your kids are annoying as shit, and if I hit them I'll go to jail. But I don't see how that's a sensible solution to the graffiti problem.

Who said I was advising beating kids as a response to graffiti?

All I said was that when I was young and had been caught vandalizing, there would have been hell to pay at home. Same with stealing or mouthing off to strangers. My mother wouldn't have tolerated this.

This being said, parents today for the most part are far too lenient on their kids and just don't enforce any real rules or discipline to correct bad behaviour. Parents have been brainwashed into thinking discipline and "no" hurts the kid.

Young people need structure and understand boundaries but parents and society refuse to do this anymore. Without this, people just do what they want. I work with these spoiled, entitled, whiny brats every day at work.

Trust me, it isn't pretty.

 

[paraone]

not to change the subject (I've given up on having any sort of logical debate in regards to graffiti on this site) but I'm curious to know whether you have any children or do you always just make blanket assumptions about peoples parenting skills when in actuality you really have no clue?