An industrial park in
New York (
Queens, to be more specific) was named
5Pointz as a gesture - the five boroughs of
New York would come together in harmony and ....and you get the drift. As years went by,
5Pointz faded as an industrial area, but became '
Graffiti Central" to
New York's spray-can ninjas. No self-respecting tagger would be caught dead not having hit
5Pointz at least once. In that the buildings within the industrial estate were essentially abandoned, the owner,
New York native
Jerry Wolkoff allowed the graffiti to stay, and to grow, and to grow (in that he, too, enjoys
graffiti).
As
5Pointz grew in reputation, graffiti artists from
France, Australia, Spain and virtually all points beyond, began making pilgrimages to
5Pointz. It seems if they wanted 'cred' among their peers, they had to be able to say they sprayed their way at
5Pointz. If the giants of the graffiti world such as
Tracy 168,
Cope 2 and
Tats Cru have painted at
5Pointz, and musicians
Joss Stone and
Jadakiss, among others, have filmed music videos there, then they, too, had to be a part of it.
Over the years, one graffiti artist - a man with a spray-paint vision named
Jonathan Cohen - has, by way of osmosis and by default, become the ad-hoc guardian, guiding hand and 'museum director' of
5Pointz. Under his aegis,
5Points has gradually inherited a tacit, unofficial status as an '
Art Center' and even has it's own website -
http://www.5ptz.com <
link> Really. These days, however,
Cohen is wearing the huge worry-lines - word is out on the street that owner
Wolkoff has plans to redevelop, erecting two 30-storey apartment buildings on these hallowed digs.
Cohen knows that, at this late date, his
Mecca of the Graffiti World is living on borrowed time - and that there is nothing he can do about it..... Money, eventually, talks.
One person, however, is overjoyed at the prospect that this vulgar, vandals' wetdream will soon be torn down - none other than the raving
Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a sworn enemy of the '
aerosol arts'. By way of a left-handed compliment to his puckered good-citizenry, a graffiti artist, name withheld by request, has created a large "four star" aerosol rating of him on an adjacent wall.....
Promises by owner
Wolkoff to save a back wall on the future apartment buildings for continued unhindered graffiti have hardly pacified the spray art crowd - they claim
Wolkoff "just doesn't understand". But almost by definition, permanent graffiti, or even a permanent graffiti location, is a contradiction in terms - it, all of it, is transient by it's very nature. The individual graffiti, and their 'venues', shall all pass into history, and like dead rock stars, their greatness shall be heightened. Perhaps
Wolkoff will grace the front of his new apartment buildings with a 20-foot statue of a spraycan....
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