April 7, 2005
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A Graffiti Story - Yesterday morning my office was greeted with a true art crime in our gated parking lot. This temporary wall was put up when the adjoining property facing Guerrero St. was demolished for a new mixed use building. In my immediate work area it is not uncommon to get tagged in the back lot by local gangs, but this was obvious well planned out and executed. I rather like it although no one here can figure out what it means. Coincidently management has decided to hire the San Francisco Patrol Police to keep an eye on the office property after hours. They are more like security guards with guns than "cops." At five bucks a day, it seems like mafia protection, but I like the local officer assigned to our location, Jane Warner, as you can count on her when hostile homeless people are rummaging in our trash and recycle bins or just sleeping blocking our entrances. Not everyone is hostile, but you never know, and since I'm the frontline of the business, I rather leave that job to a professional.
Update: Is it a Graffiti Holiday or something?
Wow - it looks dark here in the office!
Comments (4)
Graffiti like that is really quite beautiful. But regular tagging with like black marker on a stop sign can't be classified as beautiful I don't think.
We have a lot of the tagging on street signs here.
Yo get this straight... graffiti that you mentioned above, all the tags you see downtown, and all around the way are NOT done by gangs. Let it BE KNOWN. They are not gangs doing it. Acerage people dont understand the graffiti game and probally never will. Its about the art and about the fame. Not ANYWEHERE gang related. Now if you were REALLY down with the streets... grew up in the city.. etc, you'd know the difference between a GANG tag and a graffiti piece(master piece)... Look I odnt mean to come off in this comment as a front or anythign cuz it not like that at all. Im not sure if you apprecieated the graffiti or not, im assuming you didnt. But I just want it to be known, most graffiti you see out in SF and Oakland/Berkeley is done by indiviuals or crews of artists... not gangs. Have a good day.
And dont get me wrong, YES gangs do graffiti. But you wont be see'ing beautiful colors, shapes and designs. You'll see some nasty X14, etc; tag up on someones fence to mark territory.
so, the guys at Tasty Curry house asked me to fill out the SFWeekly readers poll and to fill in Tasty Curry for a number of departments. There was one that was "Best Beat Cop" and I remembered this web log entry so am putting down "Jane Warner"
Check it out at http://www.sfweekly.com
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