October 2012
1 post
The Roof Vandals
So I was walking out of the Brookline Village Starbucks late one afternoon and this is what I saw.
To normal humans, this would be a nice quiet suburban scene. They would not have noticed the top-center of this view:
Yes, up there high above - in a nearly invisible place, were a few large tags. They were dated to 2007. (My camera didn’t show the year clearly marked on the far-right)
...
August 2012
27 posts
Air Conditioner Graffiti
It isn’t common, but some guy from East Boston hit Harvard Street pretty hard last week and carved his tag into three air conditioners. Not sure how to eliminate this rare but very difficult kind of tag. I have some ideas. I will experiment and report back. It’s not that I am doing eliminations here in retirement, I just wanted to add a viable technique to my catalog
Graffiti: The Bow Flies of Abandoned Property
Remember the big fire on Beacon Street? Well, it didn’t take long for graffiti vandals to move in:
What’s funny about the stupid graffiti-is-art proposition is that nothing attracts it like a closed building or business. Just look at 105 Boylston Street - or the other shuttered businesses in Brookline.
Graffiti is like the bow flies on a dead animal. It almost never appears...
A Littell Street I Missed
Littell Street, at the center of this map, is one I had never been on. Yes, I had walked down Alton a lot and Stearns once in a while. But Littell… never. Today, I saw it and said, “Wait a minute….” Then, right before I hit Alton, I saw this awful telephone pole (pictures are two sides of the same pole):
Yipes!
I couldn’t help myself but to get rid of this awful...
So... what now?
Now that I am officially retired, and the Brookline TAB is probably finished having so much fun with the story, people might want to know what I am going to do now. Well, I plan to improve the self-help parts of this site (paint catalog, case studies).
Of course, the current situation in Brookline is not fully resolved! I will help in any way possible from my computer. Such questions are:
Did...
Officially Retiring!
Well, after a year of doing this, it’s time to stop. The police are doing a great job arresting people, and other taggers have seen that Brookline is a place where there is just too much risk of getting caught because of all the patrols and stakeouts.
It has been 18 straight nights in town with no new tags - the longest stretch in at least a year! During that time, I got rid of all the old...
Graffiti Photo Archive Removed
I have revoked public access to the online graffiti photo database. It was getting a lot of hits through the world of graffiti websites. I don’t want it to be a place where taggers go to see tags. (Not that any of the tags in Brookline had any artistic value - they didn’t.) Regardless, I only had it up to show proof of how bad the problem was. It will no longer be available.
Tips for the Town of Brookline
I have created a page with tips for the Town of Brookline to help them combat graffiti more effectively. I am not trying to be a jerk. I just think the way they handle graffiti doesn’t work very well.
(Oh - I don’t mean the police - they have been absolutely fantastic. But even they re-thought and changed the way they operated in 2012. That change, led by Sgt. Murphy, made all the...
Finishing with a masterpiece
People don’t realize that graffiti elimination isn’t just hard work, chemistry, and matching colors. It is sometimes an art form itself, as those of us who practice it know. It requires us to employ complex methods of disguising tags that can’t be removed.
Today, my final elimination of the great war was when I came across these two tags (which I did not recognize) on Euston...
A Pleasant Feeling
Pleasant Street starts in the heart of Coolidge Corner, and goes all the way to Commonwealth Avenue, where Brookline ends. About two blocks before Commonwealth Avenue, directly across from this nice building at 199 Pleasant Street…
….is this:
Ugh! Two ugly, old, colored tags: blue on the left, yellow on the right. (I even lost the original “before” photo I took. This...
Top Ten Eliminations of 2011-2012!
Looking back on the Great Brookline Graffiti War, I wanted to list my top ten favorite eliminations, which I guarantee will make you smile. :-)
[All links open a new tab so you can jump around.] The Primal Scream Tag (everyone’s favorite tag), Dummer Street Wall (all but ended that street’s perennial graffiti problem), Washington Square Roof (the stores below thanked me the day...
Read the Brookline Tab today!
I am glad to see the Brookline Tab covering the graffiti story so well. Today, they did a front-page story on me! (Link here.) Yes, it is all true. But after a year of me sneaking all over the place, it was very strange to see my picture all over town!
First, I want to thank the writer, Teddy Applebaum and the paper for doing the story, and for protecting my anonymity. (The “Russ...
Talking with a former graffiti vandal
I was right on the Brookline-Brighton border a couple of days ago, when a young man, doing some outdoor home improvement, saw me painting over a tag on a “Welcome to Brookline” sign. He was intrigued. This was the conversation we had:
Him: “Do you… remove graffiti?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “I’m a graffiti artist and I used to do lots of...
Who was Smooph?
Last week, a woman who lived on White Place asked me, “Who is Smooph?”
She had seen a whole lot of very big Smooph tags in her area. Recently it was reported that the police arrested the man they believed to be Loki. There are strong correlations between the two that could be observed in public:
The Smooph tags appeared at the same time as Loki tags and in some of the same places...
Process of Elimination
So, on the corner of Centre and Williams (near Coolidge Corner) is this awful-looking relay box:
It has bugged me for a while. Clearly, there were two graffiti attacks and someone just painted over them with some awful black paint. (Yes, this is the same intersection as the bad elimination I cleaned up in May and wrote about.)
I am 100% behind people who want to fight graffiti, and covering it...
Who was Loki?
I have decided, upon the arrest of a tagger, to post some basic, publicly observable information about the tag in question. I want to do this to help the community understand the context of the arrest, and justify the work of the Brookline Police, who work hard to catch these guys.
First in this series: Loki Start: Loki tags started appearing in Brookline in late June of 2011. His territory was...
Oops! Missed a spot
After a year of this, I have a pretty good eye for noticing graffiti. But I hadn’t been on a particular block - going south - on Harvard Street for several weeks. So, today, I was surprised to see a giant Phop tag - somewhat visible - that I have missed.
Where am I talking about? The alley between 41 and 43 Harvard Street:
Now, this shot was straight-on, so you can’t really see the...
A Record Day
Today I thought I would run around and get rid of a bunch of tags that had been there for a couple of weeks at least. (Still no new ones lately.) However, I was surprised to see that I had eliminated 39 tags! That is a new record for a single day.
Conversations on the street
Only two things sustain me in this mission: the righteousness of the cause, and the great people in Brookline who have spoken to me on the streets while I am removing graffiti. Most just give an enthusiastic “Thanks!” while walking by, but many have stopped to talk to me.
I have learned this: people of every background, race, ethnicity, religion and age is interested in the subject of...
Slo tag inside of Dunkin Donuts?
There is a Dunkin Donuts on the North Side of Route 9 (265 Boylston Street):
This place has been a recent big target of Phop tags:
The left is a huge pair of Phop tags that I didn’t remove (too much paint, few would notice on the back of the restaurant), the center is the Globe box in front (tags and two stickers and older white tag even beneath the black letters - I did remove all...
Town Beautification
My graffiti-fighting is my main task, but what isn’t widely known is all I do to make Brookline more beautiful regardless of graffiti.
Often, when I am out on patrol, I notice some piece of public property that is not doing so well. It could be a traffic control box or post with chipped paint, or a mailbox that is many colors from bad graffiti removals, or even a concrete pole that was...
Preston..... stay home.
Right before Mr. Nugs got arrested, I noticed a couple of very amateurish tags near Brookline Village and Brookline High School. They are the kinds of tags that a 15-year-old does when he is bored.
Let me say this to him and all other kids who think a few tags are fun:
The Brookline Police and I are more jacked up about catching graffiti vandals than you can possibly imagine. They, and I -...
Cleanup Day!
Well, since it appears that Brookline’s Great Graffiti War of 2011-2012 is over, insomuch as graffiti will return to being a minor problem. As I didn’t have to spend time today eliminating big tags in huge numbers in the usual places, I decided to drive around places in town that I don’t normally do, or drive through them slowly, looking in new places.
First I found the Phop...
All Quiet in Brookline
The above picture is from the Clinton Path Tunnel. It is probably the most frequently-tagged public place in all of Brookline. This summer, it has been tagged at least once a week - often more. But for several days, it has been empty.
This is the Davis overpass (leading from White Place to Route 9 over the Green D Line). It is also tagged often.
All over Brookline, the commonly-tagged places...
Mr. Nugs arrested, few notice :-(
(Photo of Brookline Tab, using my photo of Nugs Bunny removed on Strathmore Road in story about him being arrested. I remember painting over that bunny with an entire can of Rustoleum Rustic Umber.)
So, I was drinking a beer at The Abbey, and was gleefully reading the latest version of the Tab, and mentioned to a regular, “The police arrested Mr. Nugs!”
“Who?”
“A high-profile tagger who used...
Maps Page Returns
I have added a maps page to this blog so that people can see how many tags have been removed in various neighborhoods and exactly where they are. There is one big clickable map, but it is huge and takes a while to load. Then I have included several neighborhood images so you can see how bad the graffiti problem is for the neighborhoods that get graffiti.
Scrolling through these maps shows just...
Go Brookline Police!
So it’s a great time to be a graffiti fighter!
Loki Arrested
Last week the Brookline Police arrested Loki. I had first thought that Loki tags were being done by Mr. Nugs, as there were lots of connections between the two. I was troubled that the Loki tags had different handwriting than Mr. Nugs, but I couldn’t see what could explain the number, size, and boldness of the Loki tags...
July 2012
7 posts
Special Projects Day
So yesterday I decided to do a couple of things I have been putting off for a while. This stuff isn’t as urgent as highly-visible graffiti, but it still matters. The first item was this brick wall on Webster Street, right as it hits Harvard. (The window on your right is the Subway sandwich shop).
The graffiti here is old (it is actually two layers of tags) and it isn’t that visible,...
It's really just me out there
Amazon.com is really the only place you can get Rustoleum Old Brick spray paint, which is essential for brick painting. I have also bought the very-hard-to-find Charleston Green, which is great for very dark green mailboxes.
When I went online to buy another can of brick, I saw that it said customers “frequently” buy these two together. Really? Who would buy these two odd paints...
Great Job Brookline!
About 10 days ago I saw this huge tag on the corner of Pleasant and Freeman. It was the biggest thing in a recent series of attacks by Mr. Fiest. I really didn’t want to paint it, even though I thought I could do a really good job. I reported it with the hope that the Brookline Sanitation department would use their pressure washer to get it off.
But a few days ago, I noticed that they...
Mr. Feist Returns
Well, I haven’t seen much at all from Mr. Feist in the past six months; maybe 5 tags. But, there was a recent attack on Northeastern Brookline with several tags, including that big one on the corner of Freeman and Pleasant.
Where has he been? I noticed that the only thing that’s changed about his main tag is the squiggly little circle above the ‘e’. I mean, is that all...
1 tag
Case Study: Tough Paper Stickers
So if you remove a lot of stickers like me (I have removed more than 500) - you learn a few things. :-)
First, I assume you have a good collection of razor blades. A long one, a classic one, and a tiny one (one inch square) is a good start. But that might not be enough.
If you’re removing a sticker with plastic in it - so that if you remove a bit you can pull more off - then you’re...
1 tag
Defending Brookline Village
CORRECTION: (7/30 - I believed Mr. Nugs was doing the Loki tags, but realized some time in mid-July it was someone else. The Brookline Police apprehended Loki in July, confirming he was a separate guy, but with many ties to Mr. Nugs, which caused me to falsely link the tags.)
Wow. The massive attack on Brookline Village last weekend I think earns Mr. Nugs the most sociopathic attack in...
June 2012
11 posts
A Little Too Matchy-Matchy
So, on Washington Street recently, I noticed that Mr. Nugs did a huge phop tag on a wall (see lower left). It was a light blue color that I have not seen him use before. Oddly, it is very close to a long row of flowers along the balcony, that is only broken by the purple tree.
I thought that this matching (intentional?) was very odd.
Fatalism
Above is a lot of graffiti on a single pair of mailboxes on Glen Road near the corner of Cumberland Avenue. This is a purely residential area, many blocks from any other commonly-tagged targets. (I had never noticed this street before.)
So it was strange to walk down Cumberland and see these two very-vandalized boxes in front of million-dollar homes. They were really an eyesore!
Looking...
Love and Vandalism
A very tiny percentage of graffiti is of words like “Love” or “Hope” etc. This isn’t like the common “Johnny loves Julie” stuff you see written in marker. It’s like this below:
I have seen about a half-dozen of stuff like this. I am convinced that it is just making fun of the idea of real love. (I think you’re supposed to “love your...
Taking back a beachhead
The corner of Riverway and Brookline Avenue is supposed to look like the above picture. There is a fence across the middle, covered by the dark green mesh that construction companies use to enclose a site. But that mesh has been there a few years now and shows no sign of going away.
Worse, over the past year, it developed a few tags, and recently, it became a full-blown graffiti billboard, with...
Sometimes...you have to just act
So, on Beacon Street as you’re driving around the reservoir, in front of this beautiful home, I saw this very-vandalized traffic control box. I felt really bad for the house behind it. It was a rough surface, making scrubbing hard. It was also an unusual steel color, and the paint was very old.
Yet, even though it was just outside my territory, I noticed that the color was the Rustoleum...
Shrine of the Lost Bunny...Found!
It was with great excitement this morning that I finally found something I have been looking for since the fall of 2011: the lost white bunny.
Yes, Mr. Nugs has done many bunnies in Brookline, but this one, which I heard about months ago, has always eluded me.
It is far off the beaten path. (No wonder I never could find it!) If you leave Regent Circle (a street no one uses behind Star Market...
1 tag
Case Study: Dirty Concrete Wall
So the pedestrian bridge over the D line on Reservoir Road had a lot of tags on it. In the above collage are four out of the seven that were there.
This is a really tough surface, as it isn’t really one color. I decided to try the same technique I have developed for certain weathered wooden fences: the Rustoleum Dark Machine Grey then feathered with the Dark Taupe on top of it.
Looking...
What happened in Cleveland Circle?
The high and low rooftops in the north side of Cleveland Circle on Beacon Street have been covered with lots of big graffiti for almost a year. I noticed yesterday that they were all gone! They were painted over with a lot of light red, dark red, and gray paint.
Wow! I wonder who did all this? But regardless, it’s a great development.
Go Brookline!
Above is the photo from above Brookline Booksmith. I saw it months ago, but dreaded the climb up there. After much scouting, there is no easy way up there. I have been procrastinating.
But yesterday, I noticed that someone (I am pretty sure it was the town) got up there and painted over it!!!!!
Yahoo! I am very glad that this is not all up to me. :-)
May 2012
7 posts
A Declaration of Love
Every once in a while, someone asks me about the graffiti that is “art.” I like to say, “That’s maybe 1/1000th of the stuff out there.”
So, once before, I have let something stay there (the panda on northern Harvard Avenue before you get to Staples on the black traffic box).
A couple of days ago, I was on the bridge over the Mass Pike between BU and Brookline....
A Graffiti Alley on the Northern Front
What’s interesting about the northern border of Brookline is the space between Verndale and Brainerd streets. It’s almost as if some early Brookline king didn’t want the vandals from Boston crossing easily between his town and Boston. One of the few places to cross is near Harvard, along 11 Verndale Street. This is the alley there - two side-by-side pictures showing the whole...
Really Bad Eliminations
First, let me say that I completely support anyone who is sincerely trying to stop the graffiti problem. Second, it is more important to eliminate graffiti quickly than to do it right, quickly.
But this traffic box, on the corner of Center and Williams, just screams “I am here because of graffiti.” It is only slightly better than having the original tag there.
Sigh. So, as I often...
Physical Graffiti?
The Clinton Path Tunnel is often full of stuff from the regulars (Nugs, Nack, etc) but today, I was surprised to see… physics and chemistry? I think the first image on the left is some sort of Boron isotope. The center is a listing of the categories of elements, and the third is part of the periodic table.
I really don’t know why someone did this in the tunnel. (It was with a thick...
