Austinist: No One Wants To Clean Up The Train Bridge

Alan Sudo

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:31:35 -0600

I notice that the "fed up residents" mentioned live no where near the bridge. One is a "Keller Williams Real Estate Top Producing agent" who lives in the Hill Country, the other is a city employee who lives south of Ben White.

ratz

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:36:39 -0600

nickl, you must have too much time on you hands if you're calling the city about graffiti on a bridge. Let's just white wash the whole city while we're at it. The bridge is industrial and gritty and I personally think the graffiti looks good (despite the Ron Paul tag). It's as much a signature of the city as the "Hi, How Are You" mural. As Grape Ape suggested, the only way to stop people from tagging it is to hire artists to paint it.

nickl

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:21:40 -0600

The city fines any owner that will not reasonably quickly remove graffiti. I have been asking for the train bridge to be repainted for years now and I'm glad they are finally doing it. The train company appeared not to care when I was working on this. They also need to fix the many rough, rough train crossings with huge potholes around the rails while they are at it. I called them about that recently d got no response from them or the city. Many people are not doing their jobs here and I plan to bring this to our new city manager.

seth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:56:24 -0600

The selectivity is based on citizen reports. If you see a tag and call 311 to report it tell them you want the police to file a report. If the tag is on private property, I suppose they will send a letter to the owner with the threat of the $500 fine, but I'm not sure if that's really the normal process. The city's graffiti abatement task force will also help property owners remove graffiti on their property. Do I want the Flightpath fined? No. But I would like them to get angry and put pressure on the city to increase it's effort to arrest and punish these dipshits that are causing millions of dollars of damage each year. Austin needs to increase APD's anti-graffiti budget. All they've got is one detective assigned and from all the vandalism I see, it looks like he's overwhelmed. Seth

LoudMouth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:31:39 -0600

Plus, who the hell lives in the middle of the lake and has to look at that bridge all day, seth?

LoudMouth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:30:52 -0600

All I was saying is that Shilli might not like that but I bet his wife would like a friendly little reminder. You people are too sensitive.

truecraig

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:25:52 -0600

That's the thing about jokes, LM. They're contextual. Seth used hyperbole to make a point about whether or not Shilli actually believed his statement about: blank walls being no better than tagged ones. I'm not entirely sure what your comment was meant to say, but pretty much all my assumptions about your intent were less than friendly. If it was meant to flatter, or extend the conversation about the appropriate treatment of public graffiti, then I apologize for stifling your creative expression. But I seriously doubt that’s the case. I don't think you meant any harm by it, probably just being playful, but you have to understand that people will tend to get emotional when unprovoked vagina jokes are aimed in the direction of their wives, regardless of the joker's supposed intent. If someone had done the same to you without provocation, I would have said the same in your defense. We just want to keep things as civil as possible around here. That’s all.

shilli

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:25:51 -0600

Seth, I think the city should do what it can to stop people from defacing other people's property (which is what I meant by "I understand tagging being against the law"). Other than expressing my personal aesthetic preference, I was just saying that I don't think the city should fine the property owners for failing to clean it up if they don't want to and that if that is an ordinance it is apparently enforced very selectively. Do you really think the people at Flightpath should be fined $500 per day until they can get the tag off their fence?

LoudMouth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:01:48 -0600

How is my saying that Shilli's wife should decide whether that's spray painted across the street from his home any different than saying that Shilli should decide? Damn. If you're going to call me on that then you have to call seth on it since he brought it up.

truecraig

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:50:40 -0600

I would like to note that there is a difference between "tagging" and “graffiti”. Though the two are definitely linked (and one could argue that all graffiti is tagging but not all tagging is graffiti), they are not necessarily the same thing. Tagging is purely a form of self-promotion. It's a mark, intended to be prominent in placement, which promotes a particular person or idea. Stencils fall into this category. Etchies (scratches into glass or any clear material) also fall into tags. So do wheat paste pieces. Anything quickly applied, really (that is strictly my opinion, and fans of Banksy may disagree whole-heartedly on that). Graffiti in its current form, typically takes place in off-the-beaten-path locations. Unless you look for it, you won't find the vast majority of graffiti produced in Austin (or anywhere else for that matter). This isn't because the artists don't want to place them somewhere prominent or potentially obnoxious. They want to spread their art just like anyone else. It's because they're so time-consuming and require too much investment from the artist to be so easily interrupted during production, or make it easy for the artist to be beaten/shot/arrested for committing vandalism. The pieces are typically large, intricate, painfully pre-sketched and crafted, and are usually intended to be more visually stunning rather than purely promotional (though they often do promote the artist or their ideas, but many are illegible to the average beholder anyway, almost a visual cant of sorts). The railway bridge over Lady Bird Lake has been repeatedly tagged, for decades. But I've never seen anything I would classify as graffiti on it.

seth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:28:16 -0600

Shilli's comment coincidentally reflects the same rationale given by taggers for their acts of vandalism. The thing is, they rarely target the 'blank wall' as it's easy for the property owner to repair and their mark isn't as persistent. They strive for the most destructive, permanent placement of their tags. This includes: acid-etching storefront windows mashing air conditioner cooling fins engraving restroom mirrors spray painting decorative wooden fences Here is an example where some twat has tagged the newly installed wooden decking at the Flightpath coffee shop. Options for removing the tag: sand the entire face of those planks, apply new stain. Or, replace with new planks, apply new stain. In the case of the Flightpath, the small business owner will likely trash the planks and install new. For the home owner who has a cedar or teak fence that's been tagged, they usually have to paint the whole thing over because sanding leaves an ugly mark. Any sympathy shown for taggers is completely ignorant of the widespread harm they cause to Austin's small businesses and anyone who owns stuff. Seth

Justin Cox

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:29:08 -0600

outright, not out-right.

Justin Cox

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:28:42 -0600

LM: Generally, I find your snark and e-assaults amusing (if not out-right funny) but something like that last comment was disappointingly unexpected.

truecraig

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:26:52 -0600

LM, I'm a big fan of off-color humor, I really am. But let's leave any and all dubiously played wife jokes off the boards. People tend to read them with the worst possible connotation (right or wrong), and what little rationale exists here goes out the window when we allow the conversation to go down that road. This is a dialogue about graffiti, right? Right. We cool?

LoudMouth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:05:01 -0600

"a big spray-painted likeness of a vagina with the text: "Eat More Pussy" below it in 2' letters" I bet Shilli's wife would prefer the 2' letters.

BramleyDirk

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:01:22 -0600

GOMER

seth

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:01:55 -0600

but I don't think any of it is worse than the blank wall that was there before. Shilli, Would you mind me filling the blank wall on the front of your residence with a big spray-painted likeness of a vagina with the text: "Eat More Pussy" below it in 2' letters? Or would you prefer the blank wall? Seth

nauticalsam

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:58:13 -0600

best old graffiti on bridge: "Demand Mediocrity"

LoudMouth

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:48:53 -0600

Parmer, not Palmer.

LoudMouth

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:48:06 -0600

Dear City of Austin, I am sick and tired of not having proper crosswalks and lighting along Lamar. I will give you one month to install crosswalks every 50 feet and better lighting along Lamar from Ben White to Palmer and if you don't do so in a timely fashion (one month) I will fine you $5000 a day. I can do this because I said so. Thank you very mush, LoudMouth

petro

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:44:24 -0600

Ummm yeah, lets hang a bunch of artists off the side of a bridge. That's brilliant.

LoudMouth

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:30:34 -0600

If those upset citizens have too much time on their hands, and it seems like they do, they could always find work here http://www.idealist.org/.

kingkirbythegreatoftexas

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:26:26 -0600

Grape Ape, that is a way better idea. The city could also get artists to decorate all the boring traffic light control boxes all over town. San Diego has done it for years, and it looks great. They could be permanent or just temporary. Either way, it would be great. Shilli, I believe Houston has an ordinance, or had one proposed, they would fine the property owner if they didn't immediately paint over graffiti on their property.

Grape Ape

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:53:11 -0600

What would be better is to let some of the better and semi-well known artists mural the bridge with their art.

shilli

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:37:40 -0600

Personally, I don't think the graffiti "diminishes the beauty of the city." Some graffiti is real art, most of it is crap, but I don't think any of it is worse than the blank wall that was there before. Also, how does this violate City Code? I understand tagging being against the law, but can the city fine a private property owner for not cleaning up graffiti on their property? Is every property owner with graffiti on their property subject to similar fines? There's plenty of graffiti on city property.