Comments on Kensington, Brooklyn: Caught in the Act!

is the 66 on newkirk avenue ??? if so what a wast...

2007-08-30T20:56:00.000-04:00

is the 66 on newkirk avenue ??? if so what a waste of our money .

Ditto Scott! Yeah blog!!!

2007-08-05T13:49:00.000-04:00

Ditto Scott! Yeah blog!!!

Wow, what an amazing road this post has traveled. ...

2007-08-05T02:15:00.000-04:00

Wow, what an amazing road this post has traveled. It sounds like there is some tensions beyond the scope of this issue that should be addressed in this community.

Most things in life, as I'm sure we all know, are not simple and usually don't have a single solution. If you believe people have the right to tag public and private property to say something, express themselves or mark territory you are entitled to hold that opinion. However, I do not believe anyone has the right to paint or deface my property or my neighbors.

Does anyone really think any of this tagging is attractive and adds to the neighborhood? Does anyone think it is their right to do this? Should we just let it happen? Is it really cowardly to make information like this public? Are these people harmless or is there a reason to be afraid of what they will do?

I sincerely believe tolerating and defending graffiti is irresponsible and opens the door (even if it is not the taggers) to a decline in our quality of life. It's not a bad thing to want to live in a clean safe place.

If Kensington taggers are going to art school I ho...

2007-08-04T22:23:00.000-04:00

If Kensington taggers are going to art school I hope they have a backup plan. I have never seen more art-less graffiti as what this neighborhood has...

As far as vigilante-ism. It's not like a baseball bat was used here. Maybe simply turning the info to the police would have been the proper course but the amount of quality of life infractions around here leads me to believe that's not going to change a thing.

i have teenagers-they are not all thugs! if my tee...

2007-08-04T18:36:00.000-04:00

i have teenagers-they are not all thugs! if my teen was destroying property et al. i would certainly want to know. ignorance is not a coping mechanism. some people seem too obsessed with park slope-this is not park slope. this blog is an excellent blog and it is indeed causing positive change. i think some newbies perhaps transplants from park slope are being a tad possessive about "discovering " kensington.change is inescapable-although i fervantly hope some history remains.

bridget

Grafitti cretins are a city-wide problem it seems....

2007-08-04T18:04:00.000-04:00

Grafitti cretins are a city-wide problem it seems. The guy in the story (link below) has been arrested a few times, and he's not a teenager. I wouldn't be suprised if these characters all know one another.

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/118620901131840.xml&coll=1

Old Timer, your ignorance brings back many memorie...

2007-08-04T15:23:00.000-04:00

Old Timer, your ignorance brings back many memories. even though your subtext reeks of racism more than a pure hatred for all those who are working-class, if it weren't for working-class people, regardless of their ethnic background, this country would be in much worse shape economically than it already is.

i come from a family of working-class individuals who, yes, worked for the government--one for the city and one for a nationally-run laboratory in the Midwest. one as a secretary, the other as a heavy-equipment mechanic. they were uneducated immigrants who never got beyond an 8th grade diploma until in their 50s, when they finally had the time to return to night school and earn their GEDs.

and yes, they certainly could be belligerent. but they weren't dumb and they weren't racist and they weren't not caring. they survived the Depression, served in WWII, survived a son serving in Vietnam, volunteered in the community and worked hard to make a better life for their kids and those around them. they too would be "old-times" if they were still alive. and they would whole-heartedly disagree with your comments, and my brother and i certainly did not end up in prison.

Even though I not a minority, being Italian in a rural town in the Midwest meant it was close enough for many people. Growing up in the 70s I was teased for being "black-enough" because of my curly dark hair, dark brown eyes and easily tanned (and hairy) skin, was accused of having grandparents back in Italy that must have eaten cats and dogs because Italians were so unclean. I lost friends because their parents wouldn't let them come over any more because I was one of the only kids whose parents allowed a racial mix of students in our home -- white, black and the kids of the Mexican migrant workers who came back every year to work hard in the fields for the very same owners who would no longer let their kids come over to play. God how I could go on.

also, your laud for the apparent mob-style vigilante killings of those two thieves you wrote about--who yes, deserved punishment, but perhaps not the kind illegally meted out to them-- sickens me.

To anon912: If you were shoplifting from my father...

2007-08-04T15:04:00.000-04:00

To anon912: If you were shoplifting from my father's store, he surely would have beaten you senseless. Two puerto ricans once came in and stole some beer and stuff. My dad and uncle caught them and beat them with pieces of wood till they bled. What was hilarious was hearing my dad yell at them in italian, and the 2 PRs answering in spanish!

If i can get a little off course for a second. I k...

2007-08-04T14:36:00.000-04:00

If i can get a little off course for a second.

I know that sometimes the person behind this blog post some pics under the heading "graffiti or art", one of them was a fish drawn on a wall. that fish appeared numerous times right next to 'backfat' in the same colored marker and paint at the same time. The one off the top off my head i can think of is between E.7th and E.8th on church, the fish and backfat side by side in blue marker and they showed up at the same time. It was either the same person or they went out tagging together and it was done a bunch of times. its just funny how they're both paint on private property yet people see one as graffiti and the other as art.

I bet if the kids in the pic were tagging up 'trader joe's please come to my hood' there would be some people saying "oh, its nothing." not everyone but some people definitely would.

in the 'real' world, we report crimes to the polic...

2007-08-04T09:12:00.000-04:00

in the 'real' world, we report crimes to the police. when we notice old food on the shelves of supermarkets, we talk to the manager. blog as pseudo-robin hood/community vigilante i find disturbing and cowardly. good luck tracking down these 'animals' and i'm just glad there wasn't some jerk taking my photo when i was caught shoplifting in high school. also, 1:50 please remind me why all teens are assholes? i'm going to go put on my t-shirt and baggy jeans.

What is sad and amusing to me at the same time sta...

2007-08-04T07:41:00.000-04:00

What is sad and amusing to me at the same time starts with the fact that this blog itself is a private property, with one wall of it exposed to a virtual, public street. The author is working hard on an expression of her very own Kensington on the web. She is creating her little snapshot of our neighborhood that is actually much more accessible and much more visible, and in some ways even more permanent, than any physical bridge or house, or street in zip code 11218. (Certainly easier to find.)

The comments here are not unlike scribbles on this private yet public wall. And not unlike on a real wall, one can write something meaningful here, sign it, help the author build a record of what Kensington used to be like in 2007. One can also bomb this place, spill trash in front of it or smear feces onto it, wearing a troll mask.

With anonymity slowly becoming a romantic thing of the past, even the dumbest and most offensive comments here will probably one day be seen as some serious, naive, honest record of what Kensington used to be like in August of 2007.
(At least for a few of its citizens who found it important enough to share it with their world...)

Oh, and it might actually be much easier to wash a brick wall of a house than it is to clean Google's cache.
; )

Hate grafitti, think it's appropriate civic action...

2007-08-04T04:27:00.000-04:00

Hate grafitti, think it's appropriate civic action to photograph and post pix of offenders BUT it brings out posters like 12:03 and some others. May come as a shock to you slopie wanna-bes, but blue collar people in Brooklyn are not a mass of "uneducated morons." The classism and racism so casually employed on this site is just shocking. How are new miserable people an improvement over existing miserable residents? And if 9:21 is correct, it's not even locals but alleged artists.

FYI- Backfat is no teenager and hasn't been for a ...

2007-08-03T21:21:00.000-04:00

FYI- Backfat is no teenager and hasn't been for a long time. Hate to tell you this, but those guys aren't teenagers either. They graduated from SVA a couple of years ago. They've been busted several times before, spend a night in jail, and are back at it the next day. I think it is great the pics have been posted. THe only hope is for vigilantes to stop them as the cops can't seem to. If you see them around our neighborhood, shoo 'em outta here!!!!

anyone who condones grafitti must live a pretty sa...

2007-08-03T16:59:00.000-04:00

anyone who condones grafitti must live a pretty sad life...

and probably lives in filth

3:09 is an idioti suggest we all go tag his/her pr...

2007-08-03T16:56:00.000-04:00

3:09 is an idiot

i suggest we all go tag his/her property..i'm sure we'll get some real compassion

Graffiti vandals are belligerent working class peo...

2007-08-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

Graffiti vandals are belligerent working class people. Their parents are that way too, so approaching them is a waste of time. Probably the sons/daughters of city workers. They are a waste of human life with prison in their future. Do you think 'tagging' is all they do? They will be replaced by future generations of belligerent working class people. They have been around here since the 1960s. At least back then if they pushed their luck someone would give them a beating. In 1971 two punks broke into an old lady's house on E2 Street. They bragged about robbing her. Both were found mutilated and dead in a canarsie junkyard.

Calling 911 for a graffiti hit may be a waste of t...

2007-08-03T16:42:00.000-04:00

Calling 911 for a graffiti hit may be a waste of time. That's a low priority for the police.

This site has tons of anti-graffiti information:

http://home2.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/anti_graffiti/main.shtml
or you could try:
http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mailcau.html (Drop downs: Select Complaint, then select Mayor's Paint Program)

3:09pm, who is clearly 1:22 am, is still a chump. ...

2007-08-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

3:09pm, who is clearly 1:22 am, is still a chump.
How is reacting angrily to someone messing things up "condescending"? You're the one who's being patronizing, with your self-righteous calls of "racism" and "classism". This is a concrete issue of kids fucking with our neighborhood, not a sociology class.

I bought a coop here despite the graffiti. I'm no...

2007-08-03T15:36:00.000-04:00

I bought a coop here despite the graffiti. I'm not really worried about or intimidated by "the animals" around here.

To 309pm: It's not a minor thing at all. The incre...

2007-08-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

To 309pm: It's not a minor thing at all. The increase in grafitti is serious and not a good sign for the area. It sends the message that the animals have taken over. Who would buy a house or open a business in a grafitti covered neighborhood??

I am astounded by the level of racism and classism...

2007-08-03T15:09:00.000-04:00

I am astounded by the level of racism and classism in the comments on this blog. It's just not OK to dehumanize people by deeming them "white trash" even if they are vandalizing property. I don't understand this. Someone please explain to me why so many people here are so upset about relatively minor things and so quick to condescend.

One thing that cuts down on tagging is murals. How...

2007-08-03T15:07:00.000-04:00

One thing that cuts down on tagging is murals. How about a cool mural on this bridge? Get some of the local kids involved, or maybe the stables- people must use this bridge en route to riding horses.

If caught they should be spray painted.Look like m...

2007-08-03T14:18:00.000-04:00

If caught they should be spray painted.

Look like middle class white kids or possibly white trash from the neighborhood. I alway assumed that it was tagging was a form of recreation for minorities.

Why didn't the photographer call 911? There is a reward for these graffiti vandals!

1:22am, you're a chump. Apparently anyone can mess...

2007-08-03T14:02:00.000-04:00

1:22am, you're a chump. Apparently anyone can mess with your shit and you'll just suck it up because, oh no! wouldn't want to be condescending or classist. Oh, wait, you don't think this is about *your* shit. If it was, then you'd whine whine whine. You're clearly a trustifarian, cause you don't get the connection between people's stuff and the work they have to do to get it.

9:11 am, AMEN. That stopped the racist neanderthals before they could open their mouths. And to the people who defend tagging in some mistaken sense of connection to their non-white brothers and sisters: notice that the black and latino city workers are the ones cleaning this shit up?

11am, you're an idiot. The suburbs are full to the brim with little white boys like these two, trying sooooo hard to be what they think is cool and street. Maybe you should stop trying, too.

I've been noticing a ton more graffiti again in th...

2007-08-03T13:43:00.000-04:00

I've been noticing a ton more graffiti again in the neighborhood - especially on this bridge. They will continue to do this...until they are stopped. Hopefully next time the cops will be close by.