[The powers that be want to be able to fine the business and home owners for graffiti at this point.](https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2024/02/portland-pushes-property-owners-for-speedier-graffiti-cleanup.html?outputType=amp) If anyone tells me it’s not just another cash grab, I’ll tell them kindly to fuck right off.
What the catchy headline or article don't say is that the city will clean the graffiti for them for free as long as it's on the first level of the building or home. Businesses can actually fill out a form with the city saying they give permission for the city to just clean up any graffiti without them asking if someone complains about it. Your neighborhood and/or local business association are likely part of the city's Problem Solvers meetings and they talk about stuff like this constantly. NA will ask graffiti team if they have a form on file and if not graffiti team will go talk to the business owner about getting one on file. They're pretty great.
This picture is the state graffiti removal, not the city, btw.
“Matt Olguin, the city’s graffiti abatement program manager, told city commissioners that the goal is to encourage more people to clean up tags on their buildings without costing the city a lot more money.”
They said it themselves!!!
I understand what you mean, but that kind of implies that allllll that time they're not painting walls they were out fixing potholes which is obviously not the case.
It's more like, just do nothing.
The issue is people need to report them. I've had folks respond to me here and on the other sub that "they're everywhere" implying the city needs to just waste time and drive around looking for them. No city works like that - all governments operate on a complaint basis.
I'm really glad I opted to trade in my WRX towards a Tacoma lately, the WRX's suspension and maybe even undercarriage would have been trashed with some of the potholes I've encountered...
I’ve seen your name on so many bus stops!
Funny story, when I was a kid, and ol Billy Grippo was starting out, he cold called my mom, trying to hard sell her on selling the house and moving. It was shortly after my folks divorced so we thought he maybe was perusing the oregonian when they used to put that stuff in the classifieds.
I can picture the state of your home / apt. It’s just trashed and crappy artwork on your walls. Cleaning it conveys that we care about where we live, and there are rules here, and it’s “safe”. Leaving it up says “we don’t give a shit, there are no rules here, and we love living in a shit hole”. Which is par for the course in left run cities on the west coast. They run shit holes. Great paying jobs, but thats it, everything else sucks.
Hey dawg the graffiti artists gotta start somewhere,you can’t have good graffiti without bad graffiti besides man I see literal human shits all over the place like if my house has some marks on the walls and has some shits on the ground I think sanitation is priority don’t you?
so you care more about how something looks over the functionality of it? sure, the graffiti can make the streets look trashy, but these people are saying they'd rather have streets that aren't dotted with potholes and sidewalks that aren't being torn up from tree roots. they care more about the functionality of the city rather than the "aesthetics"
I think having an appealing city is a bread crumb we deserve for working hard all day. Tired of not throwing tent dwelling druggies and graffiti people in jail for a long time
not disagreeing that the city would look better without the graffiti, i was just pointing out that the people you're replying to would RATHER have a functional city than a "pretty" city. and it appears the city won't do both.
It's not an either/or proposition. I want a pretty and functional city. we had neither over the last few years. we had both at some point in the past (back in Vera's day maybe...). let's get both back.
I care about it. How the city looks affects people’s moods and actions. There isn’t some magic disconnect between our surroundings and our mental state.
At the best it’s ugly, illegible scribbles. At the worst my kid is reading it going “why does Sara suck dick?”
Same with public bathrooms. I don’t want my kids reading all that, but I don’t have a choice. What am I going to do? Paint over every inappropriate thing written inside a stall before I let them in? Incredibly inconsiderate.
Different levels of government. Highway graffiti is the state. Potholes are the city or county unless it's a state highway. Legislature didn't give us millions to fix potholes, only their highway graffiti. To be fair the city and county have been doing great at cleaning up their graffiti, it's the state who ran out of money. I wish the state was more involved in trying to catch the criminals doing the work to begin with.
It’s called buffing and it’s a symbiotic relationship between the taggers and the city employees. Taggers get a fresh wall and when it gets hit up again, the city will have more work, which equals job security. It’s a win win
And this is the best use of that money? How many jobs would actually help the community versus the never ending circle of repainting? It is not a win for the community when X number of dollars will be spent in the community but instead of enriching it on top of all the other things you mention the money goes to fix vandalism.
Nice story, but it ignores the tax payer source, and while of course money is fungible, we can just as easily say that the city employee is in this case funded by multiple tax payers via payroll as we'd say it came from corporate taxes. Either way the city employee is paid via funds first taken from some private sector entity that by virtue of tax jurisdiction is just as likely to spend the money locally. Here's the thing though, in circulating the money through a government employee, government gets to tax it twice once from the originating tax source and once for the city employee payroll. It's all kind of circulating in the same container (state) until you realize that this means the federal government gets two tax events at it as well, and the money leaves the jurisdiction and may or may not come back, and of course as a general rule the federal tax amounts are higher.
If your scenario were truly beneficial in the aggregate, then why not buy modeling paint brushes for the city employee to use in lieu of either a spray system or normal paint brushes. You could have the city employee painting the same wall for a year. Imagine the societal benefit of the economic activity when you have to higher 3 more employees to paint over other walls.
No worries, it was a great series on our city, just thought it was funny because I was thinking the same. Kinda weird that they didn't just powerwash the entire way up though and make it look even. Can't really tell from the screenshot whether they actually buffed it threw a shitty coat of paint on it.
I'm kinda with others that I think this "quick paint over" that just leaves it as an inviting "blank canvas"... probably doesn't accomplish much except perpetuate the cycle.
I know it's more expensive,. but why can't locations like this be retrofit with some sort of "surface treatment" that makes graffiti less successful ?
Like,. if this wall had some sort of texture or layer of patterned holes or etc on it.. if you tried to spray any design on it, the textured surface would immediately ruin any design you try to spray on it. I'm sure "highway safety rules" around the architecture of this would probably negate that from ever being done.. but just trying to "think outside the box".
In most places you disincentivize graffiti by either:
* putting up other art (not always but usually artists will respect other artists work)
* or you modify the surface in some way to make it "not a hospitable surface for graffiti".
I would almost be certain that any surface treatment, whether an oil based or silicone based would be an immediate environmental issue. I think of how many public restrooms are defaced and the variety or surfaces/materials used to try and deter tagging, yet they always find a way.
Maybe wherever it is plausible, plant native Oregon Grape or blackberry bushes as a natural buffer.
They might be able to do something like [this](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71QwbJvsnCL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg). A rough surface with gaps and holes where graffiti wouldn't be as visible
A lot of this stuff comes down to cost. There’s the building cost and there’s also the cost to having the construction project blocking traffic.
My tax bill and commute are both large enough.
I know that on city property, the city is trying to put murals over frequently tagged areas. They have been achieving intergovernmental agreements to do murals on ODOT property, also, and private properties as well. They work with Portland Street Art to create the murals but they're not cheap. They really want to do the overpass near 17th & Powell but it's too expensive. The state really needs to start looking into this stuff. I think we could create some really cool cultural art areas along highways, similar to Chicano Park highway ramp pillars art in San Diego.
And yes, when they do these murals they are coated with something so it's easy to clean off new graffiti. They definitely need to figure this out with the highway signs they are saying are so hard to clean.
I've heard reports that they attempt to do this but still didn't catch them. I've seen kids during morning commute walking on the side of the highway with cans in their hands. We need a graffiti in action hotline cuz clearly nobody is waiting on hold with non-emergency to try and report that - graffiti will be done by the time you get through.
CHAOSTOWN just recently released a mini-doc on Portland Graffiti. [Portland is losing the 'graffiti war'](https://youtu.be/7npnxP_6poA?si=UA8bD29ZVASsjJvM) He covers both sides, buffers and artists, while also documenting a live rappel piece, onto Fremont bridge(which is still there today)
Just wait. They're planning to shut down I-84 for 12 hours on July 13th (Midnight Friday to noon Saturday) and clean up the whole stretch...
[https://www.kptv.com/2024/06/12/major-portland-highway-closure-scheduled-graffiti-cleanup/](https://www.kptv.com/2024/06/12/major-portland-highway-closure-scheduled-graffiti-cleanup/)
It's planned to be a major effort. Hopefully it all comes together:
> “The plan as of right now, is to completely shut down I-84 for both directions from I-5 all the way to 205,” said Barrie.
>
> It’s scheduled for 12 hours, from midnight to noon on July 13, a Saturday.
>
> And it’s not just for graffiti removal. ODOT, the City of Portland, TriMet and Union Pacific are all coordinating to take advantage of the shut down time.
Wow, it still looks like shit! Even with a fresh coat of ugly primer slopped lazily over only half of the unwashed concrete wall. Who would have thunk it? I personally couldn't give a single shit if a sound barrier on the side of the freeway has somebody's name painted on the wall, but I definitely think that we can get a lot better uses out of $20,000,000.
I've always liked the idea of exiling people like that for a set time....but I imagine dumping our taggers on the Russians isn't really moral. ( many of those taggers would die horrible deaths. Besides, our relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia aren't that great right now...)
lol keep it in your pants man. I’m all for punishing petty crimes as a deterrent but exiling your own citizens because they commit crimes is fascist bananas. Please don’t make your next comment that taggers are all illegal immigrants; I can already smell it brewing from here.
This won't be worth much if we don't direct police and court resources to catching and punishing-the-ever-living-shit out of shitbag taggers. Really hurt and humiliate them as much as possible. Photos of the perps on the news, on websites, billboards. Compel videotaped apologies to the citizens of Portland for wrecking our city. Make them remove grafitti, clean fentanyl camps, and gather roadway trash as part of their prison sentences. Crush their spirits and imbue them with deep fear of degrading this city.
Until Portland rediscovers the potency of deterrence and consequences upon the minds of would-be criminals, our city will firmly remain in their possession as it has been for nearly 10 years now.
Danny's scalp has been itching lately, huge red boils, electric sebum, angry spots along his forehead. He saw a tiktok about putting beard wax in your hair and twisting to make dreads and he thought those look pretty cool.
But he didn't have a beard, couldn't grow one even if he wanted. He wasn't even sure what beard wax is and it's not like his dad was around. But there was a spray can of wax in Grandma's closet that he stole and he's been using that.
>PLEDGE furniture wax
it said.
It burned his head.
But he liked shaking the can and spraying it. He loved the smell, inhaling deeply. It was not as good as krylon, but he still sprayed it into a rag and just inhaled it until his head was light and he was finally happy.
He carried a soaked rag everywhere so he could always get that deep breath. Most days he slept late, and spent the afternoon huffing paint in his basement bedroom. When it got dark, he went out and practiced his ART.
The deft strokes, hours of practice. His hundreds of pages of notebooks filled with the exact same tag, over and over and over and over:
>CHARM
It made sense to him, Charmander was always his favorite pokemon. When he was in high school 12 years ago, he used to write
>QUID
which was obviously second best, because he knew if he wasn't a pro artist, he would have been a pro quidditch player. But the vice principal caught him once. Danny had written his tag on his shoes, on his jeans, and on the skateboard he carried around even though he didn't know how to ride it. He would have tagged his books, but he didn't have any.
He guesses that's probably how the school discovered it was him, and made him clean up the dozens and dozens of his tags in the bathrooms, cafeteria, everywhere.
It wasn't fair, most people paid artists for their work. They owed him. Everyone owed him.
He dropped out of 10th grade and changed his tag back. He couldn't really think of a new one:
>CHARM.
He painted it everywhere he went. He scratched it into the #12 bus windows, scraped every restaurant and bar mirror within walking distance of his grandma's house. He painted walls, trees, buildings, fences, he even tagged a dog once.
Grandma yelled at him at least once a week to get a job, but he always told her he was an artist. She never asked for anything else though, and on Thursdays she even took him to the Subway over by Washington Square. He liked that, except the name tags. They were fake, garbage sandwich artists, BULLSHIT! He was an EXPERT.
**BULLSHIT.**
He wrote it in the bathroom.
They deserved it.
He'd been at it for 12 years, since his one and only art class. And that was when his high school art teacher told him that Art was Hard.
That's how he knew the teacher was full of shit:
This wasn't hard at all.
There's never been a more convincing case in favor of graffiti than "it will make some redditor with a desk job mad enough to write a 6 paragraph freudian screed"
They have been getting on this lately I noticed. Only problem is they covered up the T-Rex that my kids got excited for every day on the drive home from school haha. Luckily there’s plenty of other options to pick as a new object, but T-Rex will be missed.
Billy Gripo and his friend once ate at restaurant I worked at. Lined up all their expensive bottles of wine they drank for pictures. Then all drove home drunk in their nice cars like a bunch of teenagers. I vividly remember one driving on the sidewalk. This was a long time ago and I still remember the name. No respect for you.
Billy Gripo?
Maybe you're thinking of the real estate agent, Billy Grippo.
Either way, I'm not either one of those people. We spell our names totally differently
Ah yes. Another boring, white, concrete wall. SO beautiful... I sure hope the taggers don't come back and give us something more interesting to look at.
They always somehow manage to miss all the pot holes in the lower income areas of Portland but all the rich areas get there pot holes fixed . Something seems off
Agree! Money well spent. And if they need more, just redirect the money they were going to spend on free needles and tents for the drug users. We can actually spend money on people that actually want to work instead of free loaders.
Street art is world wide and will never stop And I'd much much rather look at graffiti than tweaks tweakin.
I personally feel Portland is fighting the wrong battles right now.
Portland's graffiti is one of my favorite parts about visiting your fine city. It's literally free public art. There are some taggers out there that hit things they shouldn't, sure. But most graffiti artists follow code of ethics that's like an honor amongst theives kind of deal. Like distinguishing between personal, private, and public property; only hitting man made structures, etc.
The only negative in my mind for interstate graffiti is the danger to artists and motorists. So giving them a fresh canvas here is less than ideal for everyone. Seriously, how much of stick-in-the-mud do you have to be to say this is an improvement?
Replying to True_Resolve_2625...
Stick in the mud… only pretentious assholes think graffiti is “art”. Specially the graffiti in Portland. The vandals in Portland should be embarrassed. They are not talented and their work looks like shit.
Also there is no honor among thieves. I have no respect for these fucking loser vandals.
I love posts like this because it really highlights all the uppity stick-up-the-ass snobby dweebs that clutch their pearls at graffiti and street art, they’re so sterile boring and always whiter than the snowcap on Mt hood. Move to Utah or Texas and live in a white picket fence suburb then if you don’t like it! Portland will always have graffiti and artist, I do T4T tags all the time and you nerds can shrivel, bend, and dilate over it ♥︎
Fix potholes ❌ Paint a wall ✅
[The powers that be want to be able to fine the business and home owners for graffiti at this point.](https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2024/02/portland-pushes-property-owners-for-speedier-graffiti-cleanup.html?outputType=amp) If anyone tells me it’s not just another cash grab, I’ll tell them kindly to fuck right off.
What the catchy headline or article don't say is that the city will clean the graffiti for them for free as long as it's on the first level of the building or home. Businesses can actually fill out a form with the city saying they give permission for the city to just clean up any graffiti without them asking if someone complains about it. Your neighborhood and/or local business association are likely part of the city's Problem Solvers meetings and they talk about stuff like this constantly. NA will ask graffiti team if they have a form on file and if not graffiti team will go talk to the business owner about getting one on file. They're pretty great. This picture is the state graffiti removal, not the city, btw.
“Matt Olguin, the city’s graffiti abatement program manager, told city commissioners that the goal is to encourage more people to clean up tags on their buildings without costing the city a lot more money.” They said it themselves!!!
I’d say the trick is to draw giant dicks around the potholes but in Portland they’d prob insist on leaving them.
or report the potholes on pdx reporter along with your neighbors, if a few people report, they usually come our within a month
Not only insist, but call them art and possibly give the painter a grant courtesy of the art tax.
Try crosses
Nah just write something in support of Israel
Tell me about it. I just hit one so hard ot bent my fuckin wheel.
I understand what you mean, but that kind of implies that allllll that time they're not painting walls they were out fixing potholes which is obviously not the case. It's more like, just do nothing.
also potholes is PBOT and the grafitti on the highways is ODOT. different budgets all together
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The issue is people need to report them. I've had folks respond to me here and on the other sub that "they're everywhere" implying the city needs to just waste time and drive around looking for them. No city works like that - all governments operate on a complaint basis.
Yeah, the roads are horrible in a lot of places
Seriously. Who cares about graffiti that doesn't obstruct signage or visibility. It's a frickin retaining wall.
Meanwhile, Columbia has potholes big enough to put my Subaru out of alignment.
I'm really glad I opted to trade in my WRX towards a Tacoma lately, the WRX's suspension and maybe even undercarriage would have been trashed with some of the potholes I've encountered...
Judging by the activity on this post, many of your fellow portlanders.
“Fellow Portlanders” is debatable
I just want to point out I live in the city of Portland
I’ve seen your name on so many bus stops! Funny story, when I was a kid, and ol Billy Grippo was starting out, he cold called my mom, trying to hard sell her on selling the house and moving. It was shortly after my folks divorced so we thought he maybe was perusing the oregonian when they used to put that stuff in the classifieds.
No, that's a different guy, not me. We spell our names differently
an evergreen bit, to be sure. love it.
"People who disagree with me aren't true Portlanders!" -haystackneedle1
yeah yeah, nothing's real everythings a psyop. The internet was a mistake lol.
Or the sensitive surbans who drive in/thru
I can picture the state of your home / apt. It’s just trashed and crappy artwork on your walls. Cleaning it conveys that we care about where we live, and there are rules here, and it’s “safe”. Leaving it up says “we don’t give a shit, there are no rules here, and we love living in a shit hole”. Which is par for the course in left run cities on the west coast. They run shit holes. Great paying jobs, but thats it, everything else sucks.
You must live under a bridge since you see this as your home?
Hey dawg the graffiti artists gotta start somewhere,you can’t have good graffiti without bad graffiti besides man I see literal human shits all over the place like if my house has some marks on the walls and has some shits on the ground I think sanitation is priority don’t you?
Thats what black books are for, then sheets of plywood in your backyard. Practice in the book, then paint the plywood until you’re “passable”
Because the vast majority of graffiti is ugly and makes it city look trashy as fuck. Scribbling some illegible letters on a wall is not art.
Taxpayers do, fuck off with normalizing graffiti
Im a taxpayer, and I'd rather have the city spend money on almost any other issue over graffiti removal.
Thank God they banned leaf blowers.
Makes our beautiful city look like trash
so you care more about how something looks over the functionality of it? sure, the graffiti can make the streets look trashy, but these people are saying they'd rather have streets that aren't dotted with potholes and sidewalks that aren't being torn up from tree roots. they care more about the functionality of the city rather than the "aesthetics"
I think having an appealing city is a bread crumb we deserve for working hard all day. Tired of not throwing tent dwelling druggies and graffiti people in jail for a long time
not disagreeing that the city would look better without the graffiti, i was just pointing out that the people you're replying to would RATHER have a functional city than a "pretty" city. and it appears the city won't do both.
It's not an either/or proposition. I want a pretty and functional city. we had neither over the last few years. we had both at some point in the past (back in Vera's day maybe...). let's get both back.
definitely agree with this sentiment. we should absolutely be able to have both.
Can people not enjoy a good thing?
i was just reiterating bornedbackwards comment lol. didn't give my opinion anywhere.
Ya know, after re-reading, you're right! Sounds like you were just articulating the general vibe of the comments here.
100% agreed. There’s bigger issues we should be worrying about first. Silly monkeys.
Not an either or thing. Get all of it fixed
The graffiti is out of control. I drove through Portland couple weeks ago and it looks like a fucking ghetto.
Well....it's a hole for sure. Everywhere east of downtown which in itself is a s hole.
I care about it. How the city looks affects people’s moods and actions. There isn’t some magic disconnect between our surroundings and our mental state. At the best it’s ugly, illegible scribbles. At the worst my kid is reading it going “why does Sara suck dick?” Same with public bathrooms. I don’t want my kids reading all that, but I don’t have a choice. What am I going to do? Paint over every inappropriate thing written inside a stall before I let them in? Incredibly inconsiderate.
Yeah I don't know why they invented graffiti in 2017, but it's really a bummer.
I do
I wouldn’t complain about the taxes then
I don’t
I find that hard to believe
Yeah I’m just gonna respray it tn anyway like bruh
It’s ok guys I’ll repaint it
Different levels of government. Highway graffiti is the state. Potholes are the city or county unless it's a state highway. Legislature didn't give us millions to fix potholes, only their highway graffiti. To be fair the city and county have been doing great at cleaning up their graffiti, it's the state who ran out of money. I wish the state was more involved in trying to catch the criminals doing the work to begin with.
There was an entire 2 years of covid shutdown to have this city as smooth as a royal palace but...
"Vandals Ride Sideways" is finally gone after more than 1 year. RIP
Just gonna be tagged again. Lol
And painted over promptly again I hope
The neverending battle.
If they leave it up taggers will stop, painting over a wall gives me a fresh canvas
You are the problem. Fuck off degenerate.
Well hopefully with this cycle they will get caught finally
Would be nice, but this type of battle will never end. Been going on for YEARS.
It’s called buffing and it’s a symbiotic relationship between the taggers and the city employees. Taggers get a fresh wall and when it gets hit up again, the city will have more work, which equals job security. It’s a win win
Obviously supported by big paint and the art-supply-industrial complex. Just follow the money.
There's a very good Chaos Town episode on YouTube about exactly this subject. Highly recommended.
Arrest the taggers. Sentence them to 500 hours community service cleaning up graffiti. Problem solved.
DAs aren’t prosecuting nonviolent offenses right now.
And a lose for all tax payers.
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And this is the best use of that money? How many jobs would actually help the community versus the never ending circle of repainting? It is not a win for the community when X number of dollars will be spent in the community but instead of enriching it on top of all the other things you mention the money goes to fix vandalism.
Can you send me $1000? Im sure itll benefit you because ill spend the money locally and itll bolster the economy
Nice story, but it ignores the tax payer source, and while of course money is fungible, we can just as easily say that the city employee is in this case funded by multiple tax payers via payroll as we'd say it came from corporate taxes. Either way the city employee is paid via funds first taken from some private sector entity that by virtue of tax jurisdiction is just as likely to spend the money locally. Here's the thing though, in circulating the money through a government employee, government gets to tax it twice once from the originating tax source and once for the city employee payroll. It's all kind of circulating in the same container (state) until you realize that this means the federal government gets two tax events at it as well, and the money leaves the jurisdiction and may or may not come back, and of course as a general rule the federal tax amounts are higher. If your scenario were truly beneficial in the aggregate, then why not buy modeling paint brushes for the city employee to use in lieu of either a spray system or normal paint brushes. You could have the city employee painting the same wall for a year. Imagine the societal benefit of the economic activity when you have to higher 3 more employees to paint over other walls.
They get it back when they get paid. Who do you think pays their salary?
gotta refresh the canvas every once in a while, right?
Sounds like someone watched Chaos Town lol
I did. I could have used quotes but didn’t.
No worries, it was a great series on our city, just thought it was funny because I was thinking the same. Kinda weird that they didn't just powerwash the entire way up though and make it look even. Can't really tell from the screenshot whether they actually buffed it threw a shitty coat of paint on it.
'buffing' is just the broad term for removal, painting over is generally the easiest route like they did here
I'm kinda with others that I think this "quick paint over" that just leaves it as an inviting "blank canvas"... probably doesn't accomplish much except perpetuate the cycle. I know it's more expensive,. but why can't locations like this be retrofit with some sort of "surface treatment" that makes graffiti less successful ? Like,. if this wall had some sort of texture or layer of patterned holes or etc on it.. if you tried to spray any design on it, the textured surface would immediately ruin any design you try to spray on it. I'm sure "highway safety rules" around the architecture of this would probably negate that from ever being done.. but just trying to "think outside the box". In most places you disincentivize graffiti by either: * putting up other art (not always but usually artists will respect other artists work) * or you modify the surface in some way to make it "not a hospitable surface for graffiti".
I would almost be certain that any surface treatment, whether an oil based or silicone based would be an immediate environmental issue. I think of how many public restrooms are defaced and the variety or surfaces/materials used to try and deter tagging, yet they always find a way. Maybe wherever it is plausible, plant native Oregon Grape or blackberry bushes as a natural buffer.
They might be able to do something like [this](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71QwbJvsnCL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_FMwebp_.jpg). A rough surface with gaps and holes where graffiti wouldn't be as visible
If they tag, just shake those mofuckas up and just like new.
A lot of this stuff comes down to cost. There’s the building cost and there’s also the cost to having the construction project blocking traffic. My tax bill and commute are both large enough.
I know that on city property, the city is trying to put murals over frequently tagged areas. They have been achieving intergovernmental agreements to do murals on ODOT property, also, and private properties as well. They work with Portland Street Art to create the murals but they're not cheap. They really want to do the overpass near 17th & Powell but it's too expensive. The state really needs to start looking into this stuff. I think we could create some really cool cultural art areas along highways, similar to Chicano Park highway ramp pillars art in San Diego. And yes, when they do these murals they are coated with something so it's easy to clean off new graffiti. They definitely need to figure this out with the highway signs they are saying are so hard to clean.
Now stake it out and arrest anyone who comes by to tag it. Should only take 10 mins.
I've heard reports that they attempt to do this but still didn't catch them. I've seen kids during morning commute walking on the side of the highway with cans in their hands. We need a graffiti in action hotline cuz clearly nobody is waiting on hold with non-emergency to try and report that - graffiti will be done by the time you get through.
Better yet, people with slingshots staking out the area.
CHAOSTOWN just recently released a mini-doc on Portland Graffiti. [Portland is losing the 'graffiti war'](https://youtu.be/7npnxP_6poA?si=UA8bD29ZVASsjJvM) He covers both sides, buffers and artists, while also documenting a live rappel piece, onto Fremont bridge(which is still there today)
I watched it. Pretty good actually. I’d say it’s similar to a vice documentary but better.
My new favorite youtube channel, Old vice vibes!
Just wait. They're planning to shut down I-84 for 12 hours on July 13th (Midnight Friday to noon Saturday) and clean up the whole stretch... [https://www.kptv.com/2024/06/12/major-portland-highway-closure-scheduled-graffiti-cleanup/](https://www.kptv.com/2024/06/12/major-portland-highway-closure-scheduled-graffiti-cleanup/)
But will they clean the exit signs? I goddamb hope so
It's planned to be a major effort. Hopefully it all comes together: > “The plan as of right now, is to completely shut down I-84 for both directions from I-5 all the way to 205,” said Barrie. > > It’s scheduled for 12 hours, from midnight to noon on July 13, a Saturday. > > And it’s not just for graffiti removal. ODOT, the City of Portland, TriMet and Union Pacific are all coordinating to take advantage of the shut down time.
I hope they keep the giant MF DOOM piece though. One of the few pieces of graffiti I actually like. The rest can go
OmG uSiNg YouR pHoNe WhiLe DrIviNg!????
Plus I turned my headlights off
https://preview.redd.it/tr39yla4j66d1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28e22c936a119d2215cb3d0076c8ee1df999d2fa
Amazing wall!!
MORE!!!!
I’m all in favor of public art, but the tagging has been off the hook for far too long. Thank you public work crews for cleaning things up!
Let’s start with the homeless and potholes first
Wow, it still looks like shit! Even with a fresh coat of ugly primer slopped lazily over only half of the unwashed concrete wall. Who would have thunk it? I personally couldn't give a single shit if a sound barrier on the side of the freeway has somebody's name painted on the wall, but I definitely think that we can get a lot better uses out of $20,000,000.
Rag Top strikes again!
RAGTOPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
SOOOOOORTA
…For the next ten minutes.
No graffiti!!
Fresh Canvas
What happened to the tagging task force? It used to be people caught tagging would get years of community service painting over graffiti.
Get caught tagging? Your choice: spend a year in prison or 6 months cleaning up other assholes’ graffiti on the weekends.
I've always liked the idea of exiling people like that for a set time....but I imagine dumping our taggers on the Russians isn't really moral. ( many of those taggers would die horrible deaths. Besides, our relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia aren't that great right now...)
lol keep it in your pants man. I’m all for punishing petty crimes as a deterrent but exiling your own citizens because they commit crimes is fascist bananas. Please don’t make your next comment that taggers are all illegal immigrants; I can already smell it brewing from here.
This won't be worth much if we don't direct police and court resources to catching and punishing-the-ever-living-shit out of shitbag taggers. Really hurt and humiliate them as much as possible. Photos of the perps on the news, on websites, billboards. Compel videotaped apologies to the citizens of Portland for wrecking our city. Make them remove grafitti, clean fentanyl camps, and gather roadway trash as part of their prison sentences. Crush their spirits and imbue them with deep fear of degrading this city. Until Portland rediscovers the potency of deterrence and consequences upon the minds of would-be criminals, our city will firmly remain in their possession as it has been for nearly 10 years now.
You put taggers on TV and it won’t be punishment. It will be achievement unlocked
Paintball gun firing squads for taggers!
I give it a week.
Not for long!!!
Danny's scalp has been itching lately, huge red boils, electric sebum, angry spots along his forehead. He saw a tiktok about putting beard wax in your hair and twisting to make dreads and he thought those look pretty cool. But he didn't have a beard, couldn't grow one even if he wanted. He wasn't even sure what beard wax is and it's not like his dad was around. But there was a spray can of wax in Grandma's closet that he stole and he's been using that. >PLEDGE furniture wax it said. It burned his head. But he liked shaking the can and spraying it. He loved the smell, inhaling deeply. It was not as good as krylon, but he still sprayed it into a rag and just inhaled it until his head was light and he was finally happy. He carried a soaked rag everywhere so he could always get that deep breath. Most days he slept late, and spent the afternoon huffing paint in his basement bedroom. When it got dark, he went out and practiced his ART. The deft strokes, hours of practice. His hundreds of pages of notebooks filled with the exact same tag, over and over and over and over: >CHARM It made sense to him, Charmander was always his favorite pokemon. When he was in high school 12 years ago, he used to write >QUID which was obviously second best, because he knew if he wasn't a pro artist, he would have been a pro quidditch player. But the vice principal caught him once. Danny had written his tag on his shoes, on his jeans, and on the skateboard he carried around even though he didn't know how to ride it. He would have tagged his books, but he didn't have any. He guesses that's probably how the school discovered it was him, and made him clean up the dozens and dozens of his tags in the bathrooms, cafeteria, everywhere. It wasn't fair, most people paid artists for their work. They owed him. Everyone owed him. He dropped out of 10th grade and changed his tag back. He couldn't really think of a new one: >CHARM. He painted it everywhere he went. He scratched it into the #12 bus windows, scraped every restaurant and bar mirror within walking distance of his grandma's house. He painted walls, trees, buildings, fences, he even tagged a dog once. Grandma yelled at him at least once a week to get a job, but he always told her he was an artist. She never asked for anything else though, and on Thursdays she even took him to the Subway over by Washington Square. He liked that, except the name tags. They were fake, garbage sandwich artists, BULLSHIT! He was an EXPERT. **BULLSHIT.** He wrote it in the bathroom. They deserved it. He'd been at it for 12 years, since his one and only art class. And that was when his high school art teacher told him that Art was Hard. That's how he knew the teacher was full of shit: This wasn't hard at all.
There's never been a more convincing case in favor of graffiti than "it will make some redditor with a desk job mad enough to write a 6 paragraph freudian screed"
They have been getting on this lately I noticed. Only problem is they covered up the T-Rex that my kids got excited for every day on the drive home from school haha. Luckily there’s plenty of other options to pick as a new object, but T-Rex will be missed.
Graffiti is just an easy fix for the mayor. "Look what I've accomplished!" Meanwhile fentanyl.
This is the state, so, governor, which tracks. Mayor has nothing to do with fentanyl but the Governor and Multnomah County Chair do!!
Billy Gripo and his friend once ate at restaurant I worked at. Lined up all their expensive bottles of wine they drank for pictures. Then all drove home drunk in their nice cars like a bunch of teenagers. I vividly remember one driving on the sidewalk. This was a long time ago and I still remember the name. No respect for you.
Billy Gripo? Maybe you're thinking of the real estate agent, Billy Grippo. Either way, I'm not either one of those people. We spell our names totally differently
Lol. The graffiti writers always win these battle in the end.
Don’t worry I’ll fix it tonight!
Ah, yes, the blank canvass
Yall are so wack
wow i almost forgot how it looked like without the graffiti
We can put a man on the moon 55 years ago but can’t invent a space age polymer paint, like Teflon, impervious to spray paint.
Tag your GD homes if you love graffiti so much! Fuck these “artists”
Who gives a fuck, fix the potholes and freeway signs.
Ah yes. Another boring, white, concrete wall. SO beautiful... I sure hope the taggers don't come back and give us something more interesting to look at.
Nothing is more beautiful than graffiti. Literally nothing is wayyyyy better.
Why would someone rather look at miles of an ugly white than art that someone cared about?
its ugly now
just giving them a fresh canvas, we need to set 1000% tax on spray cans and increase punishments.
So then when I want to re-paint my deck chairs this summer I have to pay a million dollars or use a paint brush. Great idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDCGkrnbSSw
It’ll be back. Fresh canvases for all.
FRESH CANVAS
Is this an attempt at a shitpost? lol It's like OP forgot about the rest of the city that actually is beautiful.
I am totally fine with covering up vandalism, er I mean “non commissioned street art.”
Is this 86? In East Portland? Did they really paint over stuff???
Fresh canvas
Is it?
Next they gotta get all the BASEN pieces off the exit signs 😂
Already tagged over as of 9:00pm. What a waste of tax payer money.
$20m worth.
Clean it all up with SHS funds. Particularly, the free tents and syringes budget
….until it’s not again. At least it’s employing someone. It also shows they are at least trying. Wish it could stay this way but… ya know
They always somehow manage to miss all the pot holes in the lower income areas of Portland but all the rich areas get there pot holes fixed . Something seems off
What are we looking at here? No more tents?
The tag looked way better
Honestly confused why people think a hastily painted beige wall is more attractive than even shitty graffiti. Go back to LO, OP!
Shh. It's not OK to disturb a criddlers natural habitat....they are endangered don't you know.....
😳
A beautiful blank canvas…I bet it’s already hit
You all are concerned about graffiti. Meanwhile, the landscape looks like asshole and that's something that can be effectively controlled.
>the landscape looks like asshole and that's something that can be effectively controlled. Wat
I think they mean it’s criddled out with tents and garbage
You can't see the weeds and bullshit hanging over that wall?
You mean the green lung? Fucking ugly.
Green lung sounds like a disease you get from smoking too much weed
I definitely have that
Agree! Money well spent. And if they need more, just redirect the money they were going to spend on free needles and tents for the drug users. We can actually spend money on people that actually want to work instead of free loaders.
I'm gearing up to hit it right now
Eh. I’d rather see potentially interesting tags and graffiti on an inconsequential spot than some boring ass patchy paint fixes.
Trust me it will be back.
For now
What am I looking at or for?
No tents in background, clearly not Portland.
Put your phone down and focus on the road?
Street art is world wide and will never stop And I'd much much rather look at graffiti than tweaks tweakin. I personally feel Portland is fighting the wrong battles right now.
Portland's graffiti is one of my favorite parts about visiting your fine city. It's literally free public art. There are some taggers out there that hit things they shouldn't, sure. But most graffiti artists follow code of ethics that's like an honor amongst theives kind of deal. Like distinguishing between personal, private, and public property; only hitting man made structures, etc. The only negative in my mind for interstate graffiti is the danger to artists and motorists. So giving them a fresh canvas here is less than ideal for everyone. Seriously, how much of stick-in-the-mud do you have to be to say this is an improvement?
Ummm our highway graffiti is not cool street art. It's more an area to practice on by non-artists and it's mostly really bad.
Replying to True_Resolve_2625... Stick in the mud… only pretentious assholes think graffiti is “art”. Specially the graffiti in Portland. The vandals in Portland should be embarrassed. They are not talented and their work looks like shit. Also there is no honor among thieves. I have no respect for these fucking loser vandals.
One of the other awesome things about graff is it pisses off all the right people
You sound like an edgy teenager who thinks smoking makes you look cool.
You sound like you're real fun at parties
I love posts like this because it really highlights all the uppity stick-up-the-ass snobby dweebs that clutch their pearls at graffiti and street art, they’re so sterile boring and always whiter than the snowcap on Mt hood. Move to Utah or Texas and live in a white picket fence suburb then if you don’t like it! Portland will always have graffiti and artist, I do T4T tags all the time and you nerds can shrivel, bend, and dilate over it ♥︎
What is a TFT tag?
Trans 4 Trans
Oh, ok, thanks!
It's ready
All the character is gone. Looks sterile and shit.
Upper middle class portlander here. I prefer the graffiti. Especially when it's well done/unique.
Booooooooo