In recent years, graffiti has surpassed the threshold of unorthodox, into the mainstream—so much so that prestigious auction houses, museums, and art shows have been arranged to cater to street art connoisseurs and collectors around the globe. News forecasts that had condemned young writers for the “defacement” of property have been out-shadowed by polished web pages dedicated to global phenomenons, such a Shepard Fairey and Banksy (Kwai, 2024).

“Hipsters attract more hipsters who have more money and are able to start paying higher prices,” said Rosie Haslem, managing director of consulting agency Streetsense.

Presently, graffiti is associated with contemporary “street artists” rather than a venture of culture, of violence, of authenticity. Neighborhoods like Williamsburg commission artists to help brand their streets, those that are being revitalized and gentrified as “hip” or “trendy” destinations for business owners, home buyers, and influencers.

Once deemed as “sketchy,” these neighborhoods now burst with vivacity, their walls drawing tourists like magnets. Here, bookstores proudly showcase graffiti coffee table books, and universities offer courses on the art itself. Many Brooklynites, especially newcomers, claim that murals help make the neighborhood more beautiful, while “tags” are eyesores that are pointless at best.

What many newcomers overlook is that these vibrant murals, often praised as transformative public art, are also tools of erasure. They are veneers that obscure the raw culture that once told the stories of the streets. For taggers and local New Yorkers, graffiti wasn’t merely art—it was a way to claim space, mark their territory, and narrate the lived realities of their block. These walls were canvases of resistance and identity. The commissioned murals celebrated as “beautiful” often erase this history, replacing voices of the community with sanitized, palatable art. Beneath their colors lies a deeply controversial reality, displacing those who service graffiti as a method to assert their place in such an ever-changing, ever-gentrifying city.

The shifting demographics in neighborhoods like Brooklyn have significantly influenced the graffiti scene in New York City. Historically, these areas were home to working-class Black, Latino, and immigrant communities, where, aforementioned, graffiti culture thrived as a form of expression and resistance. The influx of white, affluent residents has changed the cultural and socioeconomic makeup of these neighborhoods. This gentrification often brings an emphasis on curated, commissioned street art.

This demographic shift alters how public spaces are valued and controlled. While graffiti was once an unregulated and community-driven art form. The tension between old and new residents is evident in how graffiti is increasingly framed as vandalism, even as street art festivals and Instagrammable murals flourish.

The push and pull between graffiti culture and commissioned street art has urged taggers to reclaim their spaces by tagging over murals. In neighborhoods across the city, murals meant to beautify are being layered with tags, reigniting the original conversation about ownership. Writers like the *67’s are actively tagging over these polished works, taking back the walls that they see as theirs. For them, graffiti is not just about art—it’s a culture, an outcry. This resurgence is a powerful statement that graffiti culture is alive and resistant, refusing to be co-opted or silence. It’s a reminder that, for many, graffiti remains an unfiltered language of the streets—a way to challenge the enriching homogenization of their neighborhoods.

The evolution of graffiti in New York City mirrors the broader transformations of its neighborhoods—dynamic, contested, and deeply tied to identity. Once a tool of defiance and a voice for marginalized communities, graffiti now finds itself at a crossroads, caught between preservation and erasure. As murals replace tags and gentrifiers reshape the city’s visual landscape, some questions prevail: who truly owns the walls of New York? Is the vibrant culture that built graffiti being celebrated, or quietly erased under the guise of beautification? And as taggers reclaim their space, what does the future hold for a city where every wall tells a story—if only we’re willing to see it?

A data story created by Sophia Romulo.

Citations

Here are the MLA citations for the provided sources:

"Corn Springs: Petroglyphs, Vision Quests, Steamboats, and Ringing Rocks." *Explorumentary*. Accessed December 13, 2024. [https://www.explorumentary.com/adventure-blog/corn-springs-petroglyphs-vision-quests-steamboats-and-ringing-rocks](https://www.explorumentary.com/adventure-blog/corn-springs-petroglyphs-vision-quests-steamboats-and-ringing-rocks).

Chalfant, Henry, and Tony Silver. *Subway Art: Celebrating the Underground World of Graffiti*. Chronicle Books, 2015. Google Books. [https://books.google.com](https://books.google.com).

Ross, Jeffrey Ian. "The History of Graffiti and Street Art: A Global Perspective." CORE, Accessed December 13, 2024. [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217368401.pdf](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217368401.pdf).

Austin, Joe. "New York City Anti-Graffiti Policy." ResearchGate, Accessed December 13, 2024. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301203989_New_York_City_Anti-Graffiti_Policy](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301203989_New_York_City_Anti-Graffiti_Policy).

Castleman, Craig. "The Politics of Graffiti." *American Journal of Sociology*, vol. 27, no. 2, 1984, pp. 279–294. University of Chicago Press. [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/adx.27.2.27949489](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/adx.27.2.27949489).

Kennedy, Randy. "Graffiti Art at the Museum of the City of New York." *The New York Times*, 7 Feb. 2014. Accessed December 13, 2024. [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/arts/design/graffiti-art-at-the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/arts/design/graffiti-art-at-the-museum-of-the-city-of-new-york.html).

Chasan, Emily. "Graffiti, Real Estate, and Gentrification." *The New York Times*, 31 Mar. 2024. Accessed December 13, 2024. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/business/graffiti-real-estate-gentrification.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/business/graffiti-real-estate-gentrification.html).

An excerpt from “Dream City,” a short documentary shot by Steven Siegel (1986)

Graffiti was never meant to be polite. It was defiant, anarchic—a cry of existence from those the city continuously overlooked. This is not to say that the art has completely lost its efficacy—we saw how it was employed as a powerful voice of defiance when students decorated Columbia University’s subway station just last July. 

Columbia Student's Justice for Palestine Instagram

Dating back from graffiti’s professed “golden age” in the late 1970s, New York City had long recognized street artists as antagonistic forces, squandering away millions to scrub paint off the streets. However, in more recent years, as aspiring artists—many of whom come from out-of-state, drawn by the myths of counterculture—migrate into the city, graffiti is being relabelled as pristine, curated—something to be commodified. 

Understanding its Origins

Graffiti has been traced back to the Bronze Age, somewhere between 1400 and 600 BC (McDonald, 2013). In America, petroglyphs, a discrete form of rock art, were uncovered by archaeologists between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. There are approximately 20,000 images fashioned by Paleo-Indians, or the Native American people. In its primitive years, motives behind such art ranged from pointers towards hidden brothels, declarations of love, or outcries of political discontent (Olmert, 1996). Some theories further propose that the glyphs were part of supernatural hunting rituals, while others posit the notion that they are linked to various shamanistic sacraments. 

 ​Clewlow, C.  Rock Art at CA-RIV-981: Chronology, Imagery, and Function

Surge ahead to the mid-1960s, the first graffiti writers “Cornbread” and “Cool Earl" utilized black markers to tag their pseudonyms across Philadelphia. In 1970, “Topcat-126” replicated their practices and hauled graffiti tagging to New York City. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) infrastructure quickly became the site of a burgeoning art movement. In conjunction with its time’s nascent Hip Hop scene, new materials, media attention, Latino and African-American culture, Downtown’s “New Wave” artists, and the complex interconnected landscape of the city’s subway system, the graffiti explosion began (Masilamani, 2008).

In due course, street gangs made themselves more visible. And in 2008, religious organizations, such as the extreme Jihadists, used graffiti to recruit young, naïve individuals through their public scriptures. Thus, New York City’s municipal administration cracked down on these artists, enforcing stricter policies for property defacement, as well as aerosol possession.

As a result of an unyielding law enforcement system, the movement saw an efflux in the early 1980s. Many artists moved onto more lucrative careers in galleries and commercial murals. Keith Haring and Cey Adams, for instance, achieved mainstream visibility (Johnson, 2014). By 1989, the MTA had proclaimed victory over “vandalism.”

While many upheld these traditions, the graffiti world grew quieter. However, in 2020, amidst the coronavirus lockdown, a new generation of writers emerged. Yet, their tags weren’t found in train yards nor on the insides of subway cars. They took their protest to the higher points of the city and, occasionally, before the frontage of adversaries themselves.




The Current State of Affairs

Reconceptualizing Graffiti: The Dichotomy Between “Art” and “Crime,” and Its Unlikely Collision with NYC’s Formidable Gentrification Crisis (2024)

All data stories created with Tableau Intelligence Software.
All original photographs shot on Panasonic Digital Camera Lumix.
All quantitative data collected from New York City Open Data Sources.