The bulk of the historical legal graffiti spot 5Pointz was unexpectedly buffed an ugly white yesterday. A sad day, for sure. Merez and Marie, who ran the space for years, put up a hell of a fight to save the space, but this was a long time coming. At the end of the day, the property owners want to knock down the building to replace it with luxury apartments, and it’s their property. Were their cultural and historical justifications for saving 5Pointz? Certainly. But the legal arguments were never very strong so far as I could tell. I’ll be forever grateful to Merez and Marie for fighting long enough for me to see 5Pointz, but now I guess it’s time for the next step.
For more on this news, Hyperallergic and The New York Times have articles on the buffing and and Gothamist has a piece on Jay Edlin aka Terror161’s opinion that the end of 5Pointz is not the end of the world.
Photo by WarmSleepy