March 3, 2008

Daily Photo: Union Square IRT Platform, 1983

Writers beware: there’s a new crew in town and they’ve got beef with you. In September, NYC Transit quietly assembled a group of ex-cops and marines into Eagle Team to help catch graffiti writers. They’re focused on the yards and layups where subway cars are often hit to catch writers in the act.

Vandals engrossed in the graffiti subculture will spend hours, sometimes days, scouting a yard before striking, watching the patterns of police and transit workers and searching for vulnerabilities to exploit. They plan in advance how they will enter, escape and flee if suddenly interrupted.

“Every ‘i’ is dotted, every ‘t’ is crossed,” Barrow said. “It’s almost like ‘Mission: Impossible’ for them.”

After one vandal raid, authorities found a grappling hook and rope dangling to the ground on the outside of a 20-foot-high perimeter wall.

It has yet to catch its first vandal, spray-paint can in hand, tagging a train, but the teams are out there every night, talking to train cleaners, dispatchers, track workers and others who could alert them to security breaches.

While one member of ‘Eagle Team’ calls it a game of “cat and mouse,” the Daily News mixes up their metaphors and calls it “cat and eagle.” Considering how crafty writers are, it seems like a telling mistake. Either way, this new vandal squad has their work cut out.

Photos by DelMundo for Daily News.

After our extensive reporting on the Made U Look whole train and our possibly-misguided-but-we’re-over-it coverage of the Made U Look website selling t-shirts of the feat, we’d be completely remiss not to mention the latest issue of Day in the Lyfe Magazine. It appears to be the Made U Look crew in front of a subway train, but we’re not assuming anything about nothing anymore. As far as we know it might just be a secret show with MF Doom (over on the right) getting ready to kick a rhyme.

After a weekend incident on the F train involving an uncontrollable booger, subway security was put on high. Operations are expected to return to normal after a tissue and disinfectant are dispatched. ChompChomp has the story.

With the station’s tiled curves, vaulted ceilings and chandeliers it’s no wonder Forgotten-NY calls the abandoned City Hall Station the “crown jewel of the subway system”. Before, a glimpse of the station meant evading conductors to stay aboard an out-of-service downtown 6 train as it passed through the City Hall loop. Now, NY1 reports the MTA says it’s okay to stay on the subway train for a quick ride back in time.

Where they once said, “this is the last stop on this train, everyone please leave the train,” they are being reprogrammed to say, “this is the last downtown stop on this train,” and “the next stop on this train will be Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall on the uptown platform.”

Transit officials confirm riders are allowed to stay onboard, as long as they do not ride between the cars.

Letting riders stay on speeds up service too. They don’t waste time kicking people off and the sleeping drunks get sent back uptown to wake up somewhere near to Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. Of course, if peering through streaked subway windows isn’t your thing, you could make the 50 yard dash down the tracks or for more difficulty and less danger, try to snag a rare ticket for the guided tour.

Postcard: “City Hall Subway Station, New York” from NYCSubway.org.

We’ve fallen behind in reporting on the MadeULookNYC wholecar graffiti drama, but we’ll fix that. To recap, 10 subway cars were painted with the name “Made U Look” in late December, and shortly thereafter a website selling t-shirts of the hit appeared (albeit under the name MadeULookNYC). Finally, because of the website’s shady business we speculated that the NYPD might be behind it. Although graffiti writers criminals in general do some stupid things (like DRO caught breaking into a store while videos in his car of his crew painting), selling t-shirts via Paypal seems too dumb.

Now, to silence critics and cash in, MULNYC is auctioning live video footage of their feat on Ebay. Though we’re curious about the legitimacy of the video and the auction is only at $25, we’ll probably hold off and invest our money in the amazing Britney Spears hair art for sale. That seller has 99.3% positive feedback, and MadeULookNYC has none, to say the least.

Link: MadeULookNYC Video on Ebay

Screenshot of NYPD visit on Sitemeter (Click for full screen).

The days when undercover cops only sold drugs, sex and guns to catch criminals may be over. It seems they’ve also entered the cheap t-shirt business. If you were thinking of buying a t-shirt commemorating Made U Look’s painting of 10 whole NYC subway cars, you may want to reconsider now. Rumors and suspicions have circulated for a while that the New York City Police Department was behind MadeULookNYC.com, but until we saw a tipster’s screenshots of our very own Sitemeter, the story didn’t have any legs.

Screenshot of source code on MadeULookNYC.com with same Statcounter code as referral address.

The images show multiple visits from the NYPD were referred to Razorapple.com from inside a password protected Statcounter belonging to MadeULookNYC.com. It appears as though the police were carelessly monitoring internet discussions and collecting information for their investigation.

Leary of their address request to send us a free t-shirt, we started asking questions, some of which are included after the jump.

Continue reading: NYPD Going Undercover as Graffiti Writers — Online?

After yesterday’s teaser photos of the Made U Look “Cash is King” whole train, we got a much better look to share. Although the photo is missing the ‘M’ and ‘A’ it’s probably the best around because the R line, which this was painted on, only runs a maximum of 8 cars per train. Because of this it’s likely the whole thing was painted in two parts: two cars with ‘MA’ and an 8 car whole train, with “DE U LOOK” and Mr. Monopoly.

Clocking in at 750 feet of painted steel, this is a major feat for the so-called clean train era and a possible record for biggest whole train painted in history. It’s just too bad that Darius McCollum, the metrophile arrested nearly two dozen times for joyriding subway cars and attempted theft of a locomotive, was too locked up to help move a couple subways cars so the Made U Look crew could paint a continuous piece.

All the collected photos of the piece are included after the jump.

Continue reading: A Big Slap to the Clean Train Era

Following the Daily News report that few graffiti writers are being caught or punished for major hits on the subway, Made U Look has confirmed rumor that they painted 10 whole subway cars in December. That’s a whole train! Our arithmetic was off on the last report as we didn’t forsee a possible Mr. Monopoly wholecar.

Photos by Made U Look.