First, don’t sell self-incriminating t-shirts and second, don’t take holidays off. On Christmas Day 2006, the Made U Look crew was at work below Central Park, painting the now infamous “Cash is King” whole train. They painted ten subway cars top to bottom and end to tend, spelling out the crew’s name over 750 feet long. Xplicit Grafx, the international graffiti magazine interviewed Made U Look, helping to shed some light on their feat and confirming speculation that law enforcement actually was behind the sketchy website that popped up to sell t-shirts and a video of the hit.

According to Made U Look, the now defunct website, madeulooknyc.com, was created by “New York authorities, in an attempt to confuse and perhaps slip us up.” “We had nothing to do with any of that – website included and if it was up to us no on would have seen what we did for a very long time.” So if you had the bad sense to order one of those cheesy t-shirts, you can figure some “NYC authorities” have started a file on you.

Photographs and part of the Made U Look interview are excerpted below.

Continue reading: How to Paint Subways and Not Get Caught

March 3, 2008

Daily Photo: Union Square IRT Platform, 1983

A new blog featuring “obnoxious, offensive, politically incorrect, brilliantly defaced subway ads. Brightening your commute, one crime at a time.” Sounds pretty straightforward. Just remember that Eagle Team is out to get you.

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 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

Photographer, Bill Sullivan, took candid photos of people exiting NYC subway turnstiles. Sullivan outlines the standards for situational photography which capture unknown subway riders in a very standardized setting.

I developed a situation so that various subjects could be defined by the constraints of exactly the same mechanical apparatus. The scenario consisted of someone passing through a subway turnstile. At the moment that the subjects passed through the turnstile, unknown to them, I took their picture stationed at a distance of eleven feet. I stood there turning pages of a magazine observing subjects out of the corner of my eye, waiting for only the moment when they pushed the turnstile bar to release the shutter.

Also capturing the determination to get home quickly, throw those new 24 inch mag wheels on your bike and ride.

Images by Bill Sullivan.