NYTimes posts a used-to-love letter to 5Ptz

The New York Times posted what I'm coining a "I used-to-love letter" to the subject of the erased murals on the 5ptz building in its Friday, Dec 20th, 2013 online edition.

I noticed a small headline and link reading "A Beginning For 5Ptz not the End" whose title conceit inspired me to read it since last word and image from 5ptz, the iconic mural and graffiti coated building in Long Island City, Queens, was of all it's art, tags and massive murals, some of it a decade old had been destroyed in gut wrenching fashion and the middle of the night by the land owner and developer.

Immediately after I read the letter which was posted in the City Diary section and who's message seems to be telling us, to borrow a movie line,"nothing to see here move along" I wondered if any vested real estate interests help blow this bit of prose up the grey lady's skirt. And if so how much?

For you I present my interpretation of the letter, the article to the actual is at the end.

Dear Diary,

I used to love, a boy, he was cool, an artist, with a cool name. I'm giving you the superficial details because I have a word count to watch and there really wasnt much more depth to my interest than that.

It wasn't my fault but I missed out on the New York of lore, fortunately thanks to my crush-love I was granted access into a sliver of that world and a chance to sight-see. It was great. My crush, wrote me in small letters into a world of characters, among them; self-proclaiming types, and a  disappearing/reappearing tabby cat(Cheshire, duh). Finally I surfed on the edge of inclusion. From the roof, I watched the sunset on this world and it's magic.

Long after I got a fb message from my crush-love (who by now I realized, I didn't really love anyway) he showed me the art work of that world was taken away. Interestingly he didn't care much.  Since he's of that world and willing to see the developer's middle-night white out of all it's artwork (including my non-crush's artwork (ephemeral, duh)) I know what happened doesn't matter, and I clearly should not see it as a big deal that the art work was destroyed without any attempt to save even one mural.

My erased-crush thinks it's like a blank canvas for new art to grow, like say the uniqueness of the edifying edifices of luxury high-rise condos. My once-crush is giving me permission not to see the developer's actions as an insult, an example of the excessive greed and ego that has dictated much of the gentrification of the city in the last ten years, or a symbol of petty vengeance by a sore winner/developer with a desire to take an eraser to a world renown aspect of New York City.

So like an online fling we should just move along and be happy there still pictures somewhere on the internet to look at.

P.S.: No word on the tabby, I'm sure he'll pop up somewhere else, maybe he'll just appear in one of the new luxury condos because that's how magic works.

Love
Alice

Liked,
Kristen

The City Roll Diary article refered to can be found here: 
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/a-beginning-for-5pointz-not-the-end  

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll

The End of 5Ptz, a vibrant piece of New York City

I've been wanting to post about last month's Banksy NYC residency and it's impact, but life happened as it does, and then this happened.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

EVIL. i dislike when "evil" is tossed around as a cause or a label, but this is straight evil, malicious, petty, intended to do nothing really more than wound and disrespect. The 5ptz building, which most of you know is an otherwise unremarkable industrial building at LIC Queen's eastern edge, made otherworldly and beautiful by the artwork it's been dressed in for over a decade has been defiled by it's owners who last night sent in workers to cruelly paint over as much of the artwork, as they could.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

The owners recently won the right, after many appeals, to turn the land into a new development. The plans they show, make no usage of the existing structure, so why paint over this building that is scheduled to be torn down? They did it simply to be evil soulless monsters.

(all photographs by Tiernan Morgan for Hyperallergic) 

The buffing and over painting in this way is a physical, premeditated undeniable attack on art, which is an attack on the human heart. And why? To prove ownership? To forcibly demonstrate power to Meres who has been custodian and curator of the building and leader of the fight to preserve it as artists mecca and landmark? Did they cover the art to look away from the artists who've committed beauty to modern blight? Or are they like Oedipus realizing that they've screwed that which put them on the map and made the building (and to a large degree the neighborhood) a place where people would even consider WANTING to be? Did the fight over the right to make statements with paint leave them secretly longing to up their own sloppy tag, to say "fuck you we're somebody too" and at the same time physically blind themselves to the art that birthed their opportunity, attempting blind us in the process along with them?

Who cares their motivation, my desire to know why doesn't explain or excuse their desire to obscure creation, expression from the public space and the lotus-esque ways in which our spirits rebirth value out of human despair. 

I can't help but recall the transition of 11 Spring in Soho from public graf board and tag mecca to it's current luxury condo status.  I shot and produced a simple video with the help and support of Marc Schiller and the Wooster Collective, interviewing the artists and talking about the significance of that building. The owners sought out Marc to invite artists to tag up 11 Spring, dozens of them, each with their own styles, background, celebrity levels and politics were granted the time to demonstrate what that building had become, there public came, a moment was made and I believe the value of art it's inspiration to commerce were reinforced in an enriching experience. Granted there many were differences of opinion at 11 Spring, but ultimately recognition was given to the place art had made in giving that building such value that it was able to capitalize monetarily and as a result take what had become a public space for the exchange of ideas and friendships and political and personal discontent, through art, away from the public. New York City has always been a confluence of commerce, since the native Lenape came down to the rivers to trade, but there a ways to do business on a human level that add value to the transaction and the active. 

Disrespect is not only evil, it's unnecessary. 

So I'm hoping we all keep our eyes and ears open for how we as intentional and accidental members of this moment's nyc artistic community respond and when necessary participate in response to the evil disrespect of human heart that took place last night at 5Ptz.