The Blighted to Beautiful
Artists: Unknown
Medium: Paint on Board
Location: 176 Fulton Street
The streets and projects of New York City were the birthplace of modern graffiti—and witnessed the eventual evolution of street art. In the 70s and 80s, the city’s walls, trains and street furniture were covered in spray paint. The look became synonymous with urban decay and blight.
Soon graffiti became the primary target of the city’s broken windows policy—inspired by the now discredited theory that property crime gives rise to violent crime. Arrests skyrocketed, and the number of active graffiti artists plummeted.
This was when tagging and street art began to go separate ways. Artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, who’d first made names for themselves on the streets, were welcomed into the burgeoning East Village gallery scene—once described by Gary Indiana as “an ideal refuge for any artist born without a silver spoon.”
Yet even as their fame rose, Basquiat and Haring regularly returned to the streets. Their murals and messages became beloved features of the urban environment. Few regarded their contributions as vandalism. Instead, their work was widely accepted as street art.
Today, street art is seen as a way to transform communities and beautify the blighted. As Forbes—voice of the establishment—put it in 2020: “Strategically placed art—on the side of a business, under a bridge, on the exterior walls of a community center—not only helps with the beautification of a neighborhood, but also, it can be a return of investment for commerce. What was once counterculture, displayed on the societal margins, has through the decades evolved many times over to include a viable form of public art that can contribute to the success of communities and businesses in an ever-changing urban environment.”
Despite months of inquiries, we were unable to identify the artist(s) responsible for these beautiful window paintings in the Perry Projects. If you have any information to share, please contact us at the UB Arts Collaboratory!